by Sam Starbuck
But also I just plain...wanted him to like me. I liked seeing him in my shop. The only way I really knew to make people like me was to give them information. There's a reason I sell books for a living.
I went into the back room and picked up a trade catalog, the kind I was sent five or six times a year by various publishers as an encouragement to order from them. I opened it and began paging through it, waiting for something to catch my eye. When it did, I smiled and set down the catalog to make a phone call.
Chapter THREE
It wasn't long before Low Ferry was in the full grip of autumn weather. A few days after Jacob's father's birthday we even lost power briefly. High winds, probably; they sometimes knocked down wires or blew debris into the energy transformer. I brought my bed-roll out from the closet and spread it out near the fireplace, then lit a fire and settled down to sleep in the reflected glow of its warmth.
I almost thought the winter had begun, then – well, it was definitely coming – but the windstorm wasn't quite the start of it. When the power came on the next morning it was to a heavy blanket of humidity lying on the town, making everyone wish for rain to break it up.
We could feel that there was something brewing, especially those who had lived in Low Ferry a long time. It was the last calm before what promised to be a terrific thunderstorm, and it wasn't a true calm at all.
Not even the children stopped in the bookshop anymore. Having been raised in the Low Ferry, they knew instinctively what was in the air and they didn't want to be caught out in the storm. Those that could go home did, and those whose parents didn't want them home alone found friends to spend the afternoon with. Even the boy was usually with his friends now as they hurried down the street, though sometimes he paused and glanced my way.
I wondered how his lessons were going and whether he was causing trouble in school yet because of his growing awareness that teachers did not know everything. I wondered how the walk from The Pines, along the rutted dirt road, was treating Lucas. It was hard to go outside when the air was too thick to breathe.
The humidity lasted past three days, then four, stretching for a full week. Tempers ran short. The owner of the grocery store punched the chef at the cafe, in a matter of honor apparently concerning the price of milk. A couple of the farmers fired up old land feuds, though thankfully none of them involved rifles, just sharp remarks and one slightly vandalized tractor.
Paula fired her store assistant and the poor young man's mother came around and shouted at her until they were both hoarse and I had to intercede. Paula and I sat and drank coffee in my store and talked about how some people in Low Ferry weren't as safe as we were – how sometimes kids were the ones working to support the whole family. She grudgingly gave him his job back, but they snapped and snarled at each other a lot. I privately thought an air-conditioner would have solved most of their problems.
Nolan and Michael got into some kind of fight, too – some said over the fickle Sandra, some said because Michael was saying nasty things about Nolan's sister. Apparently there was a subsection of the town that thought Michael might be dating said sister. Sandra seemed to keep out of it, which didn't always give people a good opinion of her, either.
Jacob faithfully brought me the news, and Charles just as faithfully showed up a few days later to tell me why I shouldn't tell anyone any of it. Paula commented on every rumor with a dry wit that made her brief visits to the shop a pleasure.
The boy actually came into my bookshop on a Saturday, which was a miracle in itself, and as he browsed the racks he told me that all his teachers were arguing with each other over matters of discipline. He bought nine comic books.
"Trying to corner the market?" I asked, as he laid the thick stack of comics on my counter. "The investment isn't worth it, y'know. Comic books are a renewable resource."
"Everyone gave me money," he said, producing the entire amount in small change.
"Do you want to pay with that...wealth, or keep it and put the whole amount on your tab?"
"It's not a tab," he said, rolling his eyes. "It's credit."
"Sorry. And?"
"I want to pay with the money. I'm not lugging all those quarters around."
"Much obliged," I informed him, and counted it out into the cash register while he straightened the stack and reached across to grab a plastic bag from my counter.
"Why are you acting as everyone's agent today?" I continued, studying the grime left on my fingertips by the change.
"Gonna storm soon," he said, while I rummaged for some clean-wipes stolen from the cafe the last time they did a barbecue. "Everyone's going to Neil's house."
I smiled. "Storm party?"
"Mmhm. They got a generator."
"What luxury. Hot baths for all."
"Okay," he said doubtfully, not quite old enough yet to think hot water was more important than electric light for comic book reading.
There was a deafening crash of thunder outside. The boy tucked the comics under his coat.
"That's it," he said excitedly.
"Go on. Say hello to everyone for me."
He ran out and nearly collided with Lucas, who was coming up the walk to the door. With a hasty apology he backed up and continued on his way.
"If you come in, be prepared to stay," I said, turning to the comic books and straightening them slightly.
"Oh? Why's that?" Lucas asked, closing the door behind him.
"Didn't you hear that?" I asked. "The storm's about to break."
"Is it?" he said, turning to gaze out the glass door. "Should I have stayed home?"
"Well, lightning strikes the tallest thing around. If you walk home, you'll take your life in your hands."
"Funny expression, isn't it?" he observed, leaning against the counter. He was staring at the new-release shelves across the aisle. "Who wouldn't want their life in their hands? Why do we think that's something we ought to consider dangerous?"
I looked at him, surprised. Unusually talkative, and philosophical as well.
"Well, I don't know about you, but I drop things all the time," I managed, sitting down behind the counter and counting my receipts. "Did you want something?"
"No, I – just felt like a walk. Will it be a bad storm?"
Thunder rolled again. He looked startled.
"There's your answer."
He walked to the door and looked out again. A bolt of lightning broke the sky. "I always thought lightning came before thunder..."
"Wait," I said without looking up. The crack and boom came just after I said it. A second later, the rain started.
"Will it last long?" he asked.
"Don't know. Probably not many in town do."
"What about the weathermen? The hotel down the road has a television in its bar."
"It's all from Chicago, though. Does it really matter?" I asked. He hesitated.
"No, I guess not," he said. He looked at me curiously. "It's just I automatically thought that if it were raining I should know for how long."
"City thinking. You were raised there?"
He nodded. "Parents're still there. Dad teaches. Mom's retired, she used to sell...things."
"Things."
"I never paid much attention."
"Do you get to see them much?"
"No," he said briefly. "You know, if I knew the storm was going to let up soon, I'd eat my dinner now and then go home. If I knew it was going to last all night, I'd get a room down the road and save myself having to sit in a hard cafe chair for hours."
"Well, you could go down to the hotel and check the TV, like you said. I don't have one. Cafe might have the radio going."
"I wonder what they did before weathermen," he said, still staring out at the rain.
"Oh, there were ways. Red skies at morning, sailors take warning, that kind of thing. That reminds me, I found something I thought you'd like."
His eyebrows lifted. I held up a finger and ducked into the store-room, digging on the shelves to find the b
ook I'd stashed there. It had come in the last mail delivery before the storm, and there probably wouldn't be another for a while if the rain washed out the bridge. They'd sent it free as a sample after I requested it, which was a bonus.
"It just came in," I said. "I remember that you liked the child's version – this is Ovid's Metamorphoses with concordance and notes by a translator. The Latin is on one side, see, with the translation on the other."
I offered it to him and he craned his neck, studying it. "Do you read Latin?" he asked.
"No, but I think it looks nice," I replied.
"You're right, it does."
"Take it home and read it, see what you think. You don't have to keep it if you don't like it."
He frowned. "No, I'm sure I will – thank you," he said, taking out his wallet without even looking at the price. I felt a little proud, and then a little foolish for feeling so proud. "And a copy of the golf magazine, please."
"Of course." I rang up the cost of the magazine. "Book's on the house, it was a sample. I didn't have you marked down as a golfer, Lucas."
"I like the drawings of the greens. May I have a bag? No, wait," he said, a sudden amused look in his eye. I'd never seen him so animated. "Wrap them in brown paper instead."
I raised an eyebrow, but he looked uncomfortable at that so I didn't pursue it any further. I had brown paper below the counter and it was a moment's work to wrap it, tie it with twine, and present it to him. With a little thought, I understand why he wanted it wrapped – then, when he finally did get home, he'd have the pleasure of unwrapping a package for himself.
"Will you come eat with me?" he asked as I presented it to him. I shook my head.
"I just ate, and the rain's bound to bring people in. They'll want reading material while they wait out the storm in the cafe," I said, gesturing to his book.
"Oh," he said, looking a little crestfallen. "All right. Can I bring you something, then?"
"Just make sure you get home all right, or stay in town if it's not safe."
He left just as another bolt of lightning illuminated the sky. I saw him stop on the front porch, probably in surprise. He stood there, tall and awkward, with a pack on his back and his parcel under his arm. He was staring up at the sky as if he'd never really seen it before, with such an expression of thrilled wonder that perhaps he really hadn't.
In flat country with no skyscrapers, you take the sky for granted. The same's true in the city, since you can't see enough of it to really understand it. But, in that space between times, before you're a resident but after you're a stranger, everything is new and remarkable. I envied him.
***
The next day, I opened the shop at seven with a plate of waffles in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. I hadn't even finished breakfast before Lucas returned.
"Didn't go home?" I asked, around a mouthful of food.
"Rain never stopped," he said, jerking his thumb at the wet street outside. His hair was wet too, and the shoulders of his coat.
"Hopefully soon. It looks like it's about blown itself out," I observed. "One benefit of living where you work, the commute is easy."
"You could sell books in your pajamas if you wanted to."
"I've often considered it, but it's a little too gentleman-of-leisure. I don't want to be the town eccentric." I washed a bite of food down with some coffee. "You stayed at the hotel last night?"
"I thought it was probably smart. There's so much I don't know about this place, and I've learned to listen when people warn me."
"It's not a battlefield, Lucas!" I laughed.
"No, but..." he spread his hands. "There are rules for survival everywhere. And they change."
"I like to think I've moved past survival, but I see what you mean. You wouldn't have walked around Chicago at midnight wearing a Rolex."
"Not some parts, anyway."
"At least you weren't a cheerful idiot who went home in an electrical storm and got struck by lightning. Though fate protects fools. Charles told me about this one time..." I trailed off, because he'd ducked behind a shelf.
A second later I knew why – there was a creak as Leon pushed the door open and stepped inside. Leon's farm lay two south from Jacob's, and we rarely saw him in town.
"Morning, Leon," I said, turning away from where Lucas was pretending to be absorbed in cookbooks again. "How's things?"
"Muddy," Leon answered sourly. "Can't get a truck through."
"You come in on horseback?"
"Yup. She's stabled in the pastor's garage."
"What can I do for you today?"
"Couple of romance novels for my wife, you know the type," he said, consulting a slip of paper from his pocket. "And...Teen Pulse?"
I lifted an eyebrow. Leon blushed. "It's for Maureen. Can't fathom sixteen-year-olds."
"They're a mystery to us all," I agreed, crossing to the shelf of romance novels and pulling down some of the less lurid ones. Leon's wife liked them, but she always insisted she didn't want the Naughty Ones. Which really translated to the fact that she did want the naughty ones, she just didn't want the covers to proclaim to her whole family that they were naughty. Bookselling is a delicate art.
"Here you are, and one...Teen Pulse," I said, grabbing a magazine featuring the young hot pop star of the moment from the rack. "Got any news I can pass along?"
"Seen Nona recently?" he asked. I shook my head. "She's starting to show the babies." He cupped his hands in front of his stomach to emphasize it. "Little tiny thing to be carrying twins."
"What's Dr. Kirchner say?" I asked.
"Well, he don't say anything to me directly, naturally, but he told Mr. Harrison she oughta be in town if she can when the babies are due."
"Want me to ask around about someone she can stay with?"
"Sure Harrison'd appreciate that."
"Consider it done. That's...sixteen-fifty even for the books."
He paid with a crisp twenty-dollar bill, out of a roll of twenties. "Got to stock up on groceries," he said, when he caught me eyeing the roll. "Snow won't be far behind all this."
"No, I don't suppose it will. You see Nona, tell her I'm looking around," I replied. "Have a nice day, Leon. Stay dry."
"Look after yourself," he replied with a grin, zipped the bag of books into his coat, and doffed his hat as he left.
I pretended to be distracted by tidying the counter until Lucas emerged.
"They're really friendly, you know," I said, when he'd relaxed a little. "Everyone in Low Ferry. We're nice people."
"Thought I saw a book I wanted," he said sheepishly. I let the polite fiction pass. "They gave me some good advice about the storm when I checked in last night, though."
I glanced up. He looked wistful. I wondered what it had cost him to ask a stranger about the weather.
"They said if I were ever in an open field in a storm I should lie down in a low part so that I wouldn't attract the lightning, but not so low that it might flood if it rained for too long. Although one of them said that anyone struck by lightning is a natural dowser and can see ghosts."