Free The Bookstore by Deborah Meyler Page B

I will be mad with love.
    I am walking down Broadway again. To think about Mitchell is still painful—the image is always of him having particularly lustful sex with some voluptuous beauty—so I am not thinking about him. Much. Except that I look for his face in every face, and when I think that I see him amid the surge of people on the pavement, my blood electrifies with desire and misery, and turns to dishwater again when it is not him. But the hankering will wear off more quickly if I do not indulge it. It wears off for everyone in the end, after all. Except A. E. Housman.
    As I walk, I see every color, every form, every fall of light. It is like a Fairfield Porter watercolor, such bright sun and such shadows, and such radiance. I think that it is too beautiful to leave if I can possibly help it.
    If I have to leave, it will only be because I don’t have enough money. So I should think of a way to get some. Waitressing is out, teaching via Columbia is out—but in New York, there must be a million ways to make money.
    A dog walker with a pack of hounds surging around him walks past. How much per dog per hour? That guy could be on hundreds of dollars a day. But the drawbacks are obvious and manifold.
    I try to think of other jobs; managing hedge funds pays well, according to the papers, but I don’t know what a hedge fund is. I could think of a fantastic Facebook or phone app that would take the world by storm—except I can’t think of any at all, and I don’t even see why people ever liked Angry Birds. Then I remember that I am only allowed to work in Columbia-sanctioned jobs. I am stuck. I could borrow from my parents, but I hate that idea. I must be able to make something work myself.
    On the thought, I reach The Owl. I stand still. It has a lopsided “Help Wanted” sign in the window, a grimy one, written in marker pen. It was not there last time I came past. Signs and wonders.
    I push the door open, and step inside. Luke is there, as he was last time, although it is ten A.M . There is music playing. He nods hello.
    “You’re here a lot in the mornings,” I say. “I thought you were the night manager.”
    “Yeah, I just opened up for George this morning; he had a book call. He’s back, he’s just in the john.”
    “Right,” I say. I am embarrassed by the word “john.” Can’t help it. It is a word that makes it into a male toilet.
    George reappears, and smiles vaguely at me. He looks at Luke.
    “You thinking of pricing those cookbooks?”
    “Nope,” says Luke. He is getting up. “I just came to open up for you, George. I’m not staying. If I do, I’ll miss Little House on the Prairie .”
    Luke has a light stubble, is wearing a bandana, a red T-shirt, and a pair of Lucky jeans. He does not look at all like he’s going home to watch Little House on the Prairie .
    “You’re joking,” I say. He looks surprised.
    “I don’t know which episode it is. But I’m assuming Laura will do something wrong, see the error of her ways, and go on to helpthe whole town of Walnut Grove learn a valuable moral lesson just in time to sing in church on Sunday.”
    “Luke,” says George, “this is a shock. Are you trying to tell us something?”
    “Yeah. This is my way of outing myself. I’ll see you.”
    When he has gone, George says to the ambient air, “Maybe it’s me, but the older I get, the stranger everyone else seems to become.” He notices that I haven’t gone to browse the shelves, and says, “Can I help you with anything?”
    I take a breath. “The sign in the window. The ‘Help Wanted’ sign?”
    “Yes?”
    “I wondered how strict your rules were.”
    I tell him I have no experience whatsoever of working in a shop. I tell him that although I am in the country legally, as a student, it would be illegal for me to work, and also that if he hired me, he would be breaking the law too. “And,” I say, “I’m pregnant.”
    “You sound like our perfect employee,” says George.

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