Loose Leaf Notes

Last fall I got a message on my answering machine from a woman named Ellen Smith. She was thanking me for something I had written. I can’t remember if it was The Jim and Dan Stories, a political commentary, or something else. She said she was from North Carolina and left no return phone number.
A month or so later, I got another intriguing phone call. This one was from a woman who owns a bookstore in town. She wanted to order more Jim and Dan Stories because a customer had ordered 4 of them. The customer? Ellen Smith. Did I know her? No. But I did find out after the first phone call that she subscribed to The Museletter, a local monthly forum I co-edit.
Last week I got a 3rd related phone call. I was home and took the call. It was Ellen Smith, hoping that her Museletter subscription hadn’t expired. I learned from our conversation that she had moved to the county, that she had given The Jim and Dan Stories as Christmas gifts, and that she was going to have dinner at Oddfella’s Cantina that night with her husband.
So was I.
We made arrangements to meet. I was looking forward to talking to her some more. I told her I had a white streak in my hair (later I remembered that my photo was in The Jim and Dan Stories, and so she had the advantage of picking me out in a crowd). She told me that she was petite. We discovered we were the same age.
As the hostess escorted my husband and me to our table that night, I noticed a petite woman at the table next to ours. She was eating with a man and looked to be about my age. Now, I’m not the most socially confident person…and besides they were eating, so I didn’t say a word to her. Later, it was my husband and I that were eating, and there was good music to listen to and beer to drink.
Finally, I caught up with her at the cash register paying their bill. “Don’t leave without saying hello!” I blurted out. Noticing she looked rather shocked, I added, “You are Ellen Smith, aren’t you?” “No, my name is Linda,” she answered.
Linda was a good sport, and I slunk back to my table, as my husband looked around for another Ellen Smith possibility. “No, don’t even try!” I pleaded like a jilted blind date. “After what just happened, I don’t even want to know who she is right now. If she wants to find me, she will.”
Mystery: Still unsolved.