This is not about Juliet

My uncle Giuseppe

TW: mentions of alcohol, if you squint. Unpopular (I'm assuming) opinion about Hades and Persephone retellings.

After a little while, the door opens. My uncle's face lights up the second he sees us, and he beckons us inside. My uncle is a stocky man with impossibly greasy brown hair. He has one diamond earring and one of those stupid little silver chains around his neck, I really hate those. "Welcome girls, what brings you here this fine morning," he says. He deepens his voice. We always have to pretend we dont notice. "Just some back to school shopping," answers Rosalind. "Ah, of course, well I hope you have fun. Ah wait, here's a card," he gives us a maroon colored card. In swirly gold letters, it says Capulet. These cards are given to us every time we're at this mall. Shopping credit cards, special ones for the Bloomvale mall. It also allowed our uncle to spy on us. Our spending habits. Nothing is a secret in our family. "Thank you very much," I say. We bid goodbye, and I'm glad the awkward moment is over. To others, it might not seem like a very akward moment, but when he had had a couple of glasses, that's when things started to get really annoying. We exit the office and call the elevator.

Four hours later, I slump in a chair in restaurant, "A thousand and one nights." Rosalind sits across from me and beckons a waiter over to our table. She orders a big bottle of sparkling water with two glasses, a mint tea, and I order a raspberry pear juice. My eyes look over the menu, and I decide on the lasagna. Our drinks arrive, and we order our food. I was really tired but really like the food here, so I force myself to stay awake. To say I was drained was the understatement of the century. We spent the whole morning shopping for clothes. I can't even remember everything we bought. From the last store we exited, we had a pink skirt with strawberries, a pink, and a maroon cardigan. The maroon one was knitted. We also bought stockings and a pair of wine red flats. Rosalind was giving advice and carried most of the bags. She seemed to carry them with such ease I felt bad for my arms falling off carrying only one in every hand. In my defense, they were really heavy bags. But I was excited for lunch and the afternoon, then we would go shopping for one of my favorite things, stationary. 

I really love stationary. At home, I never really needed much because I used my tablet for most of my work. So I tried not to buy to much, since overconspumtion is a very real problem, but I need it for school, which means I wouldn't be surprised if I bought one of everything at the store. I chat with Rosalind about her plans at university. And when the bill comes and Rosalind pays, we get up and get going to the store.

It's like heaven in the stationary store. I pick out at least a dozen pens in different shades of pink and red. Some have berry's on, and some have hearts, and they're all adorable. I pick out some pastel markers and a metal ruler, which I think I'll paint pink. Some pink HB pencils and some erasers, both for fountain pen and for pencil. I also bought some glitter markers and a beautiful pencil case. It was translucent with pink and white Sakura blossoms on it. I pick out binders, with berries and flowers, and one that said "Daylight" in swoopy golden lettering and the background was absolutely beautiful, shades of pink, light orange, and purple.

After we'd paid for everything, we went to the bookstore, afte rthe stationary store this was my second favorite store. Or sometimes my favorite. It was so big it was always quiet, and it had a door, shutting the other mall noises out. They sold books, but also crystals and other special stones. They had a little café, and I thought after I had paid for my books, we could have a drink there. I scanned the aisles, detective books, romance, thrillers, fantasy,... I was already holding onto seven books. I saw Rosalind in the Romance section, picking up just about every book there. I didn't like the modern romance section. Half of it were modern "retellings," largely Hades and Persephone "retellings." It was so strange. Did these people not realize hades was, in fact, a villain. Hades stole Persephone. His brother had told him, "Of course you can have my daughter, but steal her, her mother will never let her go." AND THEN HE SHRUGGED AND FOUND NOTHING ODD ABOUT THAT??? Some call me naive, but I'm not stupid. These people just wanted to live out their sensitive misunderstood emo boy fantasies from middle school. Which is fine by me, but I don't have to like that. I don't want to be sad all the time, of course I know I have had a better life than most and people have no control over when they get sad, and people are allowed to be sad, of course, but if I had an aesthetic which required me to lament all the time, I'd kind of get sadder, you know?

That's when I saw someone standing in the bookstore I'd never expected there. I couldn't believe my eyes, no, I thought, that's impossible. She moved to Verona in the midst of an absolute crisis. She's probably still there. Lounging by a pool in the Italian sun, drink in hand. This is probably someone else. Would she even recognize me, I'd changed so much. I grew out my fringe, and my face had also changed. This could not be Carla Bianchi.