Oh, How Things Roll

I started transcribing this in April in an effort to slightly distract myself in the aftermath of a breakup. It was something I'd been meaning to do anyway (the transcribing, not the breakup ... though ...), so the timing worked. Now that is well in the past, and I can't seem to make myself sit down and write out what remains, which is really not much at this point. Having said that, and having actually started typing words out into a sentence right now, maybe I can get it done after all; it feels appealing again. First, however, the boxes.

Here's what happened in my spring of this year. I was laid off March 15; I headed off for a long-planned vacation March 18, which turned out to suck because my boyfriend was disappearing from my life; I had adjusted the timing of that vacation AND missed my cousin's wedding for the purpose of celebrating my 40th -- yes, four-ohth -- birthday with said boyfriend after being alone 8 years; that birthday shat upon me in a complicated way that is nothing but proof of divinity; April 8, the breakup (yes, 10 days after the birthday [which I only mention for proximity and to point out the Laughing of the Divine, not as any finger-pointing; we're not talking divorce when the wife gets cancer or anything]); April 28, The Pagan Fertility Ritual Cupcake Pirate Cake To End All Pagan Fertility Ritual Cupcake Pirate Cakes (I insert this to show that good things were happening too, and how awesome my friends are); April 30, last day working at Cornell (HUZZAH!); July 24 (OK, now we're into summer), The Great Move Home, Finally.

These were not all bad things. Just big things. A lot of big things in a short amount of time.

Now I am back in Buffalo and so happy and relieved about that; the freedom my shoulders feel from the release of the Ithaca weight is a wonderful thing. I have a lot of boxes that I have a plan for, a cylon plan that keeps not getting finished, but BY TOMORROW, I SWEAR BY MY CURTAINS, THESE BOXES WILL BE IN THEIR NEW AND GLORIOUS HOME in the cat room. And the bedrooms need painting, which means picking a color after dismissing 13 already and realizing that the celery color I was so excited about will only exacerbate any headaches that assault me at the time of their choosing.

And then, my home will be ready.

But I think you will soon get the final installments of this cheesy romance you care about for whatever reasons. So in the meantime I ask you two things:

1. Give it a name! The winner will receive my everlasting devotion and maybe a sonnet.

2. Think about where you think the story should go from here. I basically wrote it till I wrote everything I thought of, and we're almost there. Throw some ideas at us and let's see where we end up.

Thank you for enjoying it so far. Really. It means a lot to me that anyone has. Oh, also, I've decided to get a master's in social work, for the purpose of counseling down the line. Right now my plan is to do nutritional/weight-loss/relaxation/hypnosis/yogic-principles therapy, but we'll have to see how it all unfolds. Life is what happens on the way to your plans, right?

XO
Your Moonkee Bethany

14 in the chute, baby

“What have you to report from the land of dreams this morn, oh fair Gryphon?” Lilly smiled as she poured juice.

“Nothing exciting this time. I seem to have gone back in time a little, because now instead of being sacrificed, I’m carving tables.”

Lilly laughed. “What kind of tables? TV tables? Round tables? Mead-drinking tables?”

“Tables for a princess.”

Lilly’s eyes widened briefly, impressed. “You must be some carpenter. The princess. Nice work!” At least he’s not waking up in a cold sweat this time, she thought to herself. “So, going off with your little bookstore employee today?”

“Why do you call her that?”

“No reason, I guess. When are we going to meet her?”

“She’s pretty shy. I don’t know. Don’t make a big deal out of it.”

“It’s just good to see you smiling this much again. It’s been a while. Really smiling.”



He picked Andie up after breakfast, and they set out for the museum. As they wandered through, Gryphon explained an awful lot of things to her. “Do you have a room here or something?” she asked. He smiled.

“I’m actually … I have a degree in marine biology.”

She stopped and stared at him. “What are you doing delivering books?”

He smiled abashedly. “I … kind of punched my boss. In the jaw. Kind of got fired.”

She was staring at him. “You punched your boss.”

“Hey, you barely know me.”

“Wow. Why?”

“Because we just met.”

“You’re funny. Why’d you sock him?”

“There was this dolphin we were rehabilitating. He wanted to set her free way too soon. I spent 10 hours a day with this animal, and she was anything but ready to go back into the wild when he wanted. But Joe, he had contacted TV stations, newspapers, magazines. Usually there’s not that much attention given to these things; marine mammals are released back into their habitats fairly regularly, but the media don’t flock to see it. It’s been done, you know?”

“Why this time?”

“The dolphin had bonded with a deaf girl. Made Nightline.”

“Sounds like the kind of animal some people wouldn’t want released into the wild at all.”

“We had had a strict policy of keeping the public away from the animals completely, except for what they could see from the underwater viewing area or the arena behind the fence. No tricks, though. The only training these guys got was in how to live in the wild again. We were strictly rehab. Then Joe came in as the new administrator and thought it would be good PR. We run for the most part on donations. He fired three people within a month, all who fought him on giving the public such close and involved access to the animals. Such a stupid, stupid thing he’s doing. Or was doing. He’s been replaced since I left. You can’t teach animals to fend for themselves, to not rely on humans for survival, if you’re letting people swim with them, squealing and petting them and clapping when they jump and nuzzle. They won’t leave humans, or will get hurt or worse when they trust the wrong ones. They’ll still be dependent on them, and then they’ll die out in the ocean.”

“How could someone like that, who had such a different attitude toward what you were doing there, get to be in charge of it?”

“Politics, I think. The board of directors was getting concerned about cash flow. This rich guy in Boca had a son-in-law who had worked at one of those swim-with-the-dolphin places, had a degree in zoology and stuff. Joe. He replaced the previous woman, who was just great and left to work in Australia for a while. They wanted donations from the father-in-law. They thought the rest of us would be able to balance him out. But they gave him too much rein.”

“But he’s not still there?”

“No, some petition from some marine mammals fund or somewhere finally got him booted.”

“Could you go back?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t think that would look too good, hiring back the guy who punched out his boss. They’re still way too into the PR thing. But maybe someday. I’ve kind of had to cool my heels for a while, stay out of it so people don’t remember me as a hothead. Which I’m really not, honest,” he smiled appealingly.

“I never thought so,” she smiled back.

They drove back to her house. “Would I be going too far, asking for too much time, if I asked you to dinner tonight?”

She was thrilled at the idea of seeing him more today. “Of course not. I’d love to.”

“Another place without crayons on the table. There have to be at least two in this town.”



There were crayons, but only at the register. After dinner they strolled along the boardwalk. They stopped to lean against the railing and watch the waves roll under the darkening sky. Gryphon watched Andie as she looked out over the ocean; he reached out and brushed back some hair the wind was blowing into her face. A shiver ran down her arms and back, and she looked at him then. As he let his arm fall down around her waist, he leaned in and gently kissed her cheek, right beside the corner of her mouth.

The weight of his arm around her waist felt so good, so safe and reassuring. She blushed at his kiss; he turned to the ocean too, and she moved in close at the same time that he pulled her close against his side. A moment later she slid her arm around his waist. He turned to her and, again brushing the hair from her sunburned face, took her into his arms in an embrace that felt like the end of time.

Don't look now, but it's part 13!

He was hammering out behind a small stone building. A large table appeared to be taking shape under his hands. He looked around at a small village. He felt a sudden unease, for no reason he could place; he was just going about his trade. He looked to the sky — no dark clouds; sun shining. He looked at the table beneath his hands: thick, dark wood. He heaved it over and saw some intricate inlay.

“Conall!” a woman’s voice called. He turned to the mossy building and saw a woman with graying hair walking toward him.

“Mother,” he smiled.

She bent to look at the carving and ran her hand over it. “Conall, this is beautiful. The princess will be mighty pleased.” She straightened and looked at her son, a grim smile on her face. “This is not the extent of her desires for you, you know.”

He resumed hammering, although he had finished the table completely. “I don’t know why you say such things.”

“My son, my heart, I know you see what I do. What need has she of more tables?” He was silent. “I know your answer for her. But you must take care. She holds her father too much in her sway. It has been rumored that she has sent for some new … advisers. No one will say more than that, but there is fear in their eyes when they speak of it.”

“There’s nothing to be concerned about. Advisers or no advisers, I have no interest in the whims of the princess. And that,” he set the heavy table on its feet, “is the end of that. But we need the money this will bring.”

“We can get the money through other means. Other requests.”

“There is no reason to do other than we are doing. The faire is in a month. We will sell much as carpenters to the royal family.”

His mother smiled wanly and went back inside.

Hey! What's that over there? Why, it's PART 12

After which things should get more interesting again

“So tell me about this dream you had on the beach the other night,” Gryphon said.

She grimaced. “It was so real. And, well, I haven’t remembered my dreams in a long time. Since Alex died, probably. But even back then, I don’t remember their being this vivid.” He was studying her closely now; what she was describing sounded awfully familiar.

“And it kind of made sense,” she continued. “In its own world, I mean. No one was turning into other people; I wasn’t home then suddenly at Piggly Wiggly; no blurry vagueness at the edges. There was something really going on.” She noticed how his attention had intensified and got a little nervous. “But, you know, whatever, it’s not worth telling, really.”

Their houses were only a few hundred yards apart, and they walked on the beach again toward them now. The sun was setting, and the moon had already appeared over the eastern horizon. “It’ll be full in two days,” Gryphon commented.

“It’s been years since I’ve seen the moon rise over the ocean.”

“When were you here last, before this year?”

She sighed in thought. “I came with my parents not too long after Alex died. They thought it would help me.”

“Not much could at that point, I’ll wager.”

“No. I sat slumped in my bed a lot. They were pretty worried, I guess. But … now that I think about it, they probably helped pull me through more than any of us realized.”

“Where are they now?” he asked.

“Right now, the Appalachians. They go there a couple of times a year with Habitat for Humanity. They live in Sarasota.”

“How great of them to do that.”

“Yeah, they’re good people.”

“Brothers or sisters?”

“My brother works for Motorola in Albuquerque. Just him and me. What about you, besides Lilly?”

“A brother in Vermont, where my mom still spends half the year, and a sister in the city. New York. They’re both in publishing.” They were quiet for a while as they walked. Andie had been in journalism before Alex died, but she said nothing. Then she wondered if it was OK that she wasn’t saying anything, if she should be talking, but thought, Maybe not; maybe it’s OK to be silent. He seemed OK with it. Argh; this inner torture was driving her nuts. What was happening to her? I'm enjoying this, so at least that, she thought. But at the same time she was terrified that it would end at any second. It had been so long since anything good had happened to her, and she was very, very afraid to get used to it.

They got to her house and she fumbled for a moment, not wanting him to go yet but not knowing how to ask him to stay. “Can I use your facilities?” he asked, smiling. Problem solved.

They went inside. When he emerged again she asked if he’d like some tea. “If you have chamomile, I’m all yours,” he answered.

She smiled. “Of course. Boxes and boxes of chamomile.” Turtle came out then from somewhere, stretching and blinking. He walked up to Gryphon and sniffed his shoes, then his hand as the man leaned down and reached out to him. Accepted, Gryphon scratched Turtle’s ears.

Andie came over to them then. “You must know animals,” she said. “I’ve never seen anyone else scratch a cat’s ears like that. I think it’s why he stayed in the first place.”

She began fixing the smoky cat his dinner while they waited for the water to boil. The kettle whistled while her hands were involved in cat food, and Gryphon moved to make the tea. They heard a meowing from outside, and he went to the screen door. “Do you know this scruffy little guy?”

She came to the door, a can of cat food still in her hand. “Is he back? Poor thing, I think he’s homeless.”

Gryphon took the can from her and plopped its contents into the bowl she’d left out the day before. “I think he’s she.”

“I don’t think I can stand to leave her out here any longer. But I also don’t know how kindly Turtle will take to a guest.”

“I’ll take her home,” Gryphon said. “Lilly’s a sucker for strays, and the kids will love her. If they don’t maul her to pieces first. Hopefully she’ll stick around while I drink my tea …”

Andie smiled. He wanted to stay. Or was he just thirsty? No one is actually thirsty for tea, she thought. No one outside Britania, at least ...

They sat on the back porch, watching the sky darken and the moon rise higher into the now-starry sky. Again she was almost afraid to believe this was happening. How was it that this man, this very, very good-looking man (deep breath …), had come to be spending the evening with her? She looked at him as he talked about his nephews and niece. His green eyes caught the rising moon, and his smile seemed to warm the air around them. He looked to be pretty strong under his T-shirt, and she caught herself imagining him without it. She felt herself blush, and thanked her slight sunburn and the dim moonlight for camouflage.

Because of the cat, she drove Gryphon home. He asked if she’d like to go to the oceanographic museum the next day, and she said yes. After getting out of the car with the cat carrier, he leaned back down and smiled in at her before walking away, not saying anything, just smiling. She drove home thrilled and heart a-flutter.

Again she thought of Alex while lying in bed, without even meaning to.

HEY! Looky there! Part 11 coming your way!

In which things are a little boring but we get through some information, and also I need an actual computer chair

3:30 the next day found Andie out on the beach playing with Turtle. As she turned in the wind to pull her hair out of her face, she saw Gryphon approaching, carrying a picnic basket. “Do they make sunscreen for cats?” he asked as he stopped.

“Actually, white ones can get skin cancer from the sun,” she answered, looking at her grey tabby. “Where’s your passel?”

“I got the rest of the day off. Are you up for a picnic?”

She walked closer. “Sure. What’re you offering?” He opened the lid to reveal sandwiches and salads and fruit. It looked heavy.

“There’s a nice park just up the beach,” he said.

“Just let me get Turtle indoors.”

They walked to the park and settled under a tree on some beach towels Andie had grabbed before leaving. After a while Gryphon asked if she’d ever been married. The sadness he’d seen behind her eyes spread across her face. “I’m sorry. It’s none of my business.”

“No, no,” she sighed. “It’s OK.”

“I’ve just seen something in your eyes, a long-ago sadness or something.”

She sighed and began to tell him then about Alex, from the day they’d met in high school to the day he let out his last breath. He felt pain for her loss and her subsequent years of solitude.

“I’m so sorry, Andie.”

“It was a long time ago now. Sometimes I can’t believe how long.”

“You’ve been alone ever since?”

She shrugged. “I guess I didn’t want to be around anyone. Or know how to anymore. I wasn’t able to care about anything. Sometimes I don’t know why I got up in the morning. I don’t know why anything happened these past seven years.”

“But now you do want to get up in the morning?”

“Yeah. I don’t know what happened. It’s like something brought me back from a long, long way away. I think my landlady is responsible, actually. It seemed to start when I was here with her a few months ago.”

“She sounds like a great lady.”

“She is.”

They packed up the picnicky remains and headed into town, ostensibly for ice cream. “What about you? You’re great with your sister’s kids. Have you been married?”

“Now you get to hear my story,” he said soberly.

They were walking slowly home when he finished. “So, I do and I don’t have a daughter.”

“I think you do.”

“By now, cripes, he’s her father now. She was far too young to remember me.”

“Maybe. And maybe you’d be surprised.”

10 days and counting

Y'all, I'm moving 3 hours away the 24th. So till then, not much thinking/writing/retyping time.

Till we read again, tell me. What do you expect to happen next? What do you want to happen next? Let's have your thoughts and ideas. It's unfinished anyway.

XO
MoonkeePants

For Soda and Candy and my 3 other readers; prepare for disappointment in PART 10

Andie eyed the menu of a restaurant she kept passing on her walks. The French lentils had been calling to her all week. It was early still; she decided that if she was going to eat alone, she’d rather have dinner before the crowds.

She was reading her book and slowly chewing some bread at a window overlooking the ocean when a man appeared by her table, and not carrying her appetizers. Downright unappetizing, actually. “Is this seat taken?” he asked, pointing at the second at her two-person table.

She looked around at the empty restaurant, confused. He sat down.

“A woman like you should never eat alone,” he said, twitching his eyebrows knowingly as he leaned forward and set down a glass of what smelled like bourbon. She said nothing, flummoxed but starting to get angry. He looked at the cover of her book. “Jane Austen, eh? ‘Ah, I think that I shall never see, a book as lovely as a tree.’ Those Brits are all the same, eh? My name’s Rudy, by the way.” He reached his hand across the table. She didn’t move.

“Excuse me, but –”

He ignored her and gestured to the waiter to bring him two more bourbons. She looked at the server too and shook her head no. He went off to the bar anyway.

“A girl like you, you must have guys buying you drinks all the time! Hey, why don’t you smile more? Listen, let me order you the trout. Farfeltop there in the kitchen makes the best.”

She stood up abruptly just as the waiter appeared beside her at the table. Except it wasn’t the waiter; it was Gryphon.

“Hey, sweetheart,” he said and kissed her. On the mouth. “I’m so sorry I’m late; I was closing on the hotel in Miami.” He looked pointedly at Rudy. “Who’s this?” He smiled and shook the man’s hand genially. Rudy was starting to look like a sweat-er. “Gryphon MacFitzhugh at your service, my good man!”

Andie’s head was still swimming from the kiss; she was barely able to take this all in.

Rudy stood up hastily as red blotches appeared on his pasty face. “Er. Ru–Rudy. Sorry, fella, I didn’t realize she was meeting someone.”

“Ah, it’s the book again, right? Fools ‘em every time. I keep a-warnin’ yeh, Cassie-lassie!” He looked like he was going to invite Rudy to join them for real when the interloper started mumbling something about fish and boats and Crockett and Tubbs and skulked away to the bar way on the other side of the room.

Andie dropped heavily onto her chair. “Ho-ly,” she said. “I didn’t know what I was going to do to get away from him. Except maybe leave the state.” She looked up at him. “Thank you …”

“Glad to be of service. Sorry about the kiss. I mean, I’m not, but …” She blushed, so he kept talking. “My neighbor comes here every Thursday for the French lentils. He really won’t shut up about it, so I thought I’d see what the deal is.” He hesitated.

“Please, please sit down,” she said, smiling and relaxed by her own relief. And still a little dizzy from the kiss.

Your Cheesy Bookstore Romance Pt. NINE

That night Andie walked out on the beach to bring in the lounge chair, but ended up sitting in it to watch the moon rise again. Its reflection on the water, shifting back and forth, was ethereal, the color of melted vanilla ice cream. She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her crossed legs, breathing in deeply the sweet ocean air. Her years of numbness had begun to fall away like so many leaves in autumn, and she reveled in the simple act of enjoying a warm night without thinking too much about the change. The sound of waves lulled her once again, and she fell asleep on the beach.

She was pacing in a small, dark building, one candle in the corner barely lighting the walls. It was a hut of mud and straw, and she was not alone. Two other women huddled together on a pallet on the floor, weeping quietly. Why was she not crying too? She felt a burning need to get outside somewhere. There was somewhere she needed to be. Why wasn’t she already there?

“I’m going,” she said.

“Alayne, no!” The younger of the two women leapt up and ran to stop her. “You cannot! You KNOW that! He forbade you to go! And with reason!”

“But how can I stay here?! There’s got to be SOMETHING we can do!” And at that, she fell against the wall and did cry, clutching her stomach. For she knew there was, truly, nothing. After a moment she gathered her composure; he was counting on her to remain strong. He would know. She stood again and moved into the dim light. There was no window from which to watch the night; they could not risk being seen. She leaned over and blew out the candle.

The other women fell asleep. She looked with fondness toward where they slept in the darkness; they had been through so much, this mother and daughter who had welcomed her into their family with gladness and warmth. And now their son and brother was being killed as a sacrifice to some god their people had never even heard of until a short time ago. Now they cowered in fear at the mention of the name Balaam. Balaam. There were stories of gods times past who demanded the sacrifice of human blood. But no life had been given in the years since the eldest could still recall, and the stories were myth for all she cared. Enter the sorceress Talar, who dazzled them with flashes of fire and windstorms even the birds could not anticipate.

Something made her stand quickly, like a whisper in her ear. She listened for the breath of her companions; they were sleeping soundly. She slipped out the door and looked around. The forest was quiet. Too quiet. No owls, no insects chirping, no wind rustling the leaves. She stood straight and still for a moment with her eyes closed to her surroundings, then slipped soundlessly through the trees till she came to a small clearing. She climbed onto a rock within the protection of the forest where she could crouch and peer unseen over the heads of the fearful crowd gathered there, and saw him then, bloody, chest heaving. She clenched her teeth against a crashing wave of emotion and watched.

He turned his head then toward the audience, such as it was, and looked over them to the trees where she waited. An eternity passed in seconds and Alayne rose and stood on the rock, having no fear of being seen any longer, knowing no one would turn to catch her. The sorceress was chanting incoherent syllables that gradually came louder and faster till she raised her arms to the sky and lightning shot out of the clouds, felling a tree beyond the altar.

She saw him look to the sky a heartbeat later, never giving her away, and close his eyes to gather strength for what was to follow.

Then he opened them to the stars.

A moment later she was running back through the forest, every fiber of her existence pushing her forward and quelling the scream that was building from the bottom of her very soul. At the same time she wanted nothing more than to run back to the scene of fire and hold his limp body in her arms forever. She stayed away from the hut, in case a sound broke through her silence, heading for the safety of nowhere in particular. An hour later she was in another valley. Near a rock wall she fell to her knees in a cry that tore the night apart and knocked a star from the sky.



Andie shot forward in the lounge. Her heart was pounding.

“Are you all right?”

She looked up. The man from Cravings.

“Yes,” she put her hand to her forehead. “I’m sorry; how do I know you?”

“UPS at your service, ma’am,” he smiled. Recognition broke over her face.

“Of course. Out of place I can never remember …”

“It is Andie?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t think we’ve really met yet. I’m Gryphon.” He reached his hand out, and she shook it. “Are you OK? You don’t look so good.”

“Yes, thank you, I’ll be all right. I just had a strange dream.”

“That’s some dream to shake you up like it looks like you’ve been.” He cringed at his own words. “Did that make ANY sense?” he laughed.

She smiled. “Yes.”

“Maybe you can tell me about it sometime.” He smiled and began to walk away. He turned back once more and waved a little wave.

Andie looked at the water a few more minutes, still groggy from sleep, before going in to bed.

Did that mean he’d be back?

Your Cheesy Bookstore Romance Pt. 8

She opened the cabinet in the bathroom to put away her things and found a bottle with a pale blue ribbon tied around its neck and a tag with her name on it. “Indulge,” it read. Signed “GG,” with a smiley face. She grinned. Mrs. Graves was so sweet. She always knew what would do Andie good. All-natural bath oil, lavender scented. Andie opened the bottle and breathed deeply. She replaced the stopper and set it back on the shelf. But shortly after her things were put away, she was running hot water in the tub. Turtle moseyed in to find her after a bit. Once she realized she was starting to doze, she pulled herself reluctantly from the comfort of the bath, wrapper herself in a thick robe, and made her way into the bedroom.

She woke at 3 a.m. to find herself still in the robe, the duvet wound around her. She stopped to look out the window as she dug for her nightgown in the dresser; the moon had set, and the stars shone like so many laughing children. The sight over the quietly rolling ocean took her breath away. Once back in bed she slept deep and long. The late hour on the clock when she opened her eyes startled her, and after stretching, she laughed out loud. Turtle ran in and leapt onto the pillow, having finally heard her stir. He nuzzled her face and purred sweetly, but she refused his charms and lay in bed awhile longer, enjoying the feel of it, knowing there was dry food in a dish in the kitchen.



Avery’s new friend balked at the name. “GRYPHon? Sounds like a monster!”

“That’s because I am!” Uncle Gryphon assumed the Monster Stance and chased after the screaming 4-year-olds. When they splashed into the waves, he picked them both up and spun them around, falling into the wet sand with them scrambling to get away, unable to stop giggling.

Then they begged him to do it again.

“Wheredja get your name, anyway?” little Benjamin asked.

“I found it.”

This puzzled the child. “Huh?”

“I found it. It was up in a tree I was climbing one day, looking kind of lonely, and I took it down and used it.”

“You don’t get names from trees.”

“Oh yeah? Where’d you get yours?”

Benjamin thought about it. “A seashell. It was in a shell I found one day.”

“Awesome. Avery?”

“My dog’s butt.”

Gryphon and Benjamin burst out laughing. “Your dog’s butt? Your dog’s butt?” Gryphon repeated as he scooped the boys up again and went running headlong down the beach.



Time to try on the new contact lenses. This was where the princess emerged, right? When they glasses went into the drawer? It was mostly for convenience; she’d brought regular sunglasses instead of her usual clip-on lenses. She’d been meaning to try them for a while, anyway. She’d felt like she needed a change, and she needed to start small.

Out on a lounge she stretched in the sun. She’d forgotten how wonderful it could feel. She lay with her eyes closed, feeling its golden hue as it warmed her skin, oozing over her like syrup, enveloping her in the embrace of an old, watchful friend who wanted only to see her happy. It was just so right, so perfect, with the slightest breeze coming off the ocean and the quiet rushing sound of the waves, that she felt like this was the only place she would ever need to be again. She felt like she could move mountains. What was it about the ocean and the sun that combined to create the perfect setting, to draw the deepest smile, the most contented heart?



He emerged from the waves, hair strewn over his shoulders, water sliding off his skin, his mouth twisted in a wry smile. Oh, he had ideas. He had something in mind all right. He knelt before her and walked his hands up along either side of her body, up to support him as he hovered over her. Water dripped onto her legs and stomach. “Sorry about that,” he murmured. She could barely find breath to speak.

But she didn’t have to, because that’s when she woke up. “Oh my Lord,” she breathed heavily, her hand to her collarbone.

She got up and headed inside for some lunch just before a man escorting a flock of children made his way past.

Turtle sat on the counter, watching her make a turkey sandwich, knowing there would be a crumb for him at some point. They both looked when they heard a meow at the screen door; a scrawny cat scurried away at Turtle’s quick hiss. When Andie went back outside it was with a small dish of cat food and a bowl of water. Turtle would stay in for the afternoon.

She brought her things in and walked into town to browse. She bought an elephant necklace for Mrs. Graves and a brightly colored tin drum bungalow for herself. A black cat sat in one of its windows.

Her last stop was Cravings, for a strawberry-banana frozen yogurt waffle cone. Five kids were at the counter ahead of her, all together, with a somewhat harried-looking man at the center of their swarming mass. What a thing to tackle, she thought, getting five kids to pick and settle on ice cream cones in less time than it took to build a small home. She smiled as she watched him maneuver. Actually he wasn’t doing too bad; a brown-haired 5-year-old was reaching out her hands for a sugar cone topped with peanut butter fudge, and there was only one to go. Their shepherd turned toward Andie as he responded to a tug from the littlest; she thought he looked familiar but couldn’t place where from. Finally everyone had their dream cone, including him; he thanked the girl behind the counter sincerely and stuffed several bills into the tip jar. She smiled, waved off this thanks, and told the kids to come back tomorrow. Andie laughed silently at the instigation in the invitation.

As the group headed out the door, the man’s eyes met hers; his brow furrowed unconsciously as he tried to figure out how he knew her. He smiled quickly anyway. She blinked and managed a small smile in return, and he was gone. She ordered her waffle cone. “Can I also get a cup of water?”

She walked the two miles home smiling. What a wonderful day it was. The rest of the week was supposed to be just as beautiful, and she swung her canvas bag in merry thanks to nature.



It was buying Time magazine at an outdoor newsstand that brought 2 and 2 together for Gryphon: that bookstore in Orlando, that one near the good Indian place. The bookish bookseller who for some reason had intrigued him one day. Well, he was glad to see she was taking a vacation.

Wasn’t her hair different?

Your Cheesy Bookstore Romance Pt. 7

“How am I going to go on?” Gryphon barely breathed the words.

Lilly got a job offer in Orlando and tried to persuade her ailing, heartsick brother to move south with her. It had been three months now, and he was still pale and drawn. He was constantly sick to his stomach and had lost weight.

“Honey, please go,” Katherine urged. “My heart breaks all over again to see you like this.” And so he did. He didn’t care much where he was or where he went anyway. His family knew he had to get away from this place, had to break the chain that tied him to his wife and child by leaving the place that did nothing but remind him, every aching moment of every long, empty day, that he was alone.

* * * * * * * *

“Mom got some new pictures from Evelyn.” That was his ex-mother-in-law, who understood the pain her daughter had caused. She did what she could to see that Gryphon knew something of Joy, who was now 11 years old. “She’ll send them soon.”

“Good.”

“Are you OK?”

“Yeah.”

“Is it the dreams? Are you getting any sleep?”

He shrugged. “Enough.”

“You don’t look it, sweetheart.”

“Maybe this vacation will help.”

Lilly thought over what she was going to say next. “Have you thought about … going back to marine biology yet?”

“Some, yeah. I think I need a little more time. Don’t want to deck anyone again too soon.” Lilly smiled.
As he got out of her car she wished him sweet dreams.



Gryphon shook himself out of his momentary stupor and found himself staring at the mousy bookseller behind the register. His eyes lingered a moment longer, caught by a slip of hair that has slid loose from her bun. As she began to turn in his direction, he looked quickly to the shelf before him, snatched up a book that had an interesting cover, brought it to the counter, and finally mumbled thanks and managed to smile as she handed him his change. “Reading on the job?” The corners of her mouth twitched in what he supposed might be a smile of some sort. “Just a little at a time,” he answered. “Not enough to affect my job performance.” The corners twitched a little further for a split second. He smiled himself and thanked her again.

Jess followed him into the back room and out the door, according to store policy, and smiled to herself as he drove away.

If only, she thought as she walked back toward Andie.

Gryphon found himself wondering about her life, the mousy bookseller’s. Annie or Andie or something. Angie? She seemed so withdrawn; was she really? What did she do when she went home? What did she notice along the way? Did she cook? Go to a movie? Rent one? Go to a class? Throw pottery? Train falcons? And who did she go home to? Maybe she even had kids. He couldn’t see someone so shy taking on a pack of rugrats, though. … And yet maybe he could.

Is she happy? He wondered finally.



Andie loaded her bag into the car, along with Turtle's carrier. As they started out of town, she kept her windows open; the air smelled of oranges, so much that she expected she could put a straw to her mouth and drink it. After half an hour she began to smell salt in the air and got onto A1A just to be near the ocean, even though it would take a little longer.

After another 45 minutes she entered the outskirts of Conch Flats, a small, peaceful almost-city straddling the Indian River. Mrs. Graves’s house was on the southern end, a few miles from the hotels and development that drew tourists and snowbirds. Turtle woke as they stopped at a light and sniffed at the air, smelling salt, water, fish, and who knew what else. A few minutes later they were out of the car and in the driveway of the beach house. Turtle ran off after a lizard; Andie walked toward the house that would be her home for two weeks. She thought about Ernesto’s advice. Yeah, right. Skinny dipping.

In the house she found a fully stocked refrigerator, overflowing with fresh fruit and vegetables and some dishes she recognized as Mrs. Graves’s handiwork. There were fresh-squeezed orange and grapefruit juices from the local groves, grapes, pasta salad, greens, chili-fried corn, latkes, dolmades, asparagus, cream of cauliflower soup … and fresh-baked turkey breast. Mrs. Graves knew how Andie loved a fresh turkey sandwich. And for Turtle, anchovies and sardines. And a catnip plant sitting on the whitewashed windowsill above the sink.

That night Andie left the television on inside the house for company while she sat on the porch and watched the night roll in over the ocean. The moon was waxing and would probably be full in a few days. She could hear her feline familiar chasing something inside, probably a toy mouse.

The next day, her life at home would walk that much farther away from her.

Your Cheesy Bookstore Romance Pt. 6

But as fate let it happen, no one had to say anything. Gryphon got out of work early one night and walked into his home to find a man pacing in his living room, smoking a cigarette. “Uh ... hello?” Gryphon said. She came out then with two suitcases and set them down without looking up.

“Take these out, and I’m almost ready with the baby.” She left the room again without seeing her husband standing there. Gryphon was paralyzed, trying to figure out when he had fallen asleep because this was making no sense in his waking world. Nothing his brain knew could begin to explain what he had walked into. He went to the doorway of the nursery; the man in the living room had grabbed the suitcases and gone outside.

She was rushing around, shoving diapers, bottles, toys, clothes into the baby bags.

“What’s going on? What are you doing?”

She dropped a pink stuffed bunny, startled, and before she could catch herself said, “Why are you here?” then continued as if she’d said nothing.

Gryphon’s mind finally snapped to, and he hollered, “What the hell is going ON?!?”

She looked at him, not stopping. “I’m leaving. Leaving with Max.”

“WHAT?!?! What do you mean, you're leaving? Where are you going?” Finally he grabbed her shoulder to stop her running around and get her to face him. “WHAT IS GOING ON?”

She whirled around. “I’m leaving. And taking Joy.”

He stopped dead, his jaw hanging. He barely managed to utter “How—what—what happened—"

"Nothing happened, Gryphon. This is how it always was.”

His mind was spinning. “You can’t leave. You can’t take my baby.”

The man now standing in the doorway answered in an Australian accent. “She’s not your baby, Jack.”

Gryphon just stared, looking around the room, trying to find something that could explain all this, something, anything that made sense and would tell him everything was OK. He turned to the crib and picked up his precious Joy. Not his baby. What was he talking about? His wife motioned to Max to go outside, and waited a moment, watching Gryphon and her baby. He was touching her sweet face, murmuring to her.

“Come on, Gryphon,” she said quietly, taking Joy from him and fixing her in her waiting Winnie-the-Pooh car seat.

“How can you do this?” He was barely able to speak. “Where did this come from? What do you mean, she’s not my baby?!”

“Let me go, Gryphon.”

“Let you go? I come home from work to my wife and child and I find THIS? And I’m supposed to just let it happen like you’re going to your mom’s? Are you going to explain ANYTHING, or are you just going to shatter my world in seconds and leave? Because apparently I wasn’t even supposed to get THIS much, was I? you were just going to leave with her, weren’t you? So I would come home to NOTHING?”

She stopped and sat down in the rocking chair. “All right. I have a minute.”

“A MINUTE?”

“Do you want to hear this or not?” She had him hostage. He knelt down beside his child and let her take his finger. Joy smiled and burbled at him.

She sighed. “I met Max just before I met you. He was traveling through the state, on shore leave from the navy.* We hung out a few times, and he left. I didn’t see or hear from him for months, and I thought that was it. Then one day he reappeared, right after you and I started sleeping together, and when I started to know him better he was like nothing I’d ever known. He was the coolest guy I’d ever met. But he had to leave again with his ship, and I’d fallen for him but didn’t know if I’d ever see him again. You know my dad never came back, so maybe I figured he wouldn’t either. Trite, huh?” she smiled a little, automatically, but he ignored it.

“Then I found out I was pregnant, and I knew it was him, not a broken condom like I’d told you. So he shows up again a month later, what, two months before the wedding, and I’d never told him too much about you.”

So that’s why she changed her mind, he thought. That’s why she wanted it small. Like the guy wouldn’t have found out anyway? Everyone in town knew.

“I didn’t want him to know about you … I almost called the whole thing off, but he went away again and I thought, that’s got to be it. And I loved you. Not the same exactly, but I did. I still do. I thought we could raise a beautiful baby in a good life. You’re a wonderful father, Gryphon.”

He was staring at Joy. “So now he’s going to stay? THIS time?” His voice was laced with acid.

“He’s been here since the day she was born, Gryphon. He left all those times because he had to. If he hadn’t gone back to his ship they’d have thrown him in jail. He busted his butt to get weekends off. And the last time he left was to get out of the navy altogether.”

Gryphon stared hard at Joy, fighting tears hard. It didn’t work.

“Do you know for sure?”

“Yes.”

“How long has he known?”

“About two weeks after the wedding.”

“Why now? Why wait till now? Why give me all this time with her just to take her away now? She’s 10 months old now.”

“We’ve saved enough now for all of us to go back to Australia.”

“AUSTRALIA?? How will I see her?!”

“Gryphon, you’re not GOING to. She’s not your baby!”

“Loving and raising her since before she was even born makes me what? Nothing? I’ve devoted my life to her, made sure she has everything, and I’m never going to SEE her again?! I’ve loved her more than anything or anyone I’ve ever known, and you’re taking her away?!”

She was crying now too. “I’m sorry. I’m SORRY. But this is the way it has to be.” She stood up. “We have to go.” She bent to pick up the car seat and the child it cradled.

“Please, please don’t do this—“

“Say goodbye, Gryph.”

He did. He kissed his Joy softly on the forehead and cheek, trying to jump back to this moment from a future time when he wouldn’t have her at all, knowing that in seconds this would be a memory and nothing more, slipped through his fingers, nothing to hold on to, gone forever, trying to make it last a lifetime, his lifetime. “I’ll love you forever, I wish you could know that. I hope—I hope that does something in your life somehow.” He stood up. “Please let me know …” he choked. “Send pictures, a letter, anything …”

She put her hand on his arm for a moment and walked out the door with the car seat and one last bag. Gryphon fell against the wall and slid down it slowly. He heard a car engine start out front and fade into the distance. He looked up at the window from where he sat on the floor, legs splayed like a rag doll, and noticed it had started to snow.




*Note that author intended to put the guy in some kind of Australian navy she assumed existed but never felt like researching. And assumed wouldn't be putting in to port in the States but didn't care at that point.

Your Cheesy Bookstore Romance Pt. 5

“You still think about them a lot, don’t you?” Lilly asked her brother.

“Not so much. Just sometimes … I just thought of the way she used to look at me when no one else would.”

And there was nothing else to say. It had all been said a dozen dozen times; everything that could be wrung out of it had been years before. A child leaves your life, and she’s gone.

Twelve years before, Gryphon had fallen madly in love with a beautiful girl, the first beautiful girl to ever pay attention to him. She had subsequently become pregnant. And he was thrilled. So he proposed, riding the high of first love. And so they planned the wedding: big, everyone they knew, and extravagant, as big and elaborate as anyone could plan in three months, before she started to show too much.

Then one day she changed her mind about the size and about the date.

“I want it small now, private, just you and me. it’ll be so much more romantic. Just us. Just you and me.” He’d smiled and laid his hand on her stomach. “And baby bean.” And so he’d agreed; whatever she said sounded pretty good to him. She could suggest they make their wedding cake out of dirt and old syringes and eat it in a compost heap and he’d agree to it.

They got a small apartment and started to put a nursery together. So gradually that he could never tell when it started, she began to seem withdrawn, to even avoid him sometimes; it was attributed to hormones. One night, however, she came home from her mother’s beaming and carrying bags loaded with Chinese food, as she had when they were dating, and a renewed warmth in her eyes. They made love that night as they hadn’t in months, since before the wedding even. He thought she was so fantastically beautiful pregnant, so sexy. She compared herself to large sea creatures, but he fawned over her like never before. To see her heavy with the child they’d created together, the child who would be both of them together, intermingled, as he saw them forever, made him lightheaded. His friends laughed at him, but he just smiled back. “Someday you’ll know,” he said.

He cried when Joy was born. “Who do you think she looks more like?” he’d ask anyone, beaming. They just smiled back. He cut back his classes from full to part time and got a job at the library. He arranged everything so he had his afternoons free and Saturdays off. She worked mornings and afternoons, and Joy stayed with one grandmother or the other from 8 a.m. till Gryphon got back from classes at lunchtime. He hadn’t seen his own mother so happy in years. But after a few months something changed; he couldn’t place what precisely, but his mother looked at him a little differently, watching him somehow, for something.

“Why is she looking at me like that?” he asked Lilly.

“What do you mean?”

“Just watch her.” But Lilly saw nothing out of the ordinary.



“Somebody’s got to say something,” Lilly said to their mom one morning.

“Say what exactly? That woman is his life, like it or not. And he’s never been so happy as when he’s with Joy,” Katherine replied. Lilly just brushed her fingers lightly over Joy’s forehead. She didn’t know what to tell him either.

Your Cheesy Bookstore Romance Pt. 4

THREE OR FOUR MONTHS PASS DURING WHICH WE DON’T HAVE TO SEE MORE PIECES OF ANDIE’S HAIR COME OUT OF THE CLIP AND BRUSH HER CHEEKS, WHICH I KEEP WANTING TO SPELL “CHEECKS” AND WORD WILL HAVE NONE OF IT

“You’re what?”

“I’m asking for two weeks off.”

Jess stared at Andie. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. All these years she’d tried to get her to take some time off …

“Three weeks from now. I know you can get someone to cover for me. I’ve gone over this very carefully—“

“Of course. Of course you have. Um, yeah, go ahead. You deserve it.” Andie thanked her and started out from behind the counter. “Um, where will you go? Assuming you’re going anywhere.”

“A place a friend has.”

“That house on the ocean? Your landlady’s? The one you helped with a few months ago.”

“That’s the one.”

The one that started this metamorphosis, Jess thought to herself. Ever since that weekend in October, Andie had started, well, coming out of her shell or something. She’d actually begun socializing some with the other workers, though she staunchly refused to be set up on blind dates. Jess suspected she was even taking an art class of some sort: she’d requested off all Tuesday nights for three months straight and had borrowed several sketching and watercolor instruction books. Could this woman actually be building herself a life again? Rebuilding her life?

Jess hoped she never had to find out how she would react to such a personal tragedy.

Turtle knew something big was going on. Andie had begun packing immediately, dragging out old suitcases covered with dust that made him sneeze. But he climbed in anyway and settled down.

“Turtle …” she tilted her head as she looked at him, seeing no reason to scold after all. “I guess you can stay in there for now.” Hey, he was a cat. He had to get into things and make them his. What did she expect? [NOTE GREAT CHARM OF ANIMAL CONNECTION AND GO ADOPT A CAT OR PUPPY OR UNICORN TODAY]

As Andie went through her drawers and closets, looking for beach-appropriate clothes, Mrs. Graves popped her head in through the open door. “Hello, dear, how’s it coming along?”

Andie frowned at the clothes gathered on her bed. “It’s not. Look at these clothes! They scream ‘I haven’t been shopping since there was a Soviet Union.’” [THIS WAS BOTH TIMELY AND HILARIOUS IN 1996]

Mrs. Graves smiled. “Have you been to the new Galleria?”

The woman turned out to have a terrific eye for fashion and knew immediately what would and wouldn’t be right for Andie. [IS THERE NOTHING THIS WOMAN CAN’T DO] They spent a whole Saturday at the mall and came home with three shopping bags full of new clothes for the trip. It had been difficult persuading Andie that some of the hipper or more revealing pieces really looked good on her, but the assuring nods of other customers finally did the trick. She even bought Turtle a new collar with a bell on it so he couldn’t sneak up on the seagulls.





Gryphon sat sweating and shaking in his bed for the fifth night in a row. The same dream plagued him now each time he tried to sleep. The ropes binding him to the giant table; the torches all around, blinding him to most of the people he knew were out there by the sounds of breath they drew; the thin old woman babbling in some language he couldn’t make sense of. And the feeling of having to be strong, not for himself but for someone else, maybe two or three others somewhere. Were they there in the crowd, watching with the rest? Or were they hidden among the trees at the edge of the circle? Or not even present, but waiting, comforting each other in a hut or lodge somewhere out there in the dark, praying for a miracle …

Chamomile tea. [NOTE SUDDEN AND CONVENIENT CONFLUENCE OF TEA USAGE!] That’s what his uncle had told him to drink on nights when he couldn’t bring himself to even try to sleep again. He’d had these dreams every once in a while throughout his life, maybe once or twice a year, but never in an unrelenting cluster like this. Chamomile tea. He had balked at the idea at first, but now, why not, what did he have to lose … He went into the kitchen and pulled out the box Uncle Dan had given him. Maybe he knew something after all.

The next afternoon he let his sister in. “We’ve decided to go to the beach for a few weeks at the end of February, hopefully just dodging the spring break crowd.”

“Sounds like a good idea.”

“We want you to come too. Can you get the time off? You haven’t taken a vacation in years.”

Gryphon rubbed his finger behind his left ear as he did when he was considering. “Yeah, I think I can. I’ll check tomorrow.”

“Jack’s friend has a condo right on the water, big and beautiful, four bedrooms, a sleeping porch, lots of space.”

“Are you sure you want me to come? You’re emphasizing space a lot. You want to keep me close enough to be at your beck and call, watch your offspring for you, do your wash on rocks in the river, scrub floors with my toothbrush, but stay away when you don’t need me for anything, do I have that right?”

“Beck and call. Right. You should be so lucky. Come on, are you ready?” He often went to the gym with Lilly and Jack, and when the latter couldn’t make it, Gryphon worked out as Lilly’s partner. She needed someone to push her or she’d never get near a Pilates class or break a sweat.

As they went through reps on the Nautilus, Lilly occasionally noticed women staring in their direction. How had her geeky brother grown up into the kind of man women blatantly stared at? She laughed quietly, but he heard her. “What’s so funny?” he breathed heavily, bending to reset the bench press for her and wiping streams of sweat from his forehead.

“The gaggles of women entranced by your ugly mug.”

“Not much oxygen going to the brain right now, is there, Lil.”

She tried to gauge whether he was truly unaware of the looks he was drawing and his powers of attraction. He seemed to be. “You didn’t notice? We are in the same gym here, right?” He suddenly looked sad. She dropped the subject.

[NOTE HOW REALLY BORING THIS WHOLE ENTRY WAS AND REVEL IN THE PROMISE OF TOMORROW]

Your Cheesy Bookstore Romance Pt. 3

Andie was quiet on the drive out, as usual, but there seemed to be a little more going on inside. She felt it but barely paid it any attention, just enjoying the fresh smell of salt air as they got closer to the water. Turtle could barely sit still, and it was all she could do to keep him from climbing onto Mrs. Graves’s head.

They spent the weekend coaxing open doors and windows, scrubbing, washing, dusting, sneezing, coughing, and laughing at Turtle when a curtain he was climbing fell onto him or the seagulls taunted him just out of paw’s reach. “This is a beautiful little place,” Andie mentioned again and again. “How is it that it’s withstood the hurricanes?”

“Pure luck, really. Most of our neighbors have had to rebuild over the past few years. Now, dear, I need you to run to the market while I finished washing these linens.”

Andie walked through the small market, picking out the items on the list and an extra filet for Turtle. While waiting to check out, she started to get the sensation that someone was looking at her. She tried to ignore it, but finally glanced over her shoulder and saw the man who was watching her. She quickly turned away. He looked vaguely familiar, but she didn’t know where from and tried to pretend he wasn’t there at all. [OH MY GOD WHOEVER CAN HE BE] The discomfort made her face burn, though, and she hurried out with her bags without looking back again.

That night after dinner Mrs. Graves practically forced Andie to sit on the porch and watch the rhythmic rolling of the waves. “If there’s anything a body needs in the world these days, it’s to just sit and look at water.” Andie thought she had read that sentiment in a book somewhere recently. Once on the porch, she knew what her landlady was getting at. The water was soothing, healing somehow, seemed to recalibrate the most important parts of her. Before she knew it she was dozing lightly in the rocking chair with Turtle curled in her lap. She woke up an hour later feeling refreshed, cleansed, better than she could remember anymore. She took a walk on the beach in the moonlight, Turtle trotting along by her side and running after the waves. That night she dreamt of sun and waves and warm winds. It was the first dream she’d been able to remember in years. And it was the first morning in years when she didn’t curse the dawn for the waking.

On the drive home, Mrs. Graves thanked Andie for her help. Turtle slept all the way. Andie felt the surface of her skin tingling, as if something was just coming to life for the first time. Or after a long time dormant. She was breathing more deeply than normal. The ocean air demanded it, inviting itself deep into her airways and invigorating her blood.

On Monday Jess stared at her as she came through the door. “Good Lord, girl, are you sunburned?” Andie touched her cheeks and told her briefly about the weekend she’d spent at the ocean. “Here it is, October, and you’re already at the ocean. I knew there was a beach bunny inside you just bursting to get out.”

“Very funny," Andie said lightly and walked away.

“How was it?” Ernesto asked, popping out from classics.

“Beautiful,” Andie replied and disappeared into the stockroom.

As she dried her hands Andie caught an accidental glimpse of herself in the mirror and stopped to look at her face more carefully, noticing that sunburn for the first time. Suddenly the face in the mirror was surrounded by green silk, a gold circlet binding her brow. In the mirror she saw trees behind her—tall, deep, wise, old trees. She whirled around, not knowing what she expected to see—and there was the same old bathroom, peeling pink wallpaper and all. Her hand flew to her forehead as she turned back to the mirror—nothing there this time. I must have been in the sun longer than I realized, she though as she tried to regain her composure. She began to brush back a wisp of hair that had strayed from her clip, but at the last moment let it stay there, lightly touching her cheek.
[NOTE GENIUS OF METAPHOR OF HAIR INDICATING SLIGHT CHANGES IN HER BEARING AND THOUGHTS]

Gryphon was lying atop a huge wooden block, strapped down with sinew and hemp rope. He looked around. A wizened old woman—whom he wasn’t certain was human—stood nearby, chanting, shaking a huge stick with the head of a ram carved into its top. Sweat ran down around his neck to his back and gathered between his shoulder blades, making a sticky pool beneath him. He tried to remain unafraid, though, by some instinct. For someone. He had no idea who, but it struck him to his very core.

Then he was sitting up quickly in his own bed, in his own apartment. He’d never felt so glad to be there. What had given him that dream? And why did it not really feel like a dream?

Your Cheesy Bookstore Romance Pt. 2

Outside, Gryphon sat in his truck and tried to figure out why he had suddenly gotten so antsy when the bookstore manager started talking about his name.

Jess brought the UPS boxes to Andie to scan. “How’s that cat of yours doing?” Anything to try to get her to talk. “What’s his name? Frank?”

“Turtle. He’s been sneezing lately.” And she said no more. Jess took a moment to look her over. “Why don’t you let your hair out of that clip once in a while? Set it free. You’ve got really nice texture there you could work with.”

“I don’t think so. It would just get in my way.”

“Then how about a cut? Maybe some bangs, give it a little lift, like—“

“Thanks, no.” Andie got up and went into the back room.

“I have a real knack with people today,” Jess muttered to herself.

Andie, Gabrielle, and Jonah were the last ones to leave the store that night. Gabrielle and Jonah were headed for a late movie and pleaded with Andie to come along. As she left them for her car, Gabrielle shook her head. “How can you live like that?”

“That’s not living,” Jonah replied solemnly, looking after the solitary woman.

“Do you think she’ll ever shake it off?” Gabrielle wondered.

“I think it’s more a matter of coming back from someplace far, far away. Or of unlocking some doors. A shattered life doesn’t shake.” [NOTE ENTRY OF SENSITIVE FOREIGNER]

Andie unlocked the door to her room, put down her things, and lay on her small bed. Turtle came in from some other part of the house when he heard her, and sat down near her head, both in greeting and waiting to be fed. As her body began to shake violently with sobs, he moved to lean protectively against her side. She was all he had.

Mrs. Graves knocked gently on the open door. “How are you tonight, dear?” Andie took a deep breath and told her landlady she had a bad headache. She didn’t want to be seen like this. “Let me make you some chamomile tea, honey,” the woman replied and hurried off before Andie could refuse. Mrs. Graves knew this was more than a headache. And dear Lord, if this girl needed anything it was some company, to let someone in again, just a little, just a start. To let someone take care of her for just a few minutes. Mrs. Graves had respected her grief and privacy for over six years. Now it was time to respect the need in the heart Andie continued to ignore. Somewhere, a spirit waited, and slept.
[NOTE ENTRY OF FEISTY, WISE CRONE TO SERVE AS MENTOR AND FIRE-LIGHTER]

Peter was leaning against the counter when Mrs. Graves got to the kitchen. “Hello, Peter; what brings you around this late?”

“Just wanted to see my Aunt Gracie,” he leaned in to kiss her cheek.

“Bullshit, Peter.” His eyes widened. She never spoke like that. “You think I don’t see you looking at the poor girl? Notice you only come by when her car’s in the driveway? Leave her alone. You’re the last thing she needs.” She set about making the tea.

“Fine. So maybe I do hope to run into her. God, it’s been seven years since her husband died, and all she does is sit in that room with her cat! She might as well be 95 and lying in a nursing home! She could use a man!”

Mrs. Graves glared at her nephew with such ferocity that he felt he’d been slapped (which is what she really wanted to do). “She needs a man—and especially one like you—like she needs spikes in her head. No one else in this town will pay you any mind anymore, so now you’ve set your sights on the only woman who hasn’t had it up to here with your shenanigans. Go to a gym, Peter, or some pottery lessons. Stop prancing around like you’re God’s gift to my gender and get some self-respect. You think we can’t all see right through you? You’re a balding, overweight man who’s terrified of turning 40 and whose mother spoiled him rotten her whole life. I love you like my own, Peter, but it’s about time someone set you straight. It’s time for you to be a man.”
[NOTE ENTRY OF BUFFOONY NEPHEW FOR CONTRAST AND TEA DRINKING]

He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Moreover, he couldn’t believe who he was hearing it from. Because, as he would almost admit later in the silence of his dark house as he waited for sleep, it was all true.

“That poor girl,” she kept talking as she lit the stove. “She’s got to be able to look in the mirror and care about what she sees there before anyone can get near her again.”

“She was very pretty once, wasn’t she?”

“Not the point, Peter. Look at me. Wrinkles, gray hair, loose pale skin, all of it. I’m no beauty and I never was. But I love life and I love my life and I’ve done all I can to try to bring a little good into the lives of the people I love. I like myself and the things I’ve done, mistakes and all. As long as my mistakes don’t kill anybody they’re OK. I’ve had good friends and a wonderful family,” she squeezed his arm as she passed to get cups down from the cupboard. “That girl needs to remember what life and living are, and that’s not going to have anything to do with a man at this point, though it’s going to have everything to do with love. It’s better if it doesn’t for now. She hasn’t cared about herself or where she fits into this world since Alex died. I’ve never seen anything quite like it in someone that age. If they’d been older, I’m sure she would’ve died shortly after he did, like so many old couples. But somewhere inside her is a string tied tightly to this world, a part of her that doesn’t want to leave yet. I don’t think she even knows it’s there.”

“Except she loves that cat.”

“Yes. Very true. Good insight, Peter. She does love that cat. That’s something. That’s the string.”

Andie had washed her face by the time Mrs. Graves came back with the tea. But she almost started crying again when she took it from the woman. She had no idea why.

Andie pulled even further into herself over the next few days.

One Thursday a few weeks later, Mrs. Graves came into the bookstore to find her tenant. She was in a bind and hoped Andie would help her. In two weeks, her late husband’s cousins were coming for a visit, and she’d promised to take them to her small house on the ocean. She’d figured on Peter’s coming to help her open the place up after the summer, but he had to go out of town. “We can bring Turtle, too; he’ll love it out there, all the nooks and crannies to explore, the mice to catch and birds to chase …” And somehow she convinced Andie to come to the ocean with her that weekend.

Your Cheesy Bookstore Romance Pt. 1

Andie shelved Danielle Steele and Sandra Roberts books for the umpteenth time, her arms moving mechanically as her eyes located the proper spots on the shelves for the romantic interludes she held in her hands. The heated passions that throbbed between the covers were lost on this seven-year bookstore employee, however. There had in fact been a two-year period when she could not even go near the romance section without shaking. Then one day, it all went cold, and she noticed nothing of the half-clad lovers adorning these books, grasping each other, heads bent in desire and ecstasy. The repetitive task of shelving in fact had a hypnotic effect on her.

“Andie!” It had happened again. She had become oblivious to her surroundings, and the sudden voice made her drop the books in her hand.

“Jess, I didn’t hear you.” She bent to pick them up as the store manager moved to help.

“I know; sorry to startle you. Did you put aside a special copy of The Inferno for some guy this morning?”

“Yeah.”

“He’s here and I can’t find it.”

Andie left her stack of books and went to the front of the store. “Thanks, Number One,” Jess smiled. She got a real kick out of using Star Trek terminology with her employees. This store was her starship. Her employees made fun of her as a sci-fi geek, but many extremely ungeeky men were impressed by her knowledge of things Trek. Had those employees known of the after-closing rendezvous that took place behind life-size cardboard Captain Kirk and Lieutenant Word displays, they would never look at their manager in the same dorky light again.*

Andie knew, though. Jess had once talked incessantly of her intergalactic conquests, as she liked to call them. Maybe she told her because she knew her assistant manager would keep it to herself; maybe because Andie was such a matronly wallflower, even at 30, that Jess kept hoping to shock some color into her cheeks. She never knew if Andie took it all in, though, or if those words bounced right off her eardrums and back into the dusty air of the stockroom. Finally she stopped wondering and stopped the telling.

Jonah, Ernesto, and Gabrielle, who had been at the store about as long as Andie, had explained to Jess the behavior of the mousy second-in-command as best they could, for they had witnessed its cause—but had never seen an effect of this depth result from any other tragedy.

Andie had been one of the handful of adolescents in history to actually find true love in high school. She and her sweetheart married as soon as they finished college, she in journalism and he in molecular biology. They led an idyllic life until the day tragedy struck. Alex was diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer that ate away at him almost as soon as they found out he was sick. In two short months Andie watched the man who was her heart wither away to a collection of twigs, heard him moan from the depths of his being with a pain whose echo she felt in her very soul, felt his spirit slipping away over days and weeks even as she held the warm hand that had protected her for so long from any harm. They were both 26. She had been working part time at the bookstore and part time reporting for a local newspaper, he at a local medical laboratory, putting as much money away as they could for the family they planned to start sometime in the next two years. Both employers gave her a leave of absence during Alex’s illness, and urged her to take more time after his death. They feared for her when they saw the collapse in her face, the utter vacancy in her eyes. Her spirit had left with Alex’s.

Her spirit had left with Alex’s last breath, but did not stay with him as his soared away. Instead it went into a dusty, unused corner of a drawer somewhere in the attic, curled itself into a ball, and cried itself quivering to sleep, hoping to either die or awaken when this part of the story was over.

She never again came close to being the person she had been. The only outward expression of any sort of grief or emotion occurred when she went near that romance section of the bookstore (to which Gabrielle had finally persuaded her to return), or near Faulkner or Marquez, Alex’s favorite authors. She left journalism behind, having no desire to participate in life, to reflect on it or pass it along to readers any longer. She moved into a ground floor room in an old woman’s house, where she had her own bathroom and kitchen area; one day let in a cat who looked cold and who subsequently never left again; and lived that way ever after, going to work daily but never really associating with anyone there, working weekends, talking to others only when she had to. Regular customers smiled and said hello but left her to herself. Jess was hired five years after Alex’s death.

By now she had stopped inflicting her lurid escapades on Andie, and in fact the escapades were becoming fewer and farther between.

“I’ve found my Klingon, my warrior of love,” she told Ernesto one day as they worked in the science fiction section.

“Good,” he replied. “Maybe now Captain Kirk here can sleep in peace.” Her eyes widened in astonishment as her brain tried to restart. “You mean you still don’t know that those air ducts in the back room carry every sound outside back there?” He reveled in the shock he had given her. Jess could barely face the other employees the rest of the day.

Even the UPS man, new as he was, noticed her unusual reticence and asked if she was OK. She took a deep breath. “Yeah, I’m fine.” She remembered the last UPS man and sighed in relief that he had relocated to Ohio. One fewer reminder of her exploits. “I don’t think I ever got your name, UPS man,” she said as she signed for today’s shipment.

“Yeah, they haven’t given me a name patch yet,” he answered, looking to the spot on his brown jacket where it would soon be. “It’s Gryphon. Gryphon MacFitzhugh.”**

Jess reached out her hand and smiled. “Jess. That’s a very Scottish name you have there, Gryphon.”

“Yeah, my ancestors went a little nuts with it. Thanks,” he hurriedly took the clipboard back and left abruptly. Jess’s forehead crossed as she watched the door shut behind him. What was that all about?

*note required entry of sexually experienced and knowledgeable female friend
**note author’s inability to cobble together an actual Scottish name