In Which I Fail to Charm

This boardwalk cat wanted not a thing to do with me this early morning. The fog was still dense, and it was just me and a few hadn't-gone-to-bed-yet men out on the planks. Take my picture, the men teased. Not a chance, I said. For I was trying to have a conversation with this sand-colored cat who'd found a chick on a string and wasn't budging from its catch.

The cat wasn't buying. I moved on, a dance yet in my step, for nothing—not the men, not the cat, not the fog—would be piercing my happy state of mind. I'd had my own victory of sorts just the afternoon before when, while trying on a pair of most extraordinary shoes, my Blackberry buzzed. It was Jill Santopolo of HarperTeen, with a subject heading that read: Nothing but Ghosts--German language offer. I squinted (I have to squint now) to read the details (the offer coming from the publisher Carl Hanser Verlag!) and after I did, I stood up in those tall, glinting, spike-heeled shoes, and announced to the clerk: These are mine.

It was that kind of news, that kind of day.