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]