A Short Walk to the Bookshop

by Aleksandra Drake

  "Hey, smell these." I said, greeting Paula as I came in the store. Heather was with her, they were standing together looking at a sign about a sale on local carrots and looking annoyed. Both of them whirled their heads around and Paula took the lilacs from me and pushed them to her nose.

  "Oh god, that smells like home, huh?"

  Paula handed the flowers to Heather who sniffed as well, and her usually stern face softened and she nodded in appreciation. That was the best I would get from her. After a moment more Heather disappeared into the back of the store, saying something about ‘needing to talk to our grocery guy.’

  "Heather wants me to make this sign more pizazzy," Paula laughed

  "Pizazzy? Did she really say that?"

  Paula laughed again, and together we brought the sale sign up to one of the empty cashier lanes and attacked it with markers to try and make it more eye catching.

  "It's my birthday on Saturday," I said, hoping it sounded casual. The truth was that I was excited about it, even as I was preparing to be disappointed. This was the first time I would be away from family for my birthday, and I hadn't exactly made a party's worth of friends since moving here. I knew it would be a lonely birthday, but I couldn't help feeling excited anyway. I put that down to childhood conditioning.

  "No kidding? How old will you be?" She added another lopsided star to the tomato sale sign.

  "Thirty two," I said

  "Christ, you look younger than that. I woulda sworn you were in your twenties still."

  I shrugged my shoulders. I was used to hearing that I looked younger than I was. I think most people meant it as a compliment of sorts, appealing to the feminine phobia of aging. They didn't know that I struggled with the belief that my anxious behaviors and mannerisms were childish and beneath me. They thought I was in my twenties because I acted like a terrified college student living alone for the first time. I added another cartoon carrot to the sign.

  "Are you having a party?" She capped her marker.

  "I don't really have anyone to invite."

  "Oh, is that so?" She gave me such an arch look that I had to laugh.

  "Besides you, but if you're the only one who comes it's more of a quiet tea party than a birthday party, right?"

  "You've got Mr. Bookstore," she said. I followed her as she brought the sign back to the tomatoes.

  "I don't know if he is really the party type." I glanced over my shoulder to see an elderly woman waiting at my register with a small basket of things and, dropping the conversation almost mid sentence, I hurried back to my position.

  There was a small rush that followed. One of those impossible to prepare for, random rushes that happen occasionally. I wasn't thinking about my birthday anymore when, later, Paula reminded me.

  "If you want, I'd be happy to throw you a party. I'm certain I can scrounge up some people to invite. I think you have more friends than you realize, maybe, and I could introduce you to people. It will be fun for me to do this, too," she said, leaning over her own register to talk.

  I cringed inwardly, knowing that it would be good for me in theory to do something social, but also knowing that it was impossible for me to plan concrete events into the future, never knowing what my anxiety would be like on that particular day. It could be a perfectly fine little get together, or it could be an absolute nightmare where I white-knuckled the entire event while praying for it to end without offending anyone there.

  "Yeah, sure," I heard myself saying.

  Mom would be proud of me, at least. That I was already at the end of my rope in terms of consistent socialization didn't much matter to her. She just wanted me to do more, make more friends, do more things, be more like I was when I was an extroverted teen.

  Throughout the week, occasionally Paula would come to me with various questions that served to remind me that she was throwing me a birthday party.

  "Is it okay if it's at your own house?" (Yes.)

  "Are you a vegetarian?" (No.)

  "Do you mind if kids come?" (Not really.)

  "Is alcohol okay?" (Don't throw me a kegger, but yeah.)

  During every lunch break I walked over to the bookstore and told Diedrich that I was considering cancelling the whole thing. Every day he gently convinced me not to.

  "I don't even know anyone," I said through a mouthful of chicken sandwich.

  "The only people who are coming that you don't know are the wives and kids of the guys from the book club, and they're obligated to like you by association. It's the very least any of us can do to show you that you're a part of the group here."

  His persuasion could not be fully trusted seeing as he had a conflict of interest, having been roped into helping with the set up at my house on Saturday morning by Paula. Still, I left each lunch break feeling once again reassured that it was alright to let people into my house to eat cake.

  On the critical day I woke to the sound of rain pattering on my window. I thought that I was getting used to the rainforest conditions of West Bend, but whenever I woke to rain it still caught me off guard, after living in Texas my whole life. I rolled out of bed just long enough to crack open the window to let in the rainy morning, then crawled back into the bed and pulled the covers up to my nose.

  It was May 5th, and I was thirty two years old.

  That day I drank coffee on the front steps, watching the wind blow the lilacs and the raindrops splashing into the puddles that formed on the uneven walkway to my door. I didn't talk to anyone at all until two in the afternoon.

  "Happy birthday," Diedrich greeted me when I opened the door for him. He was holding a bouquet of flowers and several shopping bags. The bouquet was made up of bright, hearty spring flowers, tulips, daisies, daffodils, that seemed out of place with the greyness outside. When he handed them to me I immediately shoved my face into the middle of them and inhaled deeply.

  "Thank you for these. You didn't need to."

  "Please," he laughed as he walked in. "Is Paula here yet?"

  "Not yet." Athena sat herself between Diedrich and me, and I became aware of the fact that this was the first time he'd been inside my house. In fact, this was the first time anyone had been inside my house. I looked around the room with fresh eyes, wondering how it looked to an outsider.

  "You can put those bags on the table, if you want." Diedrich seemed to take up a lot of space in my house, like a big dark smudge standing next to my couch. I was about to offer him coffee while he waited when there was a knock at the door.

  "Must be Paula," I said.

  She whirled in like a tornado, laden with bags of what looked like streamers and plastic tablecloths.

  "Diedrich! Did you bring the plastic forks?" She asked with panic in her eyes.

  Diedrich laughed. "I brought the plastic forks."

  Paula turned to me and hugged me, wishing me a happy birthday before launching into whether or not I minded if she moved the dining room table.

  It had never occured to me that Diedrich and Paula were not meeting for the first time when they had decided to collaborate on my birthday, but watching them as they scurried around hanging decorations and arranging plates and things it was obvious that they'd known each other for some time. Which, when I thought about it for more than a couple seconds, made perfect sense, since he lived across the street from where she worked and he probably went into the store every couple of days at least. Hell, I'd even seen them exchange small talk at the register.

  And here I was thinking I was the lynchpin of this little social circle.

  For the most part both Diedrich and Paula were averse to the idea of me helping them to set up, but I refused to make myself scarce. In the end it was me teetering on the arm of the couch, Diedrich hovering anxiously near me, tacking yellow streamers up to my own ceiling.

  "I was afraid you'd think paper streamers were too childish," Paula confessed. "But it's not really a birthday party without them, is it? No matter what age you are."

  I hopped down off the arm of the co
uch rather than stepping on the seat first and Diedrich made a jerking motion as if too catch me before stepping back, embarrassed.

  "Yeah. I like them," I said truthfully.

  The oven timer went off and Diedrich disappeared to put something in it. Between the two of them, they'd assembled a larger dinner than I'd had since I moved, including a salad, a roasted chicken of some sort that smelled amazing as it cooked, and baked brie with what looked suspiciously like homemade bread that Diedrich had brought.

  Having both Diedrich and Paula in my house at the same time was about as stimulating as I could handle. When another knock came to the door my heart thudded in my chest and I instinctively sought out Diedrich's eyes.

  He nodded at me kindly and told me to sit down and relax and he'd welcome the others for me. I did as he told me, with Athena worriedly following me to the couch. She jumped up next to me to put her head in my lap. In a moment I was surrounded by Stephen and several people I didn't know, including two small children.

  "Happy Birthday, Sparrow!" Stephen greeted, then motioned to an older woman with coiffed silver hair. "This is my wife Eleanor. The two little ones are my grandchildren Tanya and Charlie."

  I shook hands with the older woman and smiled at the kids, but was spared of the need to come up with small talk by the prompt arrival of Richard. Even Heather came, though I didn't know she'd been invited and she was slightly late. Outside of work she was downright pleasant, sipping wine and laughing with Paula.

  It was strange, and more than a little uncomfortable, to have a birthday party where everyone else seemed to know each other better than I knew them. But it was a good thing that they were able to keep up the festive mood mostly without my help.

  The house was absolutely full. I'd considered it full when I was there alone with Athena. Having Diedrich there had been a stretch. Then Diedrich and Paula. By the time we sat down to eat there were no spare seats at the table. I felt faint.

  Athena began to turn circles around my feet and, glancing down at her, I excused myself out the back door, ostensibly to let her out. In reality, she'd sensed my discomfort and given me an excuse to leave the room. It was already growing dark by then, and I hadn't put on a coat in my rush. The chilled spring air calmed my nerves by giving me a better excuse to shiver.

  There was a soft tap on the sliding glass door behind me and soon I was joined by Paula, who smiled apologetically.

  "Are you alright, hun?" she asked in that typically sweet voice.

  "Yup. Yeah. I'm fine. Athena needed to go out is all," I lied.

  She made understanding noises and patted me warmly on the back. "You go ahead and take your time," she said and went back into the warmth of my kitchen.

  I took several more deep breaths of the cold air and watched Athena take a couple more laps of the small yard then, steeling my nerves, I returned to the party.

  It was not at all as bad as I had feared, once I got used to the noise. I was able to eat, and only once did I get hit with a wave of tension-induced nausea that threatened to undo the effort it had taken. I still suspected that Diedrich had baked that loaf of bread himself, and, coupled with the baked brie, it was my favorite part of the meal. Including the cake, which had been made by Paula and was perfectly fine except for the thirty two individual candles on top that made me feel ancient and ridiculous.

  With Richard around the table, there was never any fear of a lull in conversation becoming awkwardly long. He was uproarious as usual, and with the addition of two children under age twelve there was never any shortage of festive noise.

  The worst part was the gifts. Everyone watched me and I started to sweat right away. These people were my friends, yes, but we'd only known each other for a few months so the gifts were conspicuously generic. Candles, hand lotion, that sort of thing.

  Paula handed me her gift with all the enthusiasm of an excited child. I could swear she looked twenty years younger in the soft light and smiling like that. I ripped the paper off of it to reveal a box containing one of those old fashioned, bright yellow, long raincoats. Complete with matching hat.

  "Oh my god," I laughed.

  "Count this as your birthday present AND a 'Welcome to Washington' present," she explained.

  "It's going to look amazing on me. Thank you." I laughed, pulling the shiny plastic coat over the arm of the couch and putting the hat on my head.

  Diedrich was the last to give me his gift. He had sat a little bit back from the group as I opened gifts, looking almost as uncomfortable as I felt with all the hubbub.

  The gift he handed to me was decidedly book shaped, to no one's surprise. I knew it wasn't a normal book as soon as I saw the tooled leather cover, though. My fingers traced the edges of the paper and I flicked it open, revealing pages and pages of creamy blankness. He'd bought me a journal.

  I felt like an idiot, but I had to fight back tears. The room had quieted down and I was suddenly struck with the fact that, only a few months into my move, I was surrounded by friends and coworkers in my home. People who cared enough to celebrate my birthday even if they didn't know much of anything about me. And Diedrich had gotten me a fresh, crisp journal. It felt like a new start. Even if I did have more sleepless nights than restful ones, and even if I did still sometimes panic and think I needed to run back to my mother, I was here.

  I felt for once that maybe it was possible to simply leave my old life behind. The journal was heavy on my lap.

  I was thankful to Stephen's grandchildren and their early bedtime because people began to say their goodbyes shortly after gifts. The first to leave was Richard. I suspected that he was hurrying off because he had a date. As he went out the door, he quickly wrapped his arms around me in a hug. I was so stunned that I just stood there motionless. He didn't seem to notice my shock and said goodbye just as casually as could be and waltzed right out the door.

  I turned around to scan the other people and no one else seemed to have noticed the hug. At least, that's what I thought until, when more people left, everyone else hugged me, too. It was the most alarming thing that had happened that day.

  Stephen hugged like a dad, thumping my back and squeezing tight. His wife smelled like lavender oil. Heather gave a one armed hug.

  Paula and Diedrich were the last to leave.

  "Let me help you get some of this cleaned up," Paula said unsurprisingly. She started yanking streamers down from the ceiling, and it seemed like such a waste after having just put them up a few hours ago. I was a little sad to see them go.

  While Paula and I cleared out the dining room and the living room, Diedrich was clanging away in the kitchen. I tried my best not to be embarrassed about the sad state of affairs in there. I'd only moved in with what kitchen supplies my mom could part with, so how he was going to manage to package up leftovers in my two tupperware containers was a mystery.

  For how large and overwhelming the party was, it didn't leave that much of a mess to clean up and soon I was faced with the prospect of Diedrich and Paula leaving as well, leaving me suddenly alone after it all.

  "There's plenty of food left," Diedrich said as I walked into the fluorescent lighted kitchen. "I put everything in the fridge. You shouldn't have to cook for a couple days."

  "Happy birthday to me," I grinned

  "Exactly."

  "I've got to run," Paula said, pulling on a jacket as she came into the kitchen. She fought with her voluminous hair and the zipper of the jacket as she spoke. "It's later than I thought it was. Sparrow, I'm so proud of you, I know you’re shy and it wasn't easy to host so many people at once but I'm glad we all were able to get together and make your birthday special." Finally winning the battle between her hair and her zipper she looked up and beamed, wrapping me in the tightest of hugs yet.

  "I'll see you on Monday, hey?"

  "Yeah. I'll see you then. And thanks for the raincoat."

  She laughed as she left, leaving a wake of silence behind her as she did. Diedrich was moving into the living room an
d gathering his coat and hat.

  "I hope we didn't overstep tonight. I imagined it a bit quieter than it turned out to be," he said. Everything felt quiet now even if I was still quaking from the adrenaline of being around so many people.

  "You didn't. Thank you. I'd been bracing myself for a lonely birthday."

  He smiled and seemed to hesitate before, like the others, he wrapped his arms around my shoulders.