Last night, I was sitting in bed, reading Eric Schlosser’s new book Reefer Madness, (which he signed to me yesterday at the bookstore.) Anne had already turned off her light, and wrapped herself in her “sleep cocoon” — ear plugs and an eye mask.
She turned over and rolled out of her cocoon.
“Puss?”
“What?”
“When your books get here, can I have the first one?”
“I love it that you asked me,” I told her, “of course you can have it.”
“Will you write something in it? Something special?”
“Something like, ‘show me your tits?'” I asked.
“Dork. No. Something special.”
“I would love to, honey.”
“Okay.”
She rolled back over, and re-cocooned.
A minute or so later, without rolling over, she said, “if there’s someone else you’d like to give the first copy to, I understand. You don’t have to give it to me.”
“Anne, nobody has given up more for my writing than you have. I may have taken these stories out of my brain, but you helped me put them there. There have been several times in the last nine or so months when you haven’t had a husband; you’ve had a writer. There is nobody else in the world who I’d give the first copy to.”
“Okay,” she said. “I was just making sure. I love you.”
“I love you too. ‘Nite.”
I really am the luckiest guy alive.