A Springful of Winters

by Dawn Sister

  I left my backpack in the library. This is okay. I can go back and get it. I just have to write down all the things I need to do and say, and try and predict what others will say or do in response, so there’s no big surprises.

  As for what happened with Mr. Spring…I doubt I will have to do anything about that, because if he didn’t think I was a complete loony before, he does now and I doubt I’ll be seeing him anymore.

  “Kit?” Yenta’s gentle tone makes me jump. “Oops, sorry. Kit, there’s someone here to see you. They have your backpack. I think it’s the young man you told me about, judging by your description.”

  “Oh god!” I gasp, actually flapping my hands in front of my face like some maiden in a Jane Austin novel. “What’s he doing here? How did he find out where I work, live, work?”

  “Perhaps he followed you?”

  “No, no.” I shake my head. “I ran too fast. Left him in the library. He couldn’t have…”

  “Maybe he looked you up on Google?” she offers. “The way you were trying to do to find out about him.”

  “There’s nothing about me to look up.” I frown. How could he look something up if he didn’t know anything about me?

  “Perhaps he asked the librarians?”

  “They don’t know where I live,” I say in confusion. “I’ve never told them.”

  “No, but you wrote down your address on your library card application,” Yenta reminds me.

  “Oh, of course.” Why didn’t I think of that?

  “Come and meet him, Lapushka. He’s waiting, and his name is Stephan, by the way.”

  “His name is Stephan, by the way,” I repeat.

  Yenta’s eyebrows rise, and I bite my lip. “Sorry,” I say, because repeating what people have said to me is something else I do when I’m anxious. I hope I don’t do this when I finally speak to… Oh god, I’ve forgotten already. I’m so used to calling him Mr. Spring. “What’s his name again?”

  “Honestly, Kit. I just told you, it’s Stephan, Stephan, Stephan. Write it down then you won’t forget.”

  I immediately reach for my backpack, then stop. “I can’t,” I wail. “I left my bag at the library.”

  “And Stephan brought it back for you.”

  “Oh.” Sometimes my brain doesn’t think in linear; it thinks in circles and wobbly lines that criss-cross and get entangled with each other. It means I often remember the ending, or the beginning of something, but the middle part gets lost somewhere in the ether. It’s why I have to do things in a certain order because if I forget a step or miss it out, I’m screwed. And new situations, like this one, where I haven’t even begun to think about the order of events, have me in a complete and utter flap.

  “Get out there and say hello to him. You know how to do that.”

  “Of course I do.” I know how to greet someone. So I should be able to go out and speak to Mr. Spring without any problems.

  I stand up and walk to the opening that leads into the shop. It has a curtain rather than a door. I slowly lift one edge away from the wooden frame and peer through.

  There he is, Mr. Spring, as large as life standing in Yenta’s shop, holding my backpack.

  “Oh dear.” I step back, breathing hard. “I can’t do this. He saw me lose it in the library, and I don’t just mean my backpack.” I turn back to face her. “Don’t make me, please, Yenta.”

  She turns me around. “He would not have made the effort to bring your backpack here if he did not want to meet you.” She gives me a gentle push to encourage me through the curtain as I try to remember my ‘hello’ protocol.

  “Hello again,” Mr. Spring says as I enter the shop.

  “Oh, I’m supposed to say that first.” I scowl, then realise this is not what I should have said and immediately turn to leave again, except Yenta is standing in the doorway, her face stern, as she holds Bessie’s collar with one hand and points in the direction of Mr. Spring with the other. All my exits are barred until I’ve spoken to him.

  I turn to face him, surprised that he’s stayed actually. First sign of any oddness from me and people don’t usually hesitate to leave.

  “You know I don’t mind if you want to start again,” Mr. Spring tells me. I suddenly feel much better. If he wants to start again, that’s fine. We can start from the proper beginning.

  “Okay, thanks,” I say and disappear behind the curtain, much to Yenta’s annoyance.

  “Get back out there, Kit Winters,” she hisses. “He came to see you, not to stand in the middle of a bookshop and be completely ignored.”

  “He wasn’t completely ignored. You spoke to him.” I know I shouldn’t point out the obvious, but sometimes the words are out of my mouth before my brain can stop them.

  “Oh, goodness me, get out there before I blow a fuse,” Yenta tells me.

  I’ve never really understood what this means, because humans don’t have fuses like plugs do. I know it means to lose your temper. Why can’t people just say that instead of inventing all these verbal images that have nothing to do with what is being said?

  I don’t want to think about that right now, so I put into place one of my first contingency plans I ever wrote: ‘saying hello’.

  “First, you say hello,” I whisper. “Hello,” I say out loud to the rather startled looking Mr. Spring. “Then you put out your hand to shake theirs.”

  I’m forced to look up to see why my hand isn’t being shaken by his. I haven’t put up my hand, that’s why. I immediately rectify this, and then, as he shakes my hand, I make a conscious effort to smile and do my best not to make it seem false or sardonic. Sometimes people think I’m making fun of them when actually I’m just trying my best to fit in and I have an unfortunate tone of voice, or expression on my face, like right now.

  “Am I doing this right?” I ask out loud. “I think I forgot to tell you my name.”

  “Would it help if I told you mine?” Mr. Spring asks, one eyebrow quirked.

  “M-maybe.” My voice shakes with anxiety. This is very close to going wrong again.

  “My name’s Stephan,” Stephan tells me without any hint of irritation, a smile on his face that is making the spring light in his eyes dance about like fire fairies.

  “I’m, er, Kit,” I tell him. “Kit Winters, and I’m sorry for running away, sorry for stalking you online, sorry for being an arse when I rode into your car door, and most of all, I’m sorry that Bessie covered you in fox crap.” I grimace. “I probably shouldn’t have said crap, maybe poop would have been better. Of course, I could have said shit, but that’s probably worse than crap. Excrement, is the correct term for it, but that sounds a bit formal and scientific when you’re just making an apology.”

  “Yes, it does.” Stephan is staring at me, his eyes wide and his mouth twitching. I’m not sure what he’s thinking, but at least he doesn’t look annoyed. Things seem to have got a bit awkward until he speaks again and doesn’t look uncomfortable at all. “I brought your backpack.”

  He holds it up for me, and I take it, trying my best not to stare at the floor but finding it difficult to look at him, because then I’d get distracted by his eyes. I could lose myself in those eyes.

  “Th-thank you. I shouldn’t have left it. I shouldn’t have run off. I’m sorry.”

  “Yes, you said that already. You have nothing to be sorry for, Kit. In fact, I really should have looked before I opened my car door yesterday. But I suppose if I had, then I wouldn’t have met you again and I really did want to.”

  “You did?” I look up now, his words distracting me from my awkwardness. He looks like he’s telling the truth. “But why would you want to meet me again after the things Bessie did at your hotel?”

  At the sound of her name, Bessie eventually bursts through the curtain, having been restrained by Yenta too long. Stephan gives a cry of alarm and then laughs as Bessie makes a beeline for him and covers him with doggy kisses.

  He crouches down to make a fuss of her.

  “Careful, sh
e’ll try to sit on your…” My warning comes just a little too late, as Bessie does her usual trick of trying to sit on someone’s knee regardless of the position they are sitting in. She’s not a big dog, but she’s heavy, and she and Stephan end up in a heap on the floor as Stephan overbalances and she takes this as an invitation to sit on his stomach instead.

  “Oh god.” I grab her collar. “She’s usually so well behaved. Bessie, heel,” I command. She immediately stops smothering Stephan and comes to my side, pushing her head up against my palm.

  “Wow.” Stephan sits up, regarding me with what looks like respect. “She’s well trained.”

  “Oh, yes.” I shrug. “Except I didn’t really train her. We got her from an agency that trains support dogs. She’s my erm…” I grimace. I really didn’t want to tell him anything like this in our first conversation. It could be our first and our last, so I want him to go away thinking positive things about me, not wondering at how much of a basket case I am.

  “We went to obedience classes so I could learn how to look after her properly,” I explain. “She is usually very good at staying by my side. She was over-excited about the snow, and our evening walk is when she can let off some steam and burn some energy. Unfortunately, all of that combined the other night, and you and that poor bride got the brunt of it. Was she very angry?”

  “No.” Stephan dismisses my worries, and then makes a face. “Well, okay, she was angry—livid, actually, and so were her family—but believe me, the things with your dog were not the worst things that happened that night. She was a bridezilla, you know what I mean? She already had two of the waitresses in tears over some trivial thing to do with a smudge on a glass. And the rest of her family weren’t much better. I caught two of the bridesmaids having sex in the men’s toilets. And a bloke had to be escorted off the premises for making a pass at the barman. The evening ended up with the entire wedding party having a free-for-all brawl in the car park. We had to call the police.”

  “Oh dear.” I’m trying to keep up with everything he’s telling me. “Sounds like you had a horrible night.”

  He nods. “Yes, and your dog here provided a much-needed bit of light relief.” When I still don’t smile, he continues, “You have to admit, it was kind of funny.”

  “Not for the bride. She probably spent a fortune on that dress.”

  “Oh, she did. Apparently, it was designer, and she’d already told just about everyone who would listen how much she’d spent before Bessie here decided to add her own design. We offered to get it cleaned for her, but she refused. Said she had insurance. Anyway, that’s not the best part of the story.” Stephan waits for me to catch up, or perhaps he’s waiting for me to ask him what the best part is. I hope I don’t leave it too long to respond. I’m not good at knowing when it’s my turn to speak.

  “Oh?” I ask.

  “No.” He snorts, shaking his head. “The next day, after they’d all left, we discovered the wedding dress had been left behind. When I called her to ask if she wanted it delivered to her house, because I really didn’t want her or any of her family back in the hotel, she told me to just put it in the bin.”

  “Her dress?” I ask in shock.

  “Yes. She said just put it in the bin. It’s ruined. I’m getting another one.”

  “Another one, but it’s a wedding dress. Why would she need another one? You only need to wear it once.”

  “I know.” Stephan holds up his hands in a gesture that I interpret as him being completely baffled by the entire incident. “Don’t even ask. I don’t know. One of our domestics, his partner runs a dry-cleaning agency. They’ve taken the dress to be professionally cleaned, and then we’re doing what we do with all lost property—we donate it to a charity that deals with LGBTQ homelessness.”

  “Oh, that’s a good idea.” I regard him with curiosity. “Do you get a lot of lost property, then?”

  “Tons. Mostly things people have left behind by mistake and they call us and we send them on to them. But sometimes it’s stuff that the owner either didn’t need, wanted to get rid of, or just plain forgot they owned. I’ve had people deny they left valuable jewellery before, when we know it could only have been them.” He shrugs. “Whatever they leave is the charity’s gain in the end. It just isn’t worth arguing with some people.”

  “I used to volunteer in a charity shop,” I offer, because this is one of my safe subjects. “That’s where I met Yenta. She owned the shop, see, and allowed the charity to use it rent free.”

  “And now you work here?” Stephan looks about, nodding. “Sweet. At least, I’m assuming you work here, although…” He frowns. “This is the address that the librarians gave. Maybe they didn’t want to give out your home address.”

  “Oh, I live here too. Above the shop.”

  “That’s handy.” His smile is a little wider than I might expect, like I’ve said something really amazing, instead of just offered a boring fact about myself.

  “Yes, it is, but no snow days when the weather is bad.” I scowl. “Which I hated, because it snowed on the first day of spring. I mean, I hated the snow, not the fact that I didn’t get a snow day. I wouldn’t have wanted a snow day. I love working here. I’m not just saying that because Yenta is listening at the curtain, because she probably is.” I bite my lip when I see his expression go blank. I’ve said too much again. “What I’m trying to say is, I don’t like the snow interrupting spring. It’s wrong.”

  “Forecast is for snow again tomorrow,” Stephan offers, his voice sounding a little strained, as if he’s emotional about something. His news makes me gasp.

  “Oh no, not again.”

  “Long-term forecast looks like this spring is going to be full of mini winters. A springful of winters. Ha, that’s funny.”

  “You know springful isn’t a real word,” I point out.

  He grins, showing a row of white teeth against his pink lips. He’s so colourful, all golden, sky-blue, white and pink. There is something going on in my stomach that I really don’t understand, and I wish I could leave and ask Yenta, but I know that would be rude, and the sensation isn’t unpleasant, just strange.

  “Good on you for making the most of the good weather by going out on your bike yesterday.”

  Exercise is a safe subject for me.

  “I like to stay fit. Yenta says we should all do as much exercise as we can to stay healthy. She’s eighty and still really fit, so I suppose she’s right. She also says we should all eat well. She likes to make sure I eat well.” I stop, because I’m oversharing again. “You probably didn’t need to know that.”

  “Have dinner with me.” Stephan is staring at me with an unreadable expression on his face. “That’s why I was hoping to bump into you again. I would have asked you out yesterday when you crashed into my car, but you left. And just now, at the library, when I saw you at the computer station, I couldn’t believe my luck. Have dinner with me, Kit, please?”

  I feel a little overwhelmed, and if it wasn’t for Bessie pushing her head against my palm and grounding me, I’d have left by now.

  “I-I don’t know…”

  “I know you don’t know anything about me. I can tell you, but I don’t want to overload you. You can ask me anything you want over dinner. You choose the place.”

  I bite my lip. “It’s not that I don’t want to accept, because I do. It’s just that I need a bit of time to plan, er, I mean, think about it.” I wait for him to laugh, but he doesn’t. Instead he smiles again, bombarding my brain with all that colour once more.

  Stephan’s smile is wide, and his eyes shine with the light of a thousand spring mornings. He looks like one of those footballers that’s just scored the best goal of his career and is about to start running about with his shirt pulled over his face. Oh dear, I hope he doesn’t actually do that. There’s not a lot of room for running in the shop and Yenta might not like that there’s a torso on display in her bookshop. Apart from the ones on the covers of the books, that is.
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br />   “That’s okay.” He continues to smile, as if the thing is a permanent feature now and he will keep on smiling even when he’s left the shop. “I don’t mind waiting.”

  “You don’t?” I ask in surprise. “I mean most people, they just want an answer straight away, and I can’t always give one.”

  “You get asked out to dinner a lot then, do you?” His smile has turned into a smirk.

  “No-no, that’s not what I meant. I mean, I need time to answer any question I’m asked.” Way to make yourself sound like a special case, Kit.

  “That’s fine. I said I can wait.” Stephan heads me off, saving me the effort of another long explanation. “How about I give you my number and then you can call me.” I look up in alarm. He bites his lip. “Okay, text me, then. Text me when you’ve made a decision, and Kit?”

  “Yes, Stephan?”

  “Will you let me know either way?”

  “Either way?” I ask in confusion.

  “If you want to go to dinner, or if you don’t, let me know. Please don’t leave me hanging.”

  “I-I’ll text you either way,” I repeat for him.

  This seems to satisfy him and he stands, holding out his hand to shake mine, this time in a goodbye gesture. I shake it, trying to give him eye contact but worrying too much about it and ending up staring at his hands, which are lovely, but not as lovely as his eyes.

  “It was nice to finally meet you properly, Kit.” Stephan says, shocking me into leaving go of his hand which I think I’ve held for longer than I should.

  “Nice to finally meet you properly.” I grimace, because I’ve just done that parrot thing, almost. “Er, too.” I add to make it seem like I’m using my own words and not his. “I mean, it’s nice to finally meet you too.”

  Now he needs to go before things get more awkward. Not that they ever got past the first stages of awkward to begin with, but there’s still time yet. Up until the moment he disappears out the door, I hold my breath, just to stop myself from saying anything stupid or repeating what he’s said again.

  I turn away from the door to go back and speak to Yenta when the door opens again and he returns, breathless. It’s unexpected and completely throws me.