Buzzy Bee's

Chapter 4

                   The next few weeks went by quickly. The shop was busy and a little bit hectic as they worked out everyone's schedules. September was the start of their more busy months and the girls in the kitchen had their hands full baking a variety of specialty goods. Everyone seemed to work well together. Meg was a little disgruntled by Tina in her workspace. Meg apparently didn't know how to have fun and Tina had too much fun. Millie worked amazingly in the bookstore. She was quiet and sweet and occasionally a little vacant. Now, Derek was the real gem in the hiring. Mel still didn't care for him but Kassie loved him. They learned very fast to put him at the register. Girls loved him. It was easy to tell why. He was attractive and charming and had that little edge that many girls were attracted to. He flirted with everyone that came in, it was amusing to watch. Mel hated it. Meg urged him on. Kassie knew a defensive mechanism when she saw one. The careless flirting, the effortless charm, it was an act. They all had one, a face they pulled on when they were too tired or stressed to deal with customers or each other. Derek seemed to wear his mask at all times.

Kassie and Aaron's communication increased over that couple of weeks. They wrote to each other frequently throughout the day. The conversations started frivolously. Kassie talking about the shop and Aaron talking about his translation work. He was working on translating a series of children's books. Over time, their conversations gained depth. Kassie learned a little of Aaron's childhood, his army dad, and his business-oriented mother. Neither were home much nor cared much for family life. Aaron talked about his older sister, Allison, and how she grew up to be much like their mother.

Kassie talked about her family as well. How stagnant and picture-perfect their life was. How hard it was to be the youngest, being buried under the disappointment from her parents and siblings. Of course, she talked about Clarke and Mel. The only bright spots of her childhood. They also started to exchange pictures. She sent pictures of herself, the shop, her friends, the cats that hung out in the alley, really anything that caught her eye. He never sent pictures of himself. Kassie really didn't mind. She got pictures of his translations, of his cat, Cleo, his garden, and other snapshots of his life.

It was a Sunday night and Kassie, Mel, Abraham, and Derek were closing up Buzy Bees. Kassie could hear Mel and Derek cleaning and prepping for the following day as she stocked the books back in their proper place. This was her favorite job. She loved walking among the tall bookcases and finding a home for each new book. She liked leafing through the used books before stocking them, finding love notes and grocery lists, looking to see what people added to the margins, and reading the parts they highlighted. The best part was the middle book display cases. They were waist-high and square. The top had books stacked on it and the sides were small shelves. The employees each had a display of their recommendations.

While Abraham and Kassie weren't messy, they were not nearly as neat and particular as Mel. She categorized the display books first by genre and then by author. Abraham tended to organize these displays by author while Kassie's square displays had no organization. Last week she did her display a different color, a month before that was books published in 2010. This week she dug through the used books in the back of the store to find all of the hardcovers with missing dusk jackets. Most of them had a cover that was a solid color with no writing. To find out the title or author, the book would need to be opened.

On the chalkboard sign that each display had, she wrote, "Don't peak. Be Surprised!"

When she was done, she took a seat next to Abraham on the worn-out, tweed couch. He was on the store's laptop going through online orders for next week. She slipped her shoes off, turned sideways, and wiggled her toes under his thigh. He didn't look away from the screen and his lips upturned in a small smile.