Paper Love

by Jae

  Anja grabbed a red crayon and colored in one of the roofs. She glanced up as if feeling Susanne’s gaze on her, and her cheeks flushed even more. “Sorry. I couldn’t resist. I know we’re here to work.”

  If Susanne had been here with anyone else, she might have given them a stern nod, but she didn’t have the heart to spoil Anja’s enjoyment. She pointed at the crayon in Anja’s hand. “This is work. After all, you can’t very well recommend a certain brand of crayons to our customers if you haven’t tried them out yourself.”

  “Right. So try it.”

  “Uh, I don’t know. I’ve never been good at—”

  “Try it.” Anja pressed a green crayon into her hand.

  Susanne glanced left and right. No one paid them any attention. To her left, a guy in a business suit and a tie colored in a train. If he could do it, so could she. She grabbed a handful of crayons and painted the sail of a boat bobbing on a still-white river in rainbow colors.

  Anja paused in her own roof-coloring endeavor and grinned at her.

  Okay, this was kind of fun, Susanne had to admit.

  Finally, they put the crayons down and continued exploring the booths along the broad aisle. Anja took the lead as they talked to vendors from all over the world and watched product demonstrations and presentations on the latest developments in the stationery business.

  Susanne was used to taking control of work situations, so hanging back and letting Anja do the talking took some getting used to. After a while, she found that she didn’t mind at all. She knew she could trust Anja to do a much better job than she could.

  As quiet and unassuming as Anja was most of the time, she now talked animatedly and asked clever questions. Plus her accent when she spoke English with people from all over the world was kind of cute. She charmed the exhibitors without even trying, so the two extra bags Anja had brought became heavier as the day progressed and they collected free samples, business cards, and product catalogs. They also took turns carrying Anja’s backpack, which seemed to be getting heavier by the minute too.

  Susanne’s feet and shoulders ached. She had no doubt that if she glanced at the fitness app on her phone, she’d find that they had walked at least five kilometers—and the day wasn’t even half over yet. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other as she watched Anja take in yet another booth.

  This one displayed notebooks that had a computer keyboard embossed on their covers. When she took a closer look, she realized that the letters on the keys spelled out handwriting beats keyboard.

  Susanne suppressed a chuckle. This was definitely the right notebook for Anja.

  Anja lovingly ran her fingers over the cover, tracing the keys, and then opened one of the journals to study the paper.

  “They come in hardbound and softbound, and we offer them in three different colors and three sizes,” the exhibitor said in heavily accented English. “Customers can choose between ruled and blank paper.”

  “They are beautiful,” Anja said in a tone that most people reserved for little babies—or their lovers.

  A shiver went through Susanne despite the overly warm temperature in the hall.

  “You should really think about offering them with dot-grid paper too,” Anja said. “It’s really popular with many customers at the moment.”

  That started a lively discussion about ways to make the product even better, and when they parted ten minutes later, Anja slid yet another catalog and a free notebook into her bag.

  The vendor warmly shook her hand.

  Anja glanced at the business card he had handed her and smiled at him. “Dovidenja. Zelim vam ugodan dan.”

  That got her an excited response, and it took two more minutes before Susanne could finally pull her away from the booth.

  “You speak…whatever language that was?” Susanne asked as they headed for the hall’s exit.

  “Croatian. No, I don’t really speak it. Just a few phrases that I remember from when I was a child. My parents and I used to spend every summer in Croatia, but I was just eight or nine when the war broke out and we stopped going, so all I remember are things like goodbye and have a nice day.”

  “It’s a beautiful country,” Susanne said.

  Anja’s eyes lit up. She got that dreamy look on her face—the same one she got when she talked about pens and notebooks. “You’ve been there?”

  Susanne nodded. “Just once. I spent a week on Krk last year. Not long enough to pick up more than pivo molim.”

  They both chuckled at Susanne’s beer-ordering skills.

  “So you didn’t go back as an adult?” Susanne asked.

  Anja shook her head. “September is really the best time to go. It’s still warm enough to swim, and most tourists are gone by then. But that’s also the time when we’re pretty busy at the store with back-to-school sales.” After a moment, she added, “Plus vacations like that aren’t in my budget.”

  “Did you never consider getting a better-paying job so you can go on vacations, maybe get a car…”

  Anja stopped abruptly, ignoring the fact that they were right in front of the escalators.

  Other visitors had to veer around them. Some cursed loudly.

  “It might be hard to imagine for you, but not everyone needs a BMW and tailor-made clothes to be happy.”

  For a second, Susanne didn’t know what to say. It was rare that anyone talked to her like that. She opened her mouth to protest but then snapped it shut, lightly gripped Anja’s elbow, and pulled her onto the escalator going up to the next level.

  There were no exhibitors on this floor, just meeting rooms, so fewer people milled around. Susanne spied a quiet corner with a padded bench across from several computer terminals with a handwritten sign that said out of order. She led Anja over and put down her heavy bag.

  Anja dropped onto the bench next to her and ran a hand through her hair. “Sorry.” She glanced at Susanne, then away. “I don’t know what… I’m usually not… I guess all the stress of the store possibly closing is getting to me. Of course, that’s not an excuse for being a bitch.”

  A hint of a smile tugged at the corners of Susanne’s mouth. “You think that was bitchy? Compared to some of my former colleagues, that was tame.”

  Anja shook her head. “Then I definitely wouldn’t want to work for that company.”

  “No, you wouldn’t.” She couldn’t imagine Anja surviving for even a day in that pool of sharks.

  “That’s what I like so much about working at Paper Love. There’s no mobbing, no backstabbing, and the day-to-day work doesn’t revolve around who’s bringing in more customers or making more money. Yeah, being able to afford expensive vacations and a bigger apartment would be nice, and when I’m caught in a downpour, having a car doesn’t sound so bad, but at the end of the day, it’s not really important to me. I like my life the way it is, and everything else would just be…glitter. Nice to look at, but not really necessary.” Anja looked up from where she’d studied her hands and gazed into Susanne’s eyes. “Can you understand that?”

  Their eye contact made Susanne swallow. “Yes.” She had always thought people who were content with what they had were just passive fools, but the more she got to know Anja, the harder it became to judge her. Maybe there was something to be said for not always being on the lookout for something different, something more, something better. She cleared her throat. “I think I need to apologize too. I didn’t mean to attack your, um, lifestyle.”

  Anja grinned. “Lifestyle?”

  “Yeah, you know.”

  “Let’s just forget it and put it down to—”

  A loud growl coming from Susanne’s stomach interrupted her.

  “Hunger pangs,” Anja finished her sentence with a laugh. “Come on. Let’s take a break.” She opened her backpack, pulled out muffins, apples, sandwiches, and small containers of juice, and arranged a little picnic on the padded bench between them. There was two of everything, so clearly, Anja had packed food for her too.

&
nbsp; “Oh wow. No wonder the backpack was so heavy.”

  “Are you complaining?”

  Susanne lifted her hands. “Wouldn’t dream of it.” They could have eaten in one of the restaurants or cafés downstairs, but being away from the hordes of people for a while was nice.

  “Good.” Anja handed her one of the cheese sandwiches but held hers without eating and looked at Susanne with a serious expression. “Do you think any of this,” she waved her hand at the floors below them, “will save Paper Love?”

  Susanne put down her sandwich and sighed. “No.”

  “No.”

  Susanne’s one-word answer seemed to echo through the hall and bounce back from the high ceiling.

  Anja had feared this would be the answer. Perhaps that was why she had avoided asking the question so clearly until now. Still, hearing it aloud was like a kick to the gut.

  “At least not by themselves,” Susanne added. “Carrying a few more items, no matter how nice they are, won’t save us.”

  Anja smiled sadly. “Just glitter, hmm?”

  “Exactly. We need to change everything from the ground up.”

  She had said we this time, Anja realized. It made her feel better but only a little bit. Her tongue seemed to stick to the roof of her dry mouth, so she pierced the seal of her juice container with the straw and took a big sip of orange juice. Change everything. She hated that word: change. “W-what does that mean?”

  “No more school supplies. No more staplers and printer paper and stuff like that.”

  “But we sell a lot of them, especially in summer.”

  “Yeah. But we hardly make any profit from cheap items like that because the competition forces us to sell them barely above cost. We can’t compete with department stores and big chains like Staples and McPaper.”

  She was right. They could sell pencils and paper clips all day and still never earn enough to make a living. But it was still hard to let go of products they had sold for so long.

  Deep in thought, Anja rubbed an apple clean on her skirt. “You want us to specialize in BMWs.” She glanced at Susanne, who stared at the apple…or maybe at her legs. Tingles spread through her body, reminding her of the way she had felt pressed against Susanne this morning. Are you out of your mind? This isn’t the time for thoughts like that.

  Hastily, Susanne looked back up into her eyes. “Basically, yes. We should focus on high-end stuff and specialty items that no one else has. Maybe tie our products to our location by working with little local companies.”

  Anja’s mind went in a hundred different directions at once and finally came up with a few ideas that might be useful. “Greeting cards made by artists from the region, vegan notebook covers, and eco-friendly items like pens made out of recycled plastic bottles.”

  “Yes. Something like that.”

  Anja pulled out her notebook and started to scribble down more ideas but then paused. “Is there a big enough market for that?”

  Susanne shook her head. “Not in Freiburg alone. If we want to reach enough people to make a living, we need to do business online as well.”

  Online. Oh shit. She’d been afraid Susanne would say that. “But that goes against everything we’ve been trying to do with the store.”

  “Plunging it into ruin?” Susanne squeezed her eyes shut and rubbed her lips as if trying to wipe out those words.

  “Ouch.” Stung, Anja leaned back against the wall, away from Susanne, who now peeked over at her.

  “Sorry. That was harsh. I’m just frustrated.” She slid closer on the bench until Anja felt the warmth of her knee against her leg. “Listen. Nowadays no company can survive without a strong online presence. I don’t get why you didn’t at least set up a website with a webstore years ago.”

  “Because it lacks the kind of personal touch that our customers prefer.”

  “Then find a way to provide that personal touch online.”

  Anja’s stomach churned. Susanne made it sound so easy, but for her, it was anything but. While she could use the Internet and get done whatever she needed to do online, it felt like a foreign language in which she had never quite become fluent. “How?”

  Susanne shrugged. “I don’t have all the answers, but our first steps need to be setting up a website with an integrated webstore, a blog, an Instagram presence, and a YouTube channel. And then we need to spend some serious time finding out where the scrapbookers, journalers, and pen-and-paper geeks hang out online. That’s where we need to be too. We need to create content they want to read and that establishes us as trendsetters.”

  Anja squeezed the apple so tightly that she felt the fruit give under her fingers. Her nails left half-moon-shaped indentations in the apple. “Blogging, social media marketing, making YouTube videos… Nobby can’t do any of that.”

  “I know.” Susanne studied her with a serious expression. “The question is: Can you?”

  The weight of every notebook and every piece of paper in their entire store seemed to settle on Anja’s shoulders. She wanted to argue, wanted to tell Susanne that she was wrong, that this couldn’t be the solution, but she knew she had closed her eyes from the truth for too long already. Now she had to face it or live with the consequences. “Yes,” she croaked out and then added with a slightly steadier voice, “I can do it.”

  Susanne reached over and gently squeezed her hand. “I know you can. I will help, okay?”

  Her fingers were warm and strong and chased away part of the fear. “Okay. Where do we start?”

  “First, we save this poor apple,” she gently loosened Anja’s fingers, which had held the piece of fruit in a death grip, “and then we save Paper Love, starting with a short video about our top five finds at Paperworld.”

  “Sounds good.” Anja put her other hand on top of Susanne’s and looked into her eyes. “Thank you.”

  Susanne grinned. “Don’t thank me yet. I’m not just talking about product videos. If we want to achieve that personal touch, Paper Love needs a face—your face.” She pulled her iPhone from her blazer pocket and held it up. “Ready to be a film star?”

  Anja groaned. “I hate being on video. My hair’s probably a mess; my blouse is wrinkled from the backpack straps, and—”

  “Nonsense. You look beautiful. Um, I mean, I bet our customers will appreciate your well-put-together but natural look.”

  The compliment filled Anja with warmth. “Okay. Let’s do this. But first…”

  “Yeah?”

  “Muffins.”

  Anja dropped into the seat next to Susanne and stretched out her aching feet as far as the space in the high-speed train allowed. At least the regional train from the exhibition grounds to the main station hadn’t been as crowded as this morning. Too bad, a little voice commented. She ignored it.

  Susanne rotated her shoulders, which probably hurt as much as Anja’s since they had taken turns carrying the backpack and had each lugged around a heavy bag too. “I can’t believe this was just one day. It feels like we were there all week.”

  “Yeah.” Anja’s brain was on overload with all the stimulation from the fair and the things they would have to do in the coming days and weeks, and her feet ached as if she had walked all the way from Freiburg. She closed her tired eyes. “But it was worth it, right?”

  “Mm-hmm. Definitely. I mean, I still don’t get why an adult woman would squeal over a notebook like a teenager who just met her favorite band, but it was fun and it helped me see the direction we need to take the store in more clearly.”

  “I did not squeal.”

  “No, of course not. You were just talking excitedly, in a higher than usual voice.” Susanne imitated a cartoon character who had inhaled helium.

  Anja opened her eyes and reached out to give her a playful slap to the shoulder, then paused and let her hand drop back into her lap. Oh wow. When had she become so relaxed around Susanne? Somehow the tone of their interaction had shifted during the course of the day. Hard to imagine that this was the same woma
n who had insisted on being addressed by her last name less than two weeks ago. Was that a good thing? She hoped so. Having Susanne behind the camera had certainly put her more at ease when they had filmed several short video clips.

  “Do you think the videos are good enough to use on YouTube?” Anja asked.

  When no reply came from Susanne, she turned her head and looked over.

  Susanne had pulled her silver clip from her hair so she could rest her head more comfortably against the seat. Now her hair tumbled loosely about her shoulders. Her eyes were closed and her lips slightly parted. Her usually controlled features had relaxed in sleep, making her look younger and more vulnerable. What a difference from the ice queen who had stormed into the store on the first day, cursing the Bächle!

  Anja’s gaze followed the soft lines of her mouth. God, she was beautiful. Why on earth hadn’t they put Susanne in the video instead of her? Her fingers itched to comb back a strand of hair that had fallen onto Susanne’s face. Stop it. This is crazy. She shoved her hand beneath her thigh to resist temptation.

  She sat there watching her until her eyelids became too heavy and she closed her eyes.

  Some unknown time later, a touch to her shoulder startled her from her light slumber.

  She opened her eyes and looked around, expecting the conductor. But the aisle next to her seat was empty, so she peered to the other side.

  Susanne had slid sideways in her seat, and her head rested on Anja’s shoulder.

  Aww. Anja grinned. If only she could take a photo. She had a feeling not too many people got to see Susanne like this.

  She gazed past her out the window to the darkness beyond, trying to figure out where they were, but couldn’t make out any prominent landmarks. A glance at her wristwatch revealed that they were about halfway to Freiburg. Oh wow. That meant that she’d slept for an hour.

  The automatic doors to their compartment opened with a whoosh, and the conductor entered. “Tickets, please.”

  Damn. Couldn’t he have waited another half hour so Susanne could get a little more sleep? Careful not to move her shoulder, Anja reached into the inside pocket of her blazer and pulled out her ticket.