A Short Walk to the Bookshop

by Aleksandra Drake

  "Sparrow, have you read this?" I heard Diedrich ask from his spot on a chair at the table next to a teetering pile of books. The table had become a fixture of the shop and it was hard to imagine it not being there before. I poked my head around the corner of a bookcase to see what he was referring to. He tapped on the paperback cover of Nicholas Nickleby.

  "Nope. Dickens?"

  "You may like it. If you are looking for a recommendation."

  I walked over and picked up the book with one hand. It was thick, with small print. I knew Dickens to be dense and boring. It might be perfect to lower my blood pressure, and buying a book would make it easier to leave before finishing my coffee.

  "I'll give it a try."

  He looked up at me over the rims of his glasses. "Good. Let me know what you think of it."

  I smiled tightly. "I'm kind of in a hurry."

  "Oh." He jumped up, nearly toppling the stack nearest him.

  I practically ran home, feeling like I was on the verge of throwing up the whole time. My vision condensed into a tunnel in front of me and I almost didn't even check every closet before I flopped onto my bed and opened my computer.

  Officer Dave had told me months ago that I needed to stay off social media. It would be the easiest way for the stalker to keep tabs on me and gather information. I'd deleted all my accounts without hesitation. It had been almost a relief anyway. Good riddance, I'd thought. But now I had no way of logging in to search for this fake account. I ended up making a whole new throwaway e-mail account just to create a fake profile of my own. Bile was rising in my throat and my head was spinning as I searched. It didn't take long.

  He was using a selfie I had taken years ago at a concert. I was grinning broadly, my eyes thickly lined in eyeliner, and there was a flirtatious tilt to my chin. Staring at myself and knowing that the account was controlled by him filled me with such a sickening feeling that I stood up suddenly and carried my laptop to the kitchen counter for no reason. Just to move.

  The account was set to private, so all I could see was the picture and that he'd created the page two months ago. He'd sat on it that long. Why was he just now messaging my mom?

  I'd assumed that he would look for me when I moved away. Knowing it for certain was worse.

  Staring at that selfie made me think of that old horror movie gag, where the eyes have been cut out of a portrait and someone's looking through them. It looks normal until the one being watched walks away, then the eyes, the human eyes behind the picture, follows them.

  I'd been so happy at that concert. I'd saved up two weeks of pay from Macy's to get the tickets and I'd spent more time putting my outfit together and doing my makeup than I had on the night of senior prom when I was a kid. It was my favorite band. I was wearing my favorite outfit. I was with friends. I was a different person then. I slept when I was tired and never threw up unless I was sick. I don't think I'd ever even thought of window locks at all then.

  He was obsessed with someone who didn't even exist anymore. I wondered, if he ever did find me, would he be disappointed?

  Chapter Five

  "Getting groceries?" Diedrich asked, looking up from the book he had spread open on the counter.

  "Nope. I made the trek downtown specifically to see you," I said. His face lit up for a moment, then shadowed back to its normal restrained expression.

  "Why do I have a foreboding feeling when you say that?" he asked, a tiny smile in the corner of his lips.

  I slapped the paperback copy of Nicholas Nickleby on the glass counter.

  "I would like to return this book, please," I stated.

  His brows lifted. "You didn't like it?"

  "Couldn't finish it. Paying Charles Dickens by the word was a mistake." I couldn't exactly tell him that I couldn't focus on the pages because I felt like a monster had just reached through my computer and wiped his slimy hands all over me.

  Diedrich laughed and agreed with me, but I could tell he was a little disappointed that his first book recommendation to me had been a wash. Maybe I should have tried harder to finish it.

  "I should have mentioned to you before that I already knew I didn't like Dickens generally. But I hadn't read this one yet." I tapped my nail on the cover.

  "It's alright,” he said "An unfinished book says as much about a person as a finished one. I just need some time to nail down your taste."

  For some reason I felt a thrill of anxiety flip in my gut at those words and I wondered just how much he would come to know about me based on the books I read (or didn't read, as the case may be.)

  "What else, besides the superfluous length, did you dislike about it?" he asked, shutting the book he had been reading. I had learned that action, the closing of a book, always said that now he meant business. Now I had his undivided attention. I swallowed thickly.

  "Well..." I began, unsure of how I would continue. "I didn't like how one dimensional the characters were. Nicholas was a good guy and he was always a good guy. Squeers was a bad guy and he was always a bad guy. Madeline was such a good girl I thought I was going to get a cavity."

  "Ah." Diedrich responded thoughtfully. "Yes, I understand perfectly what you mean. So...something more pithy, more moral ambiguity, less moralizing. I assume you have already read Jane Eyre." It wasn't inflected like a question, but he stopped his fingers' stroll along the spines of the general fiction section and he looked up at me.

  "Yes. I’ve read Jane Eyre."

  "Of course you have." He said, continuing to search.

  "What do you mean 'of course you have?'" I asked "Are you laughing at me?"

  "Not at all. Not at all." He assured, pointedly not looking up.

  "But..."

  "But, well has a woman really come of age if she hasn't spent at least a year or two clutching Jane to her chest?"

  I wrinkled my nose at him and was surprised to be rewarded with a rare laugh.

  "Still," I said “better Jane than Holden Caufield."

  "You're probably right." He said with a thoughtful glance to the side.

  "Do you have any other ideas..?" I prompted, not wanting to leave without another recommendation from him this time. I would pretend to like it, no matter what. Making him happy would be reward enough.

  "Let's give this a try." He said, tapping his bottom lip as he walked away, intending for me to follow him. The book he produced was Northanger Abbey, a lovely old edition with an ornate cover.

  "Have you read this one?" He asked

  I shook my head, turning the book over in my hands.

  "It's a bit shorter than Nicholas Nickleby," he murmured.

  I laughed, digging into my pocket as I walked towards the cash register. "Have you read it?" I asked him.

  He nodded once. "I wouldn't recommend it if I hadn't."

  "And what makes you think I’ll like it?" I asked, teasing him slightly. I assumed that he thought any girl would be happy with an Austen, under any circumstances.

  "Just let me know when you've finished it," he said with an enigmatic grin that made me excited to read it.

  It had been two weeks since I had started working at the market. The shop was small and friendly enough that I settled into a rhythm pretty easily, which was a blessing because ever since that Facebook account contacted my mom, I’d been on red alert all day every day. If my new job had been stressful or difficult, I may not have made it. I was beginning to recognize the regulars, and that helped. I felt more like I belonged here, too. Like I was a part of the town.

  Days later I tried to settle into my couch. It was raining that day, and I was off work. It was the perfect day. I had a throw blanket over my legs, a cup of tea poised on the edge of my coffee table and Northanger Abbey balanced on the back of the couch. I couldn't open it though. I couldn't sip my tea. I scrolled through my phone, staring again at the fake Facebook profile.

  I had talked to my mother again several times. She had quickly blocked him online when it became clear that the profile was fake, so there had
been no more contact between them, but I needed to know everything about what he said to her. At first, she had wanted to keep the information from me, telling me that it wasn't necessary for me to torture myself with details. But, after a bit of cajoling, I got her to send me the screenshots.

  All he had said to her was hello, and asking when my mother and I had made plans to see each other again. I read my mother being suspicious. We hadn't made plans to see each other. When she wouldn't tell him anything, he'd stopped messaging her and she had blocked him and contacted me.

  Reading his words was surreal. I read them over and over, hearing his voice in my head as clearly as if he was standing right next to me. With a nauseous pit in my stomach, I deleted the screen shots with reluctance and lobbed my phone onto the chair and out of reach. I huffed, picked up my mug and swallowed a scorching gulp. Pressing my back against the arm of the couch, I opened the book.

  I read the first sentence. I read it again. The first page passed without making even the slightest impression on my mind. I read three more pages before slamming the book shut and tossing it onto the chair as well. Athena's head poked up from where she was sleeping on the floor when I stood up suddenly.

  "I can't even read now,” I told her in annoyance "Everything I read comes out in Adrien's voice, which just doesn't work with Jane Austen. I'm telling you, it just doesn't work."

  Athena got up and walked to my side, doing small circles around me and making her "let's go on a walk" face. I reached out instinctively and ran my fingers through the soft fur around her neck.

  "I don't want to go on a walk. I want to read," I said, but I'd made the fatal flaw of saying the word walk anyway, and now the circles she was turning became more frantic and she bounded across the room to where her leash hung on the front doorknob.

  I sighed deeply. Normally, I would check the forecast on my phone without thinking twice. Like a sneeze, I'd reach for my phone with only the merest provocation. My phone had taken on a whole new aura in these days. I knew it was irrational, but a part of me felt like he could see me through the screen

  So I took my tea to the back porch to test the chill.

  Spring comes slowly to the mountains, and the wind still had bite that April afternoon. I ignored the goosebumps that rose on my arms and the chattering of my teeth and drank the rest of my tea defiantly in the pale, cloud-filtered sunlight. I'd wear a winter coat and take Athena out, but I would carry the book with me. Maybe reading somewhere else would be better than at home.

  In the past weeks I had discovered a small bistro around the corner from the post office. Mostly it was a sandwich shop, but they had two of those large self-serve coffee carafes. This meant that I could order a cup of coffee and refill it if I stayed there. It would be a good place to read.

  On our way out, I checked the doors of my car. Three days had passed since I last used it and I needed to be sure that it was still locked. In Texas I'd lived with my mom in a beige house in a subdivision filled with other identical beige houses and we were five miles deep into a sea of beige subdivisions, so the car was essential for everyday errands. Here in West Bend, I could just as easily walk to the bank or the grocery store or the bookshop and walk the dog at the same time. It was exactly the kind of domestic fantasy that had no room for things like cyber-stalking.

  The walk to the bistro went right past the bookshop and, even though I hadn't intended on stopping in, as I passed by I saw Diedrich in the window. More importantly, he saw me. He met my eye and smiled, nodding once, and I was forced to stop to say hello.

  The bells jingled when I came in.

  "You keep these christmas bells up all year?" I asked by way of greeting.

  "Christmas bells?"

  "Yeah. The jingle bells." I said, touching the bundle that hung from the doorknob.

  "What says they're christmas bells?" He asked.

  "Uh...They're jingle bells?" I laughed.

  Diedrich shrugged one shoulder. "They do their job of alerting me when someone comes in if i'm not at the front of the store. They probably were christmas decorations at one point but now they are just the regular kind. Did you finish?" He pointed at the book in my hand.

  "Oh. No. Actually I'm just starting today. But I couldn't read at home."

  "You're free to camp out on the couch if you like."

  I didn't have to consider my options. The bistro was another three blocks away, and the freezing rain had picked up halfway to the bookshop. Immediately I decided that reading here was better than sitting at the bistro. I thanked him and Athena followed me back to the couch where I kicked off my wet boots and curled up in one corner.

  I felt far from my life there in the hidden back of the bookstore, like I stopped being Sparrow Anderson and became a movie extra billed only as "Woman With a Book." I tripped into the story and stayed there for several hours in relative silence, broken only when Diedrich asked if I'd eaten lunch and if I wanted anything from the grocery store across the street. I said no, but he brought me back cookies anyway. It stopped raining, and the sun slanted across the store as it filtered in sideways through the old glass windows. People drifted in and wandered the nooks of the shop, most of them greeting Diedrich as if they'd known each other for a long time, but only distantly. When the shop was empty, Diedrich either tapped away at the ancient computer up near the register or he sat at the far end of the couch and read alongside me. Beyond a few words here and there to ask if I needed anything, he didn't try to get me to talk. Wrapped in the scent of coffee and book dust, I read until Diedrich started to make noises like he was getting ready to close up shop. I closed the book on my finger to hold my place and looked up.

  "You're so quiet, I keep forgetting you're here," he laughed.

  "Don't lock me in,” I joked.

  "Oh, I wouldn't."

  "I'll get out of your hair. Sorry for staying so long." I stood and slid back into my shoes, patting Athena's head as she hopped up to attention.

  "You're no trouble at all,” he said. "What do you think of the book?"

  "Do you think I'm like Catherine?"

  Diedrich blinked and his adam's apple bobbed. For a moment he didn't respond.

  "Catherine in the book," he said.

  "Yeah."

  "When you said you'd liked Jane Eyre, I thought you and she might get along." He said, regaining his color and gently smiling eyes.

  "Well, I can't tell if you're laughing at me or not, but I do like her. So thank you."

  His lips fell slightly "No, I wasn't laughing at you at all."

  "You don't think she's silly?"

  He pursed his lips and shook his head, looking down. "No. I don't think so. Innocent, yes. But not silly. Given her age and the time she lived in, I think she behaves perfectly reasonably throughout the novel. Has she gotten to the Abbey yet?"

  I shook my head "She's just gotten the invitation. I'll probably stay up reading."

  "It's been marvelous watching you devour that book whole. I'm so pleased that you like it,” he said with a grin that betrayed a sense of self-satisfaction.

  "You're recommendation was spot on this time," I assured him, but the sun as disappearing behind the clouds, and I needed to get home before darkness fell, so I quickly said goodbye and scurried out the door.

  I continued to keep to myself in those days, with the exception of visiting Diedrich and going to work. The only other times I went out of the house was to walk Athena. The only playground in town never had children playing on it that i'd seen. All of the playground equipment was metal, and had once been painted but now the rubbed off bits from children's hands were more prominent than the bits still covered with flaking paint. The swings hung too low to the ground, and the metal slide was always wet. The domed jungle gym was the sort that would never pass inspection these days.

  The creepy playground aside, the park boasted an unkempt but satisfactorily meandering walking path that twisted about for close to mile. It was a good place to walk Athena; away from t
he road, often enclosed by trees. Quiet. That morning it was drizzling off and on, but off more than on, so I knew I needed to go walking with Athena. I could hear the voice of my therapist in my ear as I slid into my boots. Gentle exercise and fresh air is one of the best therapies.

  I was certain that Diedrich had to be getting tired of me. He was my only friend, other than the trees. And I'd been neglecting the trees in favor of the painfully shy German bookseller. After spending an entire day sitting silently on his couch, I couldn't bring myself to go back there again so soon. So I decided to walk instead.

  I tilted my head up towards the sky, letting the misty drizzle of rain gather on my closed eyelids for a few steps while Athena kept me on the path. The reverberations of her butt wiggling excitedly travelled up her lead, though, and I opened my eyes again to see none other than my only friend walking along the path in the opposite direction. His hands were in his pockets and the collar of his wool coat was turned up. He wore a brown hat, the kind of hat that only a man over fifty can pull off unironically.