Leather Bound ✓

two | tall

two | tall

     She didn't see him the next day, or even the day after that. The weeks drew on and the days sweltered with heat. The shop was filled from morning to mid evening, but as she listened to people gallivanting along the shelves of novels, recipe books, and self helps, she couldn't help but feel so alone. Nothing was the same without him, and nothing was definitely the same after the air conditioning had broken down for good. It would take them forever to get that fixed seeing as their store wasn't quite yet up to everyone else's family owned shops and boutiques, and it would take them even longer because there were just some things about moving towns that you couldn't shake- their bills being one of them.

     Amanda stacked books, re-organized shelves, and dusted all day. She even managed to find shelving space for the books on the floor so that the green, gold, and red carpet underneath all the books was nearly visible with a pattern of intricate swirls and a few creation myth images like The World on A Turtle's Back. It gave the bookshop character, she thought, and continued, desperate to get her mind off of her Father's best customer.

     Behind her big oak desk, at five o'clock in the evening, she rang up books, pens, old books on tape and a few gift cards. She bagged, smiled, and thanked each person for coming, but she wasn't into it, at least, not really. In fact, what she really was, was bored, and prayed for a break in the flow of customers so she could pout to herself over the fact that her Father's most loyal customer wasn't such a loyal person after all. She sipped on the pomegranate, sparkling, flavored water at her side and blinked at the scenery outside.

     The sun was setting, and there must have been a light breeze outside because as a couple of people shuffled past their shop, their coats turned up at the collar, and their lapels lifted accordingly. She thought of propping the door open a bit to let some of that cool air in, but she couldn't leave her post behind the counter.

     Everything was golden and new looking- like the sun was just coming up, but it was just the opposite. Her father's small, red, and boxy car parked just outside the shop winked at her, the sun's light reflecting off of it's glossy paint, and she sighed, sitting down on her stool. She dropped her elbow on the counter, and leaned her head on her hand, and her other hand fell to the desk, fingers tapping. That's when she felt it. The book. The journal. She had forgotten about it after work the other night, which was surprising because after he had left she had been tempted to peek inside of it instead of waiting till she got home. But now it was here, waiting for her to open and read.

     It was a pretty empty day in the shop, so she didn't see why not, but a part of her was afraid to, because what if what was in it was something terrible? Or...or what if it something else?

     Fingering the pages, Amanda contemplated. She'd just read the first sentence, she thought, and depending on whether or not it sounded any interesting she'd continue. But she already knew it would be interesting, so that left the question of why was she stalling so bad?

     "Mandy?" her Father came out of the back room, patting down his frizzy white hair. "I'm going for some tea, can I bring you back a 'to go' cup?" he approached her with a light touch to her cheek, ever so the affectionate man. Amanda nodded 'sure,' blushing under her Father's padded thumb and shoved the notebook under her desk for when she got home later.

     Later couldn't have come any faster than Amanda dreaded, because as soon as the clock hit six o'clock p.m. her Father was once again shuffling from the backroom, humming to himself, his satchel hiked up on his shoulder. Her tea, a size tall, had gone cold, and the store looked pretty much brand new despite the history in the dust that sat balled up in the nooks and crannies of the impossible places to reach. She reached for her things, keys of the shop, and followed her Father outside where she handed him the key and he locked up. This time she hadn't forgotten the journal her Father's most loyal customer had given her, and had made sure to take extra care as she wedged it between a hairbrush in her purse, and an algebra textbook that she was expected to do homework out of.

     They loaded up the car and got in, and on their way home her Father stopped at Thai Noodles for dinner and ordered the food to go so they could eat at home in front of the television as Wheel of Fortune came on. They unpacked the containers of food onto real plates and when Amanda's Father took the recliner, she took the floor space by his side, balancing her plate on her lap.

     There had been a time when they sat at the dinner table, but when Amanda's mother had passed the dining table became a place to drop mail on their way in from school or work, and a place that held her book bag, and her Father's satchel, her flute, and his one golf club because he had lost all the other parts of the set in the move. It held boxes of tea cups her Mother had cherished, but the two Father and daughter couldn't stand to drink out of them without remembering the missing fixture in their house that was their Mother and Wife. They exchanged old routines for new ones and their old peach house for the little green house diluted into a milky and pasty green that was much smaller, but more homey with moving boxes cluttered in corners that neither could be bothered to unpack.

     When Wheel of Fortune ended and they finished eating, Amanda kissed her father on the cheek goodnight, and repacked the boxes of food. She'd leave the dishes for morning which she knew she'd regret when the bugs started crawling under the door into the house or however they got in, but she had something else she had really wanted to do, and darted in her room to do it before exhaustion took over. She grabbed her towel hanging on the back of her computer chair and some fresh clothes for a quick shower, and when she was done towel drying her hair she curled up under her covers with the journal that had been eating away at her patience all day, and greedily flipped back the cover, devouring the passages one by one.

     When her Father shuffled off to bed at around one o'clock in the morning Amanda's light was still on in her bedroom and shining through the crack on the bottom of the door. He knocked lightly before entering, and she glanced up from the book she was reading, startled, eyes wide.

     "Not much longer, okay Mandy?" he rasped, and Amanda nodded, turning back to the pages of her book.