Lisa Lopes - Not the person to take shoe-shopping

June 9th – It was the events that followed the burning of the tennis shoe by Lisa ‘Left-Eye’ Lopes that stirred the embers of my crassness into a raging inferno. I know we've all probably done it or know someone who has. It’s those stop digging moments in your life where a simple demonstration of just how pissed off you are with someone or how in love with them you are, or how you just wanted to help effort spirals off into farce and fantasy. You feel unable to do anything else other than help it along to its final crashing, excruciating, squirmingly embarrassing conclusion. Can you recall one of yours…or worse, more than one? OK, here’s my starter for 10.

Meeting people and selling my books is one of my chief delights. I find chatting to people interesting, stimulating and often surprising. Courage, brilliance and bravery wear the strangest overcoats and that’s really the stock-in trade of the stories that I write, those tales that form the backbone of Ladies of the Shire and The Quarry of ordinary people living extraordinary lives. So, I meet people and whether they buy a book or not are secondary to having the opportunity to meet them and chat.  Cut to a working horse yard where the book Ladies… was on sale to the visitors it attracts. It’s a sunny day and these visitors are roaming in to look at the various working horses on the farm and I'm on hand on this particular day (unusually) to sign books and chat.

A late middle-aged man and an early twenties woman come into the vestibule that leads into the stable yard and, having looked around at the various horsey stuff on display and for sale, opt to buy a copy of Ladies… I get the call and come into to do the deed and, as I take the book off him, I open up with the spiel.

Me. “Thank you. Who shall I dedicate it to?”

Woman. “Me, please. Michelle.”

Me. “Right. Michelle. Two ‘l’s?”

Woman. “Yes.”

Me. “Right.” I begin to sign. “Are you down here on holiday?”

Woman. “Yes. We used to come down this way a couple of years ago. We had a break and have just started visiting again.”

Me. “What do you? For a living I mean.”

Woman. “I'm a teacher. I've just started, after getting my PGCE.” She indicates the man. “We both teach.”

Me. (to man) “You didn't think enough of your daughter to tell her to keep well clear then?” To woman as I finish my signature with flourish. “He obviously doesn't love you enough!”

Silence.

More silence.

Man. “She’s my wife.”

Me. “Oh…really! But... I mean, not that...no... Sorry, I just thought, you know, with the age difference… not that it’s that noticeable, just…”  There’s a pause as I frantically try to think of something to say to rescue the situation. “Did you get together in school?” was all I came up with.

This is what came to mind when reading the Lisa Lopes tale. That some people, oftentimes the lady in the partnership, don’t know how to draw a line and move on from a disagreement; my above verbal conflagration compared to Lisa Lopes physical one. 
On this day in 1994 after a fight with her boyfriend and NFL star, Andre Rison, Lisa doused Rison's tennis shoes with lighter fluid and set them on fire in their bathtub. The fire quickly melted the Plexiglas tub and caught onto the frame of the family home. Rison's mansion was burned to the ground and Lopes was charged with first degree arson, sentenced to five years probation and ordered to pay a $10,000 fine. Sorry really does seem to be the hardest word.