A brush with celebrity...

So Instigator and I (along with Lynn Raye Harris and a thousand other people) spent last week in LA at the RT Readers' Convention. We had a blast. I'll get more pictures and things up later, but I have to tell you about our brush with the celeb lifestyle the day before the conference started.

We went out sightseeing. The Santa Monica pier, Venice Beach, Hollywood Blvd, and, of course, Rodeo Drive. (I'm a Presents author. Rodeo Drive is *research.*)

We're window shopping mainly. But in the window of Dior, I saw a beautiful purse and wanted to see it up close. Of course, I knew there was little chance I could actually afford something from Dior, but I wouldn't have another chance to fondle a Dior purse anytime soon. So we went inside.

Even though I was as travel-worn as only a day of sightseeing can make a girl, the Dior saleswoman was still nice to me, showing me the purse, telling me about it, etc. Then she offered us champagne. Now, I know if I drink her champagne, she's really going to expect me to buy the purse, and since we haven't mentioned price, I'm not hopeful it's in my price range. So we say no to the champagne (although I do wonder what brand Dior serves in their store...) So she offered us espresso. Now I'm getting worried I won't get out of there without eating into AC's college fund.

I will say that y'all would have been impressed at the very nonchalant way the three of us reacted when we finally got to the $2700 price tag. You'd have thought we honestly considered buying $2700 purses every day. But we got out of there PDQ after that...

But that wasn't my brush with being a celeb. (That was simply my anti-Pretty Woman moment, which was rather cool.) No, the celeb status came at the Coach store.

We'd been in earlier that day, and while Lynn made her purchase I made small talk with another salesman and mentioned we were romance authors. When we came back shortly before closing time, word of the romance authors had spread to the rest of the sales staff and they had tons of questions for us. But it was getting close to closing and I had one more thing I wanted to look at.
I apologized and told them I'd be quick since I knew they were getting ready to close and probably wanted to go home.

The salesman helping me just shook his head and told me to take my time because, they'd close the store and let us shop all we wanted. I, being a nice person, said that was very kind but we wouldn't want them to do that.

His response? "That's what we do for celebrities."

Me, a celebrity? Really? Cool. They treated us like superstars and it was fantastic.

Of course, then we left the store and caught a very non-celeb cross-town bus with the rest of LA's non-celebrity citizens for a very long, slightly smelly, ride back to the hotel.

That'll bring you back down to earth real fast, let me tell you.

But for a little while I was a celeb on Rodeo Drive, having sales clerks offer me champagne and drinking wine in trendy sidewalk cafes. The stuff of dreams.

Of course, now I'm home and the only sales clerk I'm talking to is the butcher at the grocery store. But a girl can dream of champagne, ridiculously expensive purses, shopping in a closed store, and the star treatment.

I love LA...

PC

**Stephanie! You are the Free Book Friday winner. Contact SP at smartypants@writingplayground.com to claim!