Free Breakfast with Neruda by Laura Moe Page A

front of me with a candle in it. “A pretty little bird told me it was your birthday,” he says.
    After lunch, Shelly suggests we walk over to The Book Loft. “I can get you a birthday present.”
    “I thought lunch was my present.”
    “The Book Loft is also part of your gift.”
    “Is it a bookstore?”
    “Yeah, and it has thirty-two rooms.”
    “That sounds cool. Let’s go.”
    We walk about three blocks. It’s a nice walk through an old neighborhood where the streets are made of cobblestone. “It’s a lot different here than Rooster,” I say.
    I spot a strip of shops in an old brick storefront. I notice a Cup O Joe coffee shop. Next to it is a neon sign and a giant red banner identifying The Book Loft. We stop at the entrance, which has a couple benches and planters. “It looks like someone’s house,” I say. We walk further in and there are several tables loaded with books. “This is awesome.”
    “This is just the beginning,” Shelly says. “Don’t forget the thirty-two rooms inside.”
    Outside the store entrance Shelly glances at the announcements of authors who will be coming for book signings.
    “Ugh,” she says. “Pelee Peugeot.”
    “Never heard of her.”
    “She’s this pretentious, ghastly, self-absorbed bitch who writes chick lit,” Shelly says. “My mom loves her stuff.”
    “How do you know she’s ghastly?”
    “And self-absorbed and pretentious,” she says. “She came to Columbus around Christmastime a couple years ago and did a reading at the Barnes & Noble at Easton. Josh and I drove up to get Mom an autographed copy of her latest bestseller. We got there kind of late because Josh has no concept of time. So we had to park clear over by Macy’s and hike to the store in a mini-blizzard. Anyway, we get there an hour before the store is closing. Pelee Peugeot is still there sitting next to a stack of hardback books of all her titles. The line is kind of long, so I stand in line to wait while Josh hurriedly buys her latest book.”
    Shelly picks up a copy of Vonnegut’s
Slaughterhouse-Five
. “Five ninety-nine,” she says. “Not bad.” She picks up a copy to buy and wanders away from me.
    “So what happens next?” I ask.
    “So I stand there and I start listening as this Pelee chick does her thing. Any time a man wants an autograph, even if he has a woman with him, she swings her long, flaming hair and reaches out to touch him, calling him darling or sweetie. But I notice if it is just a woman, she uses this flat tone, and says, ‘Who should I make this out to?’ So when Josh comes back, I tell him to be the one to get her signature. ‘Seriously?’ he whines. ‘It’s a chick book.’ Which it kind of is. She writes these cheesy mysteries about a jaded female detective who looks amazingly like a younger version of herself. ‘Trust me,’ I tell Josh. ‘The performance will be worth it.’ So he shrugs, and I get out of line. I stand at a rack of books nearby so I’m in both eye- and earshot of her. Josh is the last one in line, and when he gets to her, she looks up and gushes, 'I love to meet my male readers,' she says. She grabs his hand and strokes it. ‘Especially ones so handsome.’ And my brother is good-looking. Kind of like a young Brad Pitt. Anyway, Josh glances at me with this horrified look on his face as Pelee flips her hair at him. It’s no doubt dyed because she’s like five hundred years old, but you can tell she tries to look twenty-five. She’s had so much Botox her face looks like she’s caught in the headlights. And her lips puff up like a blowfish. She bats her false eyelashes at my then eighteen-year-old brother, and opens the book to sign it. ‘So what’s your name, sweetheart?’ She talks like Kathie Lee Gifford with that gushy, East Coast accent. Anyway, Josh just says, 'It’s for my mom.' Pelee’s Botoxed face freezes, and she says, ‘Oh.’ There’s this uncomfortable moment where she is sitting there, the book open on the