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Chick Wit: Moms can't help but keep on tweaking
So Mother Mary mails me the alleged corrections, 25 pages of notebook paper, each line written in capitals in a shaky red Flair. AIN'T IS NOT A WORD! is the most frequent "correction." A few are typos, but the rest are editorial changes, different word choices, or new endings to the plot.
Bottom line, Mother Mary is a book critic, in LARGE PRINT.
Still, I read the sheets, touched. It must have taken her hours to make the lists, and it's really sweet. I call to tell her so, which is when she lowers the boom:
"You need to send the lists to your friends," she says. "Your friends who wrote the other books. They should know about the mistakes, so they can fix them."
"OK, Ma, you're right. Thanks. I'm on it."
I don't like lying to my mother, but I'm getting used to it. I figure I'll put the sheets in my jewelry box, with daughter Francesca's letters to Santa Claus. Those corrections are going to the North Pole.
Then my mother adds, "You don't have to worry about the one set, though."
"What one set?"
"A set of corrections, for your new friend." She names a Famous Author who isn't really my new friend, but Somebody I Wish Were My New Friend. I can't name her here, as she will never be my new friend now. In fact, she's probably my new enemy. Because my mother sent her five pages of unsolicited editorial changes to her terrific, number-one best-seller.
"You did what?" I ask, faint. "Where did you get her address?"
"Your brother got it from the computer."
"Her address is on the computer?"
"She has an office."
Of course she does. "And you sent it to her?"
"Sure. To help her."
I try to recover. I have only one hope. "You didn't tell her who you are, did you?"
"What do you mean?"
I want to shoot myself for never changing my last name. My last name is Scottoline and so is Mother Mary's, and the Very Famous Author signed a book to her at my request, so in other words. . . .
"Oh, sure, I said I'm your mother, in case she didn't know."
"Great." I sink into a chair. "And you did that because . . . ?"
