Carry On Cath

Chapter Two

Cath wore her black Barnes and Noble uniform while she sat with her dad in the car. Every now and then she took a nervous glance at the giant store.

"I remember my first day at work." Her dad lifted his head up, staring out into the clouds. "It was a beautiful day, just like today, up until fucking Kelly..."

Cath zoned out from her dad's speech. She looked at the door handle, took a deep breath and whispered, "One small step for twin sisters, one giant leap for Cath Avery."

"...and then when I sat down at my desk he--have a good first day Cath!" Her dad gave her a smile. Cath smiled back and walked to the front entrance of the store.

"It's just a bookstore." Cath always loved bookstores, and felt at home in them. She was not going to let some job change her love for bookstores. She remembered the Simon Snow launch parties she attended at this Barnes and Noble, when she and Wren dressed up in costumes, always waiting near the front of the line, watching the staff bring out the boxes of Simon Snow books from the back. "The staff! The back of the bookstore!" Cath realized she would finally get to walk through the secret back room, filled with boxes of unreleased books. A smirk grew on her face and her shoulders lifted themselves higher. She walked through the front doors of the store with pride, excited for what discoveries awaited her. Until she remembered there were no more unreleased copies of Simon Snow. Her shoulders sank a bit.

"You must be Cather Avery." The voice startled Cath. "I'm Michael, the manager on duty this morning and the person doing your orientation." Cath stared at Michael while he kept talking. "Lets start by getting you a name tag." Michael led Cath to an office beside the front checkout. He rambled on about something related to their mission statement, before asking Cath a question. "So I hear you're a Simon Snow fan! Actually, come to think of it, you have a twin sister right? I think I remember you from the last two release parties!"

Cath wasn't expecting she would have a reputation so fast on her first day, but it's Simon Snow, so her shoulders perked up. "Yes, that's me and my sister Wren. We've been to every release party since the second book. We're even going to Magicon in a few weeks!"

"That's awesome!" Michael was excited. Confidence felt like a powerful drug when it is executed so intensely. She could get addicted to it, a bit like Wren if she wasn't careful. 

"We often like to put nicknames on our name badges. Do you have a nickname Cath? Hmm... Maybe we can make one up. You like Simon Snow, so how about something to do with magic. Umm... Magic, Magica... Oh! Magicath!"

"No!!!"

Michael was startled by Cath's sudden scream.

"Lets just stick to Cath for now." Whew, crisis averted! Advertising her secret identity was the last thing she wanted to do. She decided to go easy on the confidence drug for now.

"Alright, Cath it is."

Levi stared at her from the screen of her laptop. He was skyping Cath from his family's ranch in Arnold. Cath was sobbing. She had been sobbing since the call started.

"What's wrong Cath?" He wished he could reach out from the screen and hold her in his arms. "Did something happen on your first day of work?"

Cath tried hard to fight back the tears so that she could speak. "It started off okay, but then it ended in absolute horror." She wiped a tear from her cheek.

Levi's face got bigger on the screen as he moved in closer to listen.

"First they started training me on the tills. That was alright, until things started getting busy. One customer freaked out at me because I was too slow at counting change, so they moved me to the floor. That went okay until a customer asked me to find a book by some author named Rainbow Rowell. The computer said we had one copy left, but I couldn't find it. I asked Michael for help, and that's when he... he forced me to..."

"He forced you to what? Cath if he did anything to you I'll--" Levi's face filled with rage.

"No, nothing like that... just worse."

Levi looked puzzled, confused, and still angry.

"He made me rip the covers off unsold books! Levi, I have book blood on my hands." Cath held out her hands so that Levi could see them in the Skype window. Levi's facial expression changed from anger to shock, then to horror.

"That's awful!" said Levi.

All Cath could think about was the horrid sound the covers made when they detached from the book's spine. It was like tearing the author's soul from the book. She could only envision some girl somewhere tearing her own soul out of her own unsold book, and the thought would now haunt her every time she stared at a blank page.

Cath adjusted herself on her bed. She moved her laptop screen to a place where she could stare at Levi's face. It seemed to help, staring at the curves around his cheekbone. The longer she sat in silence staring at Levi, the more the tears around her cheek started to dry up.

"Fourth of July is going to be epic. We're getting everything ready for you at the ranch," said Levi.

Sigh, the feeling returned.