The Don’t-Miss Party of the Year

One of the more interesting aspects of attending any Romantic Times Convention is watching how 1) the hotel adapts to the three ring circus it is hosting, and 2) how the general populace in the hotel reacts to said three-ring circus.

The Regency Hyatt in Houston did pretty well.  Mark and I got into the hotel on Monday, which is early by convention standards.  It gave us a chance to go shopping.  We visited Memorial City mall, which had dozens of shops you just don’t get in Canada, so I went mad.

Coming in early also gave us a chance to size up Convention HQ — the bar — and to get to know some of the bar staff (also known as “networking”).  A couple of the conversations were a bit eye-raising.  We wondered aloud if the hotel and staff were braced for the onslaught, and got airy assurances that they had hosted many conventions as big as, if not bigger, than ours.

By Wednesday night they were sweating buckets trying to keep up.  Full brownie points to them, though: they had double the staff on Thursday night, and kept adding staff for the rest of the conference.

One of the nicest things about getting in early was the chance to catch up with friends and meet new friends before the madness truly

got rolling.  One of them was Danny, a romance reviewer from Germany, who kindly translated my German book title once.  I finally met her in person as she attended the convention, too:

Some of the best conversations I had were in the elevators, when I stepped in wearing one of my costumes/outfits.  On Wednesday night I was wearing a ball gown with black opera gloves and a four foot train, and joined a collection of Moulin Rouge can-can girls.  We had to assure the handful of normal people cowering in the corners that this was a readers and writers convention.  Wednesday night was the Ellora’s Cave party, and I got to snuggle up with the Ellora’s Cave cover models.

On Thursday, Mark finally gave in to heavy pressure to enter the Mr. Romance contest…again.  He was a contestant two years ago in St. Louis.  The organizers needed at least eight people to meet their sponsor’s requirements, so Mark agreed to participate in the pageant.  Which meant he was instantly whisked away for rehearsals, and Mr. Romance functions.  Between you, me and the gatepost, I’m not sure why he resisted.  He loves meeting and talking to people (I got the writer’s gene instead).  And he had a blast for the rest of the convention, too.

Thursday night was the faery ball, and you couldn’t move without brushing up against a pair of wings of some sort.  Bewildered non-convention-goers would sit in the bar — which was right in the middle of the hotel, where you could watch everything that was happening.  Their expressions were fascinating as they watched the fairies, imps, elves, and other assorted faery folk parade past.

By Friday, the hotel was just about fully adjusted to the onslaught.  When I took breakfast that morning, I commented to the maitre de’, Oscar, that “you look a tad stressed.”  He had a restaurant filled to the brim with RT people.  There were many group tables of eight or more, and lots of people were coming to the entrance, seeing a table of friends, and joining that table.  That meant the staff had to scurry around finding extra place settings, chairs, cutlery…  Oscar lifted a brow at me.  “Just a little,” he said, trying very hard to sound cool and contained.

Friday night was Heather Graham’s Vampires of the Wild West party. It was a bewildering mix of vampires and cowboys and combinations thereof.  One of the best moments at that party, though, was when my friend and author Lise Fuller’s husband turned up in his Army dress uniform.  He’d flown down from Colorado to surprise her.  He was the hit of the party, and proved to have a wicked sense of humour.

Saturday was murder on high-heels as far as pushing your stamina was concerned.  We had the Bookfair running through the morning and early afternoon, and barely two hours later, the Mr. Romance competition.  The competition was touched with scandal and gossip.  One of the contestants pulled out at the last minute, and the organizers hurried around looking for a replacement.  That’s a lot easier said than done.  You have 2,000 readers, nearly all of them women, and 500 authors, nearly all of them women, too.

What they did was a stroke of brilliance.  They asked Staff Sgt. Jesse Wiseman, husband of one of the writers, to fill in at the last minute.  Jesse is not the next Fabio, but he has a wonderful sense of humour, and enough style to pull it off with total panache.  His free pose at the end had every woman in the room weeping, because he came on in his dress uniform, carrying a bag, as if he was just returning home from the war.  The model ran up to him and threw herself into his arms….

It was fitting that Jesse was announced first runner up, although Maggie, his wife, has assured me that his mates at the base are still laughing themselves silly over the whole affair.

It’s even more precious a moment when you consider that Jesse is shipping out tomorrow for his third tour of duty in Iraq.  My best wishes and hopes go with him.

Sunday morning we spent in the bar, wishing friends farewell as they checked out.  It was a mass exodus, and by Sunday afternoon, you could hear a pin drop in that bar.  After the pajama party that night we did our best to make the bar as rowdy a joint as it had been all week, and our small corner was rocking.  The rest of the bar had early arrivals for the next convention — engineers and technical people — still watching us out of the corner of their eyes, so we didn’t let the team down.

Monday morning when I went to breakfast, Oscar hurried across the restaurant to meet me before I sat down.  “Not stressed at all now!” he assured me with a big smile, and shook my hand.

One of the best conversations I had was when I went into the Starbucks store that is attached to the lobby.  The woman who made my coffee shyly stepped around from the counter and handed it to me.  “You’re one of them romance writers, aren’t you?”

I agreed that I was.

“Oh, we’ve had so much fun watching you people this last week.  We’re going to miss you!”

First appeared on Stories Rule! in May 5, 2007

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Tracy Cooper-Posey © 2007. Cannot be copied or distributed without permission, or without this copyright notice attached.