by Tracy Ellen
I own Bel’s Books and the building free and clear, but the heating and cooling bills alone are killer. I need to be innovative and proactive to keep growing my business and generating profits. The gambler in me doesn’t balk at using a portion of my nest egg capitol to make investments towards the future. The businesswoman in me knows making solid investment decisions means having a well-defined and researched master game plan outlining the goals I want to achieve. Then I had to be flexible enough to be willing to toss the game plan aside sometimes. Opportunity has a way of popping up without warning or planning. Always helpful are a good banker, good advice, good credit, and good karma. Knock on wood.
Bel’s Books is an institution in Northfield. Thanks in large to my grandmother, the bookstore has had a solid rep for over forty years. With the addition of Laissez Fare, we are now also known as the place to get organic, high-quality “fast food.” We serve coffee drinks, juice concoctions, sandwich wraps, soups and salads, and my personal living hell on earth: incredibly tasty bakery treats.
Customers have always hung around the store. Since Laissez Fare opened, a significant number more stay to eat and drink while they do homework, browse and read, hang out with friends, or hit on my assorted staff members. As long as people spend money and don’t cause any commotion, I’m cool with it all.
Anna is making a living doing something she loves, and by existing on a miniscule wage, has almost paid me back the startup costs. I lease out the space, got a percentage of the profits, and free coffee drinks for life. Anna cut me off cold turkey from free bakery goodies a week after opening. I love or hate her for that, fluctuating with my blood sugar levels.
Banging away in her kitchen this morning, Anna complained, “Are you on speaker? I hate that tunnel sound. What are you doing now, anyway?”
“I’m rubbing oil on my buttocks. Gots me some ground to cover, girl, but I’ll be done in a minute.”
Anna’s laugh ended on a groan. “Oh God, tell me about ass acreage. I have got to quit eating my product. I’m getting depressed my jeans are so frickin’ tight lately.” Anna’s figure was small on top and bigger on the bottom. Any weight gain did go straight to her thighs and gluteus maximus, but on the bright side; she has a slender neck and thin face.
“Huh, that’s never a good sign. Perhaps wearing a muzzle while cooking might help?” I suggested, helpful friend that I am. Glancing in the full-length mirror, I checked out my waistline. I should probably thank my friend for cutting me off the sugar gravy train.
Anna’s ungrateful suggestion of what I could do with a muzzle made me think she didn’t find me helpful in this instance.
“Are we still on at ten for spying in St. Paul today?”
“Okay by me.” Frowning, I thought of the sleeping Luke. He had to be awake and long gone before ten this morning when I needed to leave. If not, I could leave him a note. I guess since he had no problem unlocking my door somehow last night to come and get me, he could manage locking it on his way out.
“I’ll be there before ten. Hey, wait. What are you wearing?”
“Umm…I’m naked.”
Anna burst out laughing. “Junior! I meant tonight when we go to The Rock. Are you dressing up?”
Anna likes to know what others were wearing before we go out. I’ve never cared what other girls are wearing. I could get excited over clothes, shoes have been known to cause spontaneous combustion, and jewelry- well, what happens between me and earrings is too private to describe, but I’m missing the let’s-all-dress-alike gene common amongst so many of my girlfriends.
I put the gardenia oil aside, took the phone off speaker, and went into my closet once again. “Anna Lynn, I’m not even dressed for the first time today, much less thinking about tonight. You’ll be the first person I’ll tell when I decide. I’ll post on Facebook and then Twitter about it.”
“Like that will happen, you Neanderthal,” Anna scoffed loudly.
I always give her grief about her religious devotion to social networking; particularly re-tweeting. She’s always got an eye on her phone or a screen. I am a social throwback compared to her. I find nothing redeeming about Facebook for social purposes. I get very sick of friends stalking friends. Who went out and who didn’t get invited, who was in pictures, who was unfriended. The damned drama it caused was endless.
Anna switched topics. “Are you done with that zombie book yet so I can read it? Hey, did Luke ever end up calling you last night?”
“Nope, I fell asleep while reading and Luke didn’t call me.” I wasn’t fibbing.
“Oh no! Isn’t that weird for him to miss a Friday night phone call? Aren’t you nervous?”
Anna’s aware Luke calls me on the Friday nights when he’s out of town. Phoning me was a ritual he had started after the first week we met. She’s been there on a few Fridays when he’s called, plus she met him three weeks ago.
When he’s gone from town for his job, she now frets over him like a mother hen. I have no idea why. She knows fewer specifics about what Luke does for his job than I do. Still, Anna is convinced Luke’s a secret agent risking life and limb for the good of our country, an unknown and unsung hero.
A natural worrier, she rushed on, “You haven’t heard from him this morning either? I hope he’s okay.” She muttered that anxiously under her breath. I heard water running and rattling noises, it sounded like silverware being tossed around. “When did he call you last?”
I felt bad for not reassuring her that Luke was fine and dandy and hogging my bed even as we spoke, but then I was over it. Anna knows I don’t do sleepovers or boyfriends. She would be agog at my departure from the norm and want all the details. Maybe at some point I’ll tell her more, if there is more to tell, but not now.
“Don’t worry, Mother Hubbard. I’m sure he’s fine.” I hurried her off the phone, “I’ve got to get dressed. I am freezing standing here. See you at ten.”
I wasn’t sure how I felt about my best friend and lover becoming friends, much less Anna starting to romanticize Luke into some sort of American James Bond. I guess it was slightly better than if they hated each other.
Chapter V
“Torn” by Natalie Imbruglia
Saturday, 11/17/12
8:00 AM
After ending the daily call with Anna, I quickly finished getting ready. I blew my long layers straight and put on a little make-up.
I dressed casually in a favorite pair of skinny black jeans and a white button-down shirt. I rolled up the cuffs neatly. I don’t like long sleeves. Over this, I wore a short fitted black vest, but I left it unbuttoned.
Stella and I are jewelry and accessory fiends. She has shopped with me since she’s been old enough to point and drool at what she likes. We love to look for treasures in places like antique and flea markets, or in shops tucked away in neighborhoods.
We often re-purpose our found treasures into something else. Recently, we scavenged up some old, but architecturally interesting earrings and used them to decorate a hair clip. Stella also trimmed the vest I’m wearing with the gunmetal buttons in a baroque flower pattern. They’re pretty funky. There’s not too much we can’t improve upon.
I zipped on sturdy ankle boots with silver side buckles and only three-inch-high, square heels.
I was ready to search out my morning coffee.
Looking in the mirror, I put a hand to my ear and frowned. Make that almost ready.
Without earrings on I may as well be naked, but they’re kept in my bedroom. So are my necklaces, bracelets, and rings. Those I could live without for a short time, but not wearing earrings really bugs me.
Feeling a little cranky over being inconvenienced in my own home, I shrugged it off to another reason not to do sleepovers.
I planned to sneak in some work on the books before Stella arrived to open. My store office desktop is where I prefer to work.
I wasn’t going to hang around the apartment and wait for Luke to wake up. I decided correct morning-after behavior didn�
��t really matter to me, but I didn’t want to text Luke and wake him.
I left an actual handwritten note taped to the one place a man would be guaranteed to see it, the toilet lid.
Dear Mr. Muscles,
I’m worried our dates are becoming ho-hum…
I’m out and about doing stuff, so please lock up on your way out.
If you’re in town, you’re invited for Sunday dinner @ 5pm.
Have I told you lately you are very, very impressive?
X
Anabel
p.s. Your turn?
Purse swinging in hand, I was walking down the hall when the front doorbell rang. And rang, and kept on ringing. Whoever was outside my building pressing the doorbell wasn’t letting up and the annoyingly shrill buzzing sound was continuing nonstop.
I quickly dashed over to the master station intercom on the wall and checked out the view screen. I was surprised when I recognized who it was.
Smiling, I pushed the button to speak. “Crookie! Hey, easy on the buzzer. It’s so nice to see you, but why am I seeing you?”
The irritating noise stopped and a garbled voice queried, “An..el? Is ..at you?”
I watched the screen as Bob “Crookie” Crookston bent from his considerable height to speak directly into the box attached to Bel’s front entrance outside wall. He appeared to put his lips against it. I giggled, I couldn’t help it- that was so like him. He’s essentially a rocket scientist, but doesn’t get intercom systems and microphones have evolved since his ghetto, ancient apartment days at Purdue.
“Tis I, Anabel of Northfield. What up, dude?” I reared back in shock when a blast of jumbled, shouted words was my answer. Bob excited and loud was one thing, but Bob angry and yelling? This was very strange behavior coming from him.
Bob’s an old friend from high school. We had bonded our senior year as science partners and during our after school tutoring sessions. Even then, he’d been very tall and gangly skinny. He’d dressed goofy and wore ugly, thick framed glasses. He had been your typical nerd, incredibly intelligent and incredibly socially awkward.
Sitting next to me at our lab station in school, he had seemed terrified of me for the first two weeks of class. He couldn’t even look my way without turning beet red and breaking out into a sweat, sometimes hyperventilating.
I had to put a stop to that crapola immediately. I really needed his help because science gave me the worst headache. It was bad enough I had gotten stuck in biology, instead of my first choice of earth science, which sounded a whole lot friendlier to me.
My procrastination at taking the required science credit had caused me trouble; I couldn’t afford a B or lower because my colossally smart partner was petrified of half the human race. NanaBel had paid out a significant bonus for straight A’s. I had been too greedy to lose out on that primo deal for the first time ever in my school history. I was a girl with goals.
After my first quiz result of a B minus, I waited for Bob after school. I had borrowed MacKenzie’s pristine 1980 turbocharged Firebird Trans Am and driven that day. Mac, when she wasn’t being too bossy, was the greatest oldest sister. She’d usually been willing to let me use her car during the day while she slept after her graveyard nursing shift at Northfield Hospital. Mac’s only requirement had been that I kept the gas tank topped. I had a hard time seeing clearly over the bulge of the turbo hood, but it was worth every second of the neck strain. I loved the scream of the engine as I shifted from second into third at 4000 rpms.
Standing beside the Firebird, I had picked Bob immediately out of the crowd of our fellow inmates by his towering height, as he came scurrying down the sidewalk. Even with his head facing down, he was taller than everyone around him. By his hunched over posture, I had surmised he was carrying a load of boulders in his backpack.
I’d reached in the driver side open window and tooted the horn. He didn’t look up, so I’d laid on the horn until it penetrated even his genius fog. When he’d finally looked my way, I waved to him with a big smile and motioned for him to come over to my waiting car at the curb. It was comical to see him look around and point to himself in disbelief when he realized it was his attention I was trying to grab. It had been even funnier to see his expression as he checked out my ride. The decaled, turbo bird spitting out a large flame across the hood was pretty damn awesome.
At my cajoling insistence, he’d reluctantly folded himself into the passenger side. He had to slide the bucket seat so far back to accommodate his thirty-eight inch inseam that he was technically sitting in the back seat.
“What do you want, Ana…Anabel?”
Pulled so far forward in the driver’s seat to reach the pedals that I could be mistaken for a hood ornament, I roared off into the busy after school traffic.
Once on our way, I had answered him cheerfully. “Know what, Bob? I am so glad you asked me that question. What I want is exactly what I need to talk to you about today.”
I’d kept my eyes on the road but could clearly see him skittishly glancing my way. Between keeping a watchful eye out for sneaky relatives and always liking boys, my peripheral vision had been highly developed by the age of seventeen. I kept my face mostly forward for his comfort, but approached him straight on with my words.
I continued laying out my plan. “Here’s the deal. I’ve noticed you need my help in the worst way, Bob.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down rapidly before he’d croaked, “I do?”
“Yes, you do,” I affirmed assuredly.
I downshifted and swerved sharply around Anna’s Aunt Lily. She was in her old boat of an Oldsmobile doing ten mph on Jefferson Parkway- in a thirty mph zone! I’d barely resisted the urge to give her the finger when she angrily honked. It had been so tempting, as she’d think it was my sister, but I heroically refrained. I sighed when Bob closed his eyes tight and gave a silent scream.
“Relax, Bob. I’m a good driver.” I had sped up, hooked a left at the almost still yellow light, and gunned it. I headed south on Highway 3 out of town. “Yes, you really need my help and today’s your lucky day. Do you know why?”
Bob was still clutching the door handle in a death grip, but cautiously looked at me then. He was feeling safer to watch me since I hadn’t taken my eyes off the road once since I’d invited him into my car. I smiled inside.
“No,” he’d whispered.
I put a hand to my ear, “What, Bob? I can’t hear you!”
Bob cleared his throat and spoke up a little. “No Anabel, I don’t know why.”
“Why what?” I asked innocently.
At his distressed confusion, I’d relented with a chuckle.
“Sorry, Bob. I’m kind of a warped chick sometimes.” I turned and flashed a grin. He flinched. I faced the road again then, and had bit my cheek not to giggle. “It’s your lucky day because I have something I am going to give you, and you have something you are going to give me.”
I’d never seen anyone go from beet red to pasty white that fast. I had hurried on before he fainted, or worse. “Friendship! I’m only talking simple friendship here, okay?”
I laughed out loud when he had quickly shook his head back and forth “No” in denial. Poor Bob had been worse off than I even suspected.
“Yes.” I insisted.
He wheezed, “I can’t be friends with you!”
I’d frowned ominously at that. “The hell you say. Am I not smart enough to be your friend, or what?”
I waited patiently for his answer. Bob resembled a wise owl with glasses when his head bent to the side to consider my words. He probably had never considered whether he would choose to be friends with a girl before. He was only sure that because of his paralyzing shyness most girls wouldn’t want to be his friend. I could tell he’d been intrigued by the concept.
“Umm…I don’t know. You make me too nervous to think straight.” He’d blushed again and looked desperately out the window, as if seeking an escape route.
His speaking in semi-coher
ent sentences had encouraged me to believe I was doing the right thing for us both. Really smart people can do really dumb things, so I’d still clicked down the door locks in case he really would tuck and roll to get away from me. We’d been screaming down the road at eighty mph, and a brain his size was too beautiful of a thing to waste. At his look of fright at the clicking sound, I took pity and quickly filled him in on my brilliant idea.
“Straight up, my new friend, you are scared of girls and a science whiz. I am scared of science and a whiz at being a girl. See, I was thinking it’s kismet we are partners this year. Or maybe it’s destiny?” I’d shaken my head. “Either way, we have the ability to help each other out here. We can work together after school for an hour or two and tutor each other. What do you say?”
He’d finally smiled at me a little, or it could have been a nervous tic. Either way, he was no Justin Timberlake but his smile was rather adorable in a dorky way. Yes, he resembled an owlet with his staring, round eyes and perpetually surprised expression, but it wasn’t like he’d been a total dweeb. I had some material there to work with, given enough time.
Bob had sounded amazed. “You think I could help you? Sure…yes, I will help you with biology. There is no reason to be scared. Uh…maybe you can help me, too.” After taking a big gulp of air and sounding so dubious I had to grin, he’d said, “I would like being friends. You are very… interesting.” He ducked and blushed. His whole face and down the back of his neck had gone a deep, dark crimson again. I’d winced because it looked painful.