by Alexie Aaron
“Pick me up,” Nash completed.
“Yes.”
“What if, instead of you choosing a book, the book chooses you?” Nash asked.
“Intriguing.”
“Do you remember any of the titles?” Nash asked.
“Just Rebecca. I recognized the edition. I remember being surprised because I had recently read an article about Daphne du Maurier. I read Rebecca when I was going through my gothic phase in my teens. I remember standing there and thinking that I didn’t have the maturity originally to understand the book when I read it.”
“But you didn’t take it home?”
“No.”
“If it was during the gloaming, the book would have found its way into your backpack, whether it was you putting it there or me.”
“So you’re saying the book would have taken control of me?”
“Or me. If you opened it and began to read, maybe I would have experienced seeing Manderley again too.”
“I think I’ll call bullshit on this story.”
Nash sat there a moment, trying to decide if the risk that Clara would reject his friendship if he continued, was worth the telling of his story. But the stubborn set of her chin pushed away the fear, and he began, “Early in my bookshop days, I had an elderly woman make her way slowly past me. She used a cane, and I could tell that she hurt. I mean, every joint in her eighty-year-old body hurt. I cleared my voice and asked her if I could help her. She asked where the real books were. I wasn’t going to get into a debate with this octogenarian that all books are real. I pretty much took for granted that she wanted a hardcover book. I told her that they were upstairs and offered to fetch whatever she was looking for, for her.”
“That was before your grumpy days.”
“Be nice,” Nash warned Clara.
She lifted her hand. “I’m sorry, please continue.”
“She said the journey up the stairs would be worth it, so I let her go. Admittedly, I shadowed her first with my gaze and then with my body. I was not going to let the woman fall to her death on my stairs. Once she was upstairs, I came back down and took care of a few stacks of best sellers. I listened to her footfalls. The slow steady clump of the cane, then step, step. Clump, step, step, and then nothing. Since I didn’t hear her fall, I assumed she was reading. Suddenly, there was a flurry of light steps, which alarmed me. I ran to the stairs in time to see this dignified woman slide down the banister with her cane and a book tucked under her arm. I caught her before she flew off the end.”
“And…” Clara prompted, not knowing where his narrative was going.
“She handed me the book and waltz-stepped her way to the counter.”
“What was the book?”
“Mary Poppins. She had come in to buy something to read to her great-granddaughter who was recovering in the hospital. I remember she said something about not seeing it the first time she walked by. But she felt it call to her. She kept up the zany energy until she left the building. That was when the cane was no longer a prop but became a necessity.”
“Forgive me, but you’re not trying to tell me the book gave her energy?”
“No, of course not. It put her in the Mary Poppins state of mind.”
“Did the store cause this connection or did the book?”
“The book in the store. I didn’t understand the timing until more and more strange occurrences happened when the shadow of the giants fell upon my little shop.”
“It still could be a ghost. Ever hear of possession?”
“Only that it’s nine tenths of the law…”
Clara glared at Nash for his glib answer.
“The book chose the woman.”
“Nah, something chose the book for the woman,” Clara argued.
Nash set his empty cup down on the floor. He needed both of his hands to talk properly. “On one hand, you’re telling me I have a ghost selecting books for my customers, but on the other, you refuse to believe that a book could influence the mind of the customer and cause this, let’s say, connection.”
“Yes. Ghosts used to be people. Sentient beings. Books are but an assemblage of words on a page. They don’t think.”
“You don’t think authors pour their life and soul into their books?” Nash questioned.
“That’s different. Are you telling me that all Mary Poppins books during the gloaming cast a spell over their readers?”
“No, of course not. By the way, I never stocked any of P.L. Travers’s books upstairs. I kept them on the ground floor with the other children’s books.”
“The easy answer is that a customer had it in hand and decided against it and put it on a shelf. That’s probably why she didn’t see it at first. She wasn’t looking for it there.”
“That’s what I thought. It took a dozen or more incidents to convince me that something paranormal was happening in my shop between the hours of three and five.”
“But you don’t believe in ghosts.”
“Not in the shop.”
“Maybe the gloaming brings them.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know?” Clara admitted. “But it makes more sense than the gloaming feeds your books with paranormal energy.”
“Does it?” Nash questioned.
“It wasn’t during the gloaming that Rebecca pushed herself forward,” Clara stated. “If memory serves me, it was just after you reopened your door at five.”
“I can’t be exact with the time, but years of being there have convinced me that if I want to keep most of the weirdness away, I close the shop between three and five every afternoon.”
“Do you feel the books are dangerous?”
“I have had a lot of time to think about books while I’m working,” Nash explained. “After an adventuresome incident, I started to think about books that may influence certain minds to do more than take a ride down the banister. The Catcher in the Rye has a history with snipers. Thomas Paine’s Common Sense still strikes a chord with revolutionaries. Let’s not forget in whose hands Mein Kampf seems to find itself. In 1774, Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe developed an immediate cult following, and at least one copy was found in the pocket of a suicide victim.”
“You’re saying these are bad books?” Clara asked.
“No! Just that if I kept them in the store and someone read them during the gloaming and acted out, hurting themselves or others, then I would be responsible.”
“Sell the stock and start over.”
“I have found books in my shop that I never brought in. The reason the spines are aligned is, I do that periodically so I can try to catch these vessels of mischief.”
“Sell the shop and move on.”
“I have a ten-year lease.”
“Who signs a ten-year lease?”
“I assure you it made sense in the beginning.”
Clara looked at the man she still had imprisoned in the large chair. She unwound her legs and scooted the footstool backwards. “Thank you for telling me. I assure you I will keep it to myself.” She reached down and put his and her cup on the tray.
Nash nodded sadly. “But I won’t be seeing you anymore.”
“Why not?” she asked, lifting the tray.
“I thought…”
“Every one of us has quirks. Yours is saving the world from your books. Mine is believing in ghosts and my insatiable hunger for chocolate-covered cherries. I’ve given them up for Lent and then chose to become a lapsed Christian for succumbing to my craving two days in. I’ve learned to make a healthier version of them myself, but I really like the cheap ones. Lord knows what’s in them.”
“What else do you believe in?” Nash asked, connecting with her dark brown eyes.
“Angels, fairies, most of the things little girls believe in. I’ve never quite grown out of believing that we aren’t alone here.”
“Have you ever seen a ghost?” he asked.
Clara looked at his se
rious face and nodded. “Mostly just the wisp of something. Things that can be explained away. It seemed a harmless fascination. I would watch ghost-hunter shows, scanning their footage in hopes of seeing or hearing something no one else heard. I’m not sensitive, so I never expected to actually see an active haunt, just pictures, perhaps, from the past. When you do see a ghost, it changes you.”
“I take it you did see one,” Nash said.
Clara put the tray down and resumed her seat in front of him. She pushed her hair back behind her ears. Nash thought that she looked like an elf when she did this, but he’d never tell her so.
“I used to walk through the theater district on my way to work from the pool where I swim laps when the lake is too cold. Sometimes, I weave in and out of the alleys. They have a certain ambiance that is hard to explain unless you’ve been there.”
“It could hardly be safe,” Nash said.
“I get up so early that by the time I start walking, the late-night lurkers have long gone. It’s like I have the city to myself. Once, I stopped walking to answer a text from Johan. It was a reminder for me to teach Raul not to be so heavy-handed with the cayenne pepper when he makes the Hollandaise sauce. I answered with a pepper emoji. Immediately after, I felt a chill and assumed the wind had wound its way from the lake to the alley. I looked up from my phone, and a face was inches from mine. I peed myself. I’m not lying. I stood there frozen. The result from my only active bodily function was running down my leg into my shoes. I waited for it to move, speak, anything. It just stood its ground. I managed to step backwards, and the ghost smiled and disappeared. I wanted to take off running, but standing in your own urine takes the athleticism out of you.”
“You should have said, takes the piss out of you,” Nash said, his eyes twinkling.
“I’ll remember that next time I tell the story,” Clara said.
“Go on.”
“I stood there, looked around me, and felt something. I felt that I had in some way invaded the space of the ghost. It seemed happy when it was able to frighten me. I remember thinking respect my space. The next day, I returned, and I could make out the spot I had stood in by the faint aroma of piss. I shook the can of spray paint I had purchased at the Ace Hardware and circled the spot with Day-Glo orange.”
“Why?”
“I’m not really sure of my motivation. Maybe so I could avoid walking over the spot, or in my fantasies, I could show someone where to find a ghost. After a few days, I let the fantasy go and, eventually, only thought about the ghost when I passed the theater.”
“Which is every morning?”
“I’ve changed pools since then, one closer to where I live. I have a place a few blocks from here.”
“Me too.”
“I thought maybe you lived above the shop.”
“No. There is a small apartment up there, but I live elsewhere. The third story is for storage. Tell me about the ghost’s face,” Nate said, returning to the subject.
“I couldn’t tell you eye color, but it did have eyes. I remember overly accented eyebrows and the hair being pulled back so tightly that the chin seemed prominent. The mouth was a slash of red when it was closed, and the teeth were yellow when it smiled.”
“Coffee drinker,” Nash suggested and ran his finger over his teeth.
“Tea or wine,” Clara offered.
“Smoker!” both said in unison.
This brought on laughter, and the tension created with the telling of the story eased.
“Now I see your fascination for my shop. All this time I thought it was for me.”
Clara tried to control the blush that was rising. She popped up and walked swiftly to the sink and began the task of cleaning the cups and cream pitcher.
Nash got to his feet. He walked over. Clara pulled out a fresh dishtowel and tossed it to him. Nash obediently dried the dishes while watching Clara disassemble the ancient espresso machine.
“Mind me asking you a personal question?” Clara asked.
“No.”
“How can you make a living if you close for two hours during the day?”
“I’m just missing the hours that seniors take naps, parents pick up their kids from school, and the working class is… well… working.”
“Ah.”
“The only time it’s a problem is when I have a dealer who insists on doing business at that time.”
“How do you resolve that?”
“Meet the dealer somewhere else. Usually, it’s the lobby of their hotel.”
“So you’re not talking souls with a garbage bag full of paperbacks.”
“No. I make most of my money trading in first editions and rare books.”
“Do you go to auctions?”
“No. I belong to a group, and we share the cost and expenses of a scout.”
“Who does your repairs?”
“If it’s simple, I do it. If it demands an expert, I leave it in the good hands of Miss Natalie.”
“Miss Natalie?”
“Miss Natalie Boccasavia. I bring my books to her personally.”
Clara felt funny. “I don’t know why I’m interrogating you?”
“I find it charming. But turnabout is fair play. Are you married?”
Clara almost dropped the portafilter basket. “No, I’m not married.”
“Seeing anyone?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I’m butt ugly.”
It was Nash’s turn to jostle the item he was drying. “Be serious.”
“I don’t know. My hours are crazy. My last relationship sucked. I’m seventy percent happy with my life right now. Why ruin it?”
“You’re telling me that being in a relationship is only worth thirty percent?”
“This is where the happiness ratios get tricky,” Clara stalled.
Nash finished drying the cream pitcher and waited.
“If you’re friends with the person you end up in a relationship with, it’s worth another thirty percent. So you can imagine if your partner with whom you were also great friends with leaves…”
“You’re back in forty-percent-happiness hell,” Nash answered.
Clara took a leap. “Are you married?”
“Nope.”
“Ever?”
“Yes. The money to open the shop came from a very guilty ex named Rita.” Nash looked sideways at Clara. “I’m not seeing anyone. I’m not broken - beyond my penchant to run off at the mouth and be insulting.”
“Challenging. You’re challenging,” Clara said. “Sorry, thinking aloud.”
Nash grinned. “Today, I found out that you think I’m careful with my money, challenging instead of insulting, and - what was that other thing?”
“Clever, you’re clever,” Clara answered.
“Seems to me I should return the compliments,” Nash said.
“Don’t. I don’t like forced admissions,” Clara said. “Shall we go? I’ve got a Clara-do list to complete before I hit the hay. My day starts at 4:30 a.m.”
Nash followed Clara through the maze and up the stairs. He waited outside while she armed the alarm. She didn’t meet his eyes when she walked out. Nash was puzzled. Where had he gone wrong? Did he unintentionally bring up bad memories? He didn’t want their hour of closeness to be swept away with bitter brooms.
“Clara, are we alright? Did I blunder?”
Clara looked up at Nash and saw sincerity in his eyes.
She bit her lip and shook her head. “I really like you, Nash. You’re my thirty percent.”
“And you don’t want to lose it by taking a chance on making it sixty.”
“Yes.”
“We’ll take a step back, but I do want you to know that I have the same fears.”
“Thank you for your honesty,” Clara said and leaned over and gave him a clumsy hug.
Nash fought the urge to make the hug the start of something else. He counted
out the appropriate seconds of body contact and released her. They made awkward small talk until they went their separate ways.
Clara crossed the street. Nash watched her until she was safely on the sidewalk before he turned and continued towards his shop.
Clara leaned against the wall of the building and watched Nash walk away. She balled her fist and cursed. “Clara, you big dope. You’re nothing but a big chicken.” She looked up and caught a slice of sky. “Chicken Little, the sky is not falling. He’s scared too.”
Chapter Three
Wendell Baumbach attached the padded chair covers, his mother had made for him, to the seats of the metal folding chairs. He didn’t know anymore how many to bring to the basement meeting room that was generously provided by the community center to the Page Turners book club. The only stipulation of having the free use of the room was for Wendell to do his own setup and take down of the chairs. At one time, he had lugged thirty-six chair pads in and out of the building, but the book club had dwindled in the last three months. As the summer months approached, he normally saw the membership temporary fall off, but to lose ten people in the spring without any communication was defeating.
Was it the book they were reading? For their annual classic book discussion, the group had agreed on Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden because it could be picked up at the library or cheaply at many of the bookstores. He even had sent a few readers over to One More Time secondhand bookshop after finding out Greene had a few battered copies with Nora S. Unwin’s illustrations inside. Kabir Patel complained about the colonial aspect of the story, and Marc Davis didn’t like to read anything he considered for children or young adult - although it was rumored that he had the full set of Harry Potters, two of them autographed. Wendell assured both men that the layers that they could explore would keep all satisfied. Marc liked layers. Kabir liked competing with Marc.
Rail-thin Elma Kis rolled her wheeled briefcase in and settled herself in the middle of the crescent Wendell had established. Marta and Trina Baker walked in carrying baskets of home-baked cookies to pass around. Rex Lewis brought two large thermoses of coffee labeled Leaded and Unleaded and set them on the long table in the back of the room. He walked over and dropped his bag between Marta and Trina, whom he referred to as his bodacious bookends. Soon the others filed in, some with snacks, some with only their books. Wendell wasn’t a stickler for them all having the same editions as was demanded by many book clubs. The advantage of all of them having the same edition would be calling out page numbers when they were jumping around looking at plot and character development. Although it took some of them a while to find the passages they were discussing, it still was worth it not to overly inconvenience the book club members. Once they got into the groove of the evening, everything went smoothly.