The Tale of Bessie Bueller and the Postal Service

Back in December, I saw a show. You might have heard of it, it's called THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. This caused me to descend into a spiral of Dickensianity, which involved reading about him, Nell Ternan, and LGBT subtext in Victorian literature, because I was 92% positive the Drood characters Helena Landless and Rosa Bud were doin' it.

In February, I mailed my very marked-up copy of Edwin Drood to the Broadway theatre where the show was playing (along with a return envelope, because I'm not an ANIMAL), and more specifically, I mailed it to the actress playing Helena Landless, whom for the purpose of hiding from Google searches we will call "Bessie Bueller."

I asked her to sign it and write her favorite quote, and to please if possible get the actress playing Rosa Bud ("Wetsy Bolfe") to do the same. Because then my copy would be LEGIT AWESOME.

it was already kind of awesome

So I sent it. And I waited. And I waited some more. And then the show closed. And I went 'Hm. Ok. Well. She can still send it back to me.' THEN SHE STARTED ANOTHER SHOW. And NOTHING. So finally, fearing for my book, as I had notes like the above and this in it:

I wrote a letter that essentially said "Hahaha no but seriously, send my book back."

AND A WEEK LATER SO IT CAME TO PASS. I got the book in the mail. And I was obviously very excited. And I opened it up, and saw -- nothing. Except a card saying "To Alice, All the best, Bessie."

Well. I was flummoxed. And took to gchat, where Alley and Megs helped me try to make sense of the situation. 

 me: clearly I just wanted to show her a book
and then have it mailed back to me
Alley: hahaha OBVIOUSLY
oh man, what if that's what she thinks
me: "There's a book based on your play!"
Alley: she gets the package and is like "why'd this lady mail me this
book" then later she gets a threatening letter asking for it back and
she's like "oh so NOW that chick wants the book back? i thought this
was a gift. what the hell"
me: '"Letters? I don't read letters."
"Why'd she mark this book up?"
"That's not nice to do to presents"
Alley: As she's mailing the book back she's like "I didn't want your
stupid, drawn all over book anyway!" 

 After I'd stated my confusion over the book on twitter: 

me: also I totally wrote her name like B. Bueller on twitter so that
hopefully internet searches will not turn it up
Megs: Very wise.
Then she would be REALLY confused.
"I SENT IT BACK. WHAT MORE DOES SHE WANT?"

Alley: what if she insulted you
actually it would be pretty great if she signed "Alice, here's your
damn book back. I never wanted it anyway."

The end of this story is that I bought a ticket to the show she's in now, and was determined to stage door and DAMNIT FINALLY GET MY BOOK SIGNED. So I bring the book to New York, and the first night I'm there, I get it out of my suitcase and start idly flipping through it. And WTF I SEE THIS: 

I mean. I don't. It. Yeah. 

So it was there the whole time. THE WHOLE TIME. And I must have just like, kinda vaguely flipped through the front pages and then gone "NOPE NOT HERE THIS IS BULLSHIT." 

 So the moral of this story is that I am an idiot. And thank God I didn't confront her at the stage door. And you should all know that she's a brilliant singer/actress and if you can see her perform, you are fortunate. FORTUNATE INDEED. Jessie Mueller