To: Fawn Windsor
Re: Winter romance
Hello there, my dear,
What a romantic tumult you’ve found yourself in! I have to say I’m a bit envious—most of my blind dates don’t end up so exciting. I think my nearest brush with a celebrity was briefly dating some baseball player’s personal assistant. I have no idea who the baseball player was because sports are terribly boring to me. But to each his own, I suppose. My date went on incessantly about the baseball player, and it was clear by my second martini that they would have rather been dating their boss than sitting there with me. Oh well.
Where was I? It’s late, and I’m exhausted from a hard day of real estate work, so I thought I’d send off a quick reply before crashing.
Fawn, my dear, Turks and Caicos was DIVINE. It’s too much to write about. Perhaps more later.
Gregory
From: Fawn Birchill
Sent: Mon, Jan 14, 2019 at 10:16 AM
To: Staff
Subject: Mark Twain Estate Guests
Dear Staff,
We have received some phone calls inquiring about the event this February and have sold a few tickets, but numbers are still not as impressive as I had hoped. Please mention the event to customers as they come in. They may buy tickets in-store. Feel free to give them a complimentary cup of coffee when they buy a ticket.
Fawn, Owner
From: Mark Nilsen
Sent: Mon, Jan 14, 2019 at 11:09 AM
To: Fawn Birchill
Subject: Gala Event Invitation
Hi Fawn,
I hope you received the official gala invitation. If your plans fall through, you are always welcome to stop in.
I couldn’t help but notice that the sign in your window has been taken down. Your employee Kyle said it would be fine to put it up, especially since it is to benefit youth centers and not the Grumpy Mug whatsoever. Since it has been taken down, could I get it back?
Thank you,
Mark
P.S. We managed to get the mayor to come to our event! Might be cool to meet him. :)
From: Fawn Birchill
Sent: Mon, Jan 14, 2019 at 11:45 AM
To: Mark Nilsen
Re: Gala Event Invitation
Dear Mark,
I appreciate the invite; however, as I stated before, I simply cannot make it. Because you have literally no history in the Philadelphia business scene, I am surprised that you managed to get the mayor to attend your gala. I am not sure if you are trying to impress me or intimidate me, but please know that I am not easily intimidated nor am I impressed.
Fawn, Owner, The Curious Cat Book Emporium (a The Adventures of Tom Sawyer specialist store)
P.S. I appreciate you coming forward and admitting that you put your gala poster up in my doorway, and that you got permission from Kyle to do so. I have spoken to Kyle and told him that we unfortunately cannot support our immediate competition, and so the poster was taken down. I’m sorry, but I recycled it (I hope posters are recyclable!) and cannot return it to you.
From: Fawn Birchill
Sent: Tue, Jan 15, 2019 at 6:09 PM
To: Angela Washington
Subject: Philly Love Finder (CONFIDENTIAL)
Dear Angela,
Is there somewhere on this service where I can write a bad review of an individual so as to warn the other potential dates? I am beginning to remember why I swore off the dating scene in the eighties. The world hasn’t improved much in that regard.
Fawn, Owner
THE CURIOUS CAT BOOK EMPORIUM
Blog Post #1
An Interview with the Proprietor
June Marchland is a journalist who has worked with the New York Times covering the Syrian conflict as well as the war in Afghanistan. June began her journalistic work at Harvard, where she founded their quarterly women’s newsletter. She currently holds a PhD in philosophy and journalism studies and is extremely exclusive about whom she chooses to interview. The Curious Cat Book Emporium is honored and humbled to have her here with us today.
JM: What was your inspiration for such a store?
FB: When I was a child, my father owned a general store in our hometown of Norristown. He worked tirelessly day and night, with my sister and me assisting him. My sister often remained in the back working on the books while I was in charge of all up-front matters, no doubt due to my positive and customer-oriented personality. Often businessmen would come in on their way into the city and flirt with me, but never with my poor sister, who was stuck in the back room and I believe grew to resent me for it. My inspiration came as I watched all the mistakes Father made. He would not treat us well and paid us only enough to get a school lunch that day. My grades slipped because I was always so tired from getting up early, and I would often fall asleep in class. This spawned my dream of opening my own store and doing it right. Treating people right, rewarding customers (but not too much)—not to the detriment of my business—and always being deeply rooted in the community.
JM: Do you feel rooted in your community?
FB: I do. I am always looking for ways to get the local businesses to work with me on what would be mutually beneficial opportunities. Not all have taken to it. I believe the times we live in have forced people—even hippies that run co-ops—to be rather paranoid, but some have proven me wrong. The owner of O’Hare Repair is an example of an excellent businessman, rooted in his community. I daresay I have also inspired local fellow bookstore owners to become more involved in grassroots community efforts. If you watch closely, you may see a pattern where I come up with a great idea, and shortly thereafter they duplicate it but vary it enough to make it their own. An insecure person would take this as an affront and perhaps even accuse them of being completely unimaginative and desperate, whereas I see it as a healthy and welcome exchange of ideas.
JM: That leads perfectly into my next question. Some have said that you are a pioneer in the field of used bookstores. Why do you think that is, if you agree?
FB: I humbly agree, June. And that is because not only are our sales numbers steadily increasing each year, but I have also managed to diversify and become the only bookseller in Philadelphia, or perhaps Pennsylvania, with such an inventory of Mark Twain books as to set me far above the others. I am aware that certain sellers down the street may be jealous of my situation, but they needn’t be. They should do as I do, learn from my successes, and emulate when possible—as long as it’s not selling Mark Twain books!
(Laughter)
JM: They didn’t tell me you were so funny.
FB: I like to surprise people with that.
JM: Would you say you are popular among your employees?
FB: My employees are like family to me. They are my closest friends. We share my great Victorian space for eight hours a day, so we have no choice but to become close and reliant on each other. I liken it to how sailors must feel on ships, stuck on the ocean for months at a time, building friendships, alliances, and lifelong memories. Recently we had a wonderfully fun holiday party at the store. Everyone came and brought their friends, and we talked and laughed into the night just as I, as a little girl, had dreamed my family would always do.
JM: Are you close with your family?
FB: I have always felt like a stranger in my family, and as much as I would like to be closer to them, I have to choose my work. It is the one thing that has brought me more happiness and satisfaction than anything in my life before. And if anything were to happen to this place . . . well, failure is simply not an option. I watched my father fail, and it’s an ugly, terrible thing. My father and I were never close, but ever since I opened my store twenty years ago, I believe that I have been in a silent competition with him—even though he has been practically bedridden these last twenty years. I often think on the Ginsberg poem “A Supermarket in California” when I think of my father. I believe Ginsberg was speaking of Whitman when he referred to “father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher,” though I have never seen this
poem as referring to anyone but my father, and my questions to him, which I believe are similar to Ginsberg’s: What kind of America did you get to see? And more personally for me, what did you leave me to deal with? Why haven’t we spoken? Why can’t we speak? Why must you, Father, be on a ferry to death while I’m left to pick up the various pieces of confusion in my life that you left littered around me like broken glass?
JM: You are quite a poet yourself, yes?
FB: When it comes to my father, I think I can throw out a lot of feelings at the drop of a hat. That is what happens with neglect. The child is left with so many unsaid words, so they become poets, artists, or bookstore proprietors. But getting back to your question, the quiet competition between my father and me has forced me to become close to him in a strange, ethereal way that’s rather hard to explain. I suppose I am showing him, with my success, that I am doing it right. I am showing my entire family this truth, and I think it’s hard for them to watch me rise and be happy. Some families just like being miserable together.
JM: Before you owned the bookstore, what was your occupation? Did you own another business, or did you work for someone else?
FB: I went through a time in my life when I wasn’t completely sure of what I wanted to do, even though I knew I wanted to own my own business. It’s very frightening to be in your thirties and decide to start a business completely on your own, knowing that you will be putting your personal life on hold until things even out. While I was in that state of flux, right after graduating from college with a business degree, my father tried to sell me his business, presumptuously assuming that I would want it. But that store was a giant sinkhole, and neither my sister nor I wanted anything to do with it. It was in terrible physical condition and he owed a lot of money, which he eventually handled with bankruptcy. While that was happening, I took a few years to live at home and reevaluate things before taking the plunge into opening my own business.
JM: Why books?
FB: What a great question! Without books, I may have never had a way to disappear from the reality I faced every day under my father’s rule. Without books, I wouldn’t have been able to flex my imagination and pretend to be, for example, such vivid characters as Caddy Compson or Madame Bovary. Books allowed me to see that there was more to this world than the town I grew up in or the nearby cities we sometimes visited so my father could exercise his gambling habit. I suppose I could have opened up any store at all, but I chose books because, quite frankly, they might be solely responsible for having kept me fighting all my life for what I wanted. Because of this, it seemed only right to be able to share such a gift with others—and at discounted rates!
JM: What was it like twenty years ago, starting a business from the ground up the way that you did?
FB: It was challenging in that West Philadelphia was a very different place twenty years ago. My greatest challenges were vandalism and robbery, but I will have you know that even though it was considered a rough area, I was unafraid. I saw this as an opportunity to bring books to the community. Also, the building, despite needing a lot of repair work, was incredibly affordable; however, that was not my main motivation for the purchase. I knew this neighborhood would turn around, and sometimes, I daresay, I credit my store for the start of its gentrification.
JM: If you had one piece of advice for a new business owner, what would that be?
FB: Pay your bills without taking out too many loans and pay them on time. Be creative, and you cannot fail. I suppose that’s three.
(Laughter)
JM: We’ll let that one go.
(More laughter)
JM: It has been so wonderful to sit in your shop and get to know you. I have interviewed many people—from world leaders to intellectuals—and this has been a true highlight.
FB: I am humbled. Thank you, June. It’s my pleasure.
JM: The pleasure is mine.
An audio clip of this transcript is unavailable due to technical difficulties. Fawn Birchill apologizes for the inconvenience.
From: Tabitha Birchill
Sent: Tue, Jan 15, 2019 at 8:18 PM
To: Fawn Birchill
Subject: Building Collapse
Dear Fawn,
I heard on the news of a building collapse in the city. Did you know about it? Was it near you? I tried calling, but you didn’t pick up.
Love you,
Mother
From: Fawn Birchill
Sent: Tue, Jan 15, 2019 at 10:05 PM
To: Tabitha Birchill
Re: Building Collapse
Dear Mother,
Please do not worry. It happened down in South Philly, not West Philly where I live. Apparently no one was injured or hurt. I hear it was being torn down, and it happened to come down faster than they planned. Even though I am far from the epicenter, I appreciate your concern. I happen to live in a very sturdy building, however imperfect it may appear on the outside.
Have you been reading my new blog? I have cut and pasted the link below!
Fawn
January 15, 2019
I wish I knew how to recall emails. Immediately upon sending my mother the link to the blog, I read over the interview again and regretted ever telling her about it. It isn’t the nicest portrayal of her and our family. Thank god that a few moments later, she wrote back saying that the link didn’t work and to resend. I think I will simply tell her that the page is under construction and forever leave it at that. In the future, I should be more careful.
Jane, the old woman who thinks I am her daughter from Hawaii, is getting worse cognitively, so I have made my trips to her apartment much more frequently to see if there’s anything she needs. Butterscotch loves following me in and playing jungle cat in the aloe plants, and I think Jane likes petting him when he sometimes walks by her recliner. Sometimes she calls me by my name, and other times she calls me by her daughter’s name. When she thinks I am her daughter, before I leave I say that I had a wonderful weekend with her and that I will send the kids her love (though if her daughter has kids I wouldn’t know, and I doubt she would know, either, at this point). She sits alone in a recliner by the drafty window and watches reruns of Touched by an Angel and Murder, She Wrote. There is always an unopened box of chocolates on her lap that I believe was a gift from the last Valentine’s Day. Sometimes I wonder what horrible things she did to end up so alone. What scares me most is that she probably did nothing horrible—that this is simply what being unlucky looks like. She has a terrible family, and I, too, have a terrible family. Sometimes I hurry through her apartment because I fear that if I were to stick around too long, I may become her—that I may forget how to open the door, how to extricate myself, and instead sit on her floor staring at the cabinets, only to become a human vegetable. Perhaps that is how her family feels? I opened the cabinets once to see what kind of food she had, and there was nothing but a half-eaten box of Triscuits. Her freezer is filled with those little instant microwave meals, which I think she lives off when she isn’t eating the dinners I leave for her. She also keeps numerous open boxes of rat poison all over her apartment. It is thick with dust in there and bears the odor of medication and quilts—a combination of smells that reminds me of visits to my father and also reminds me of why I no longer do it. I hope that I am never this alone one day, or if I am, that I do not care or realize it—that I am too far mentally gone.
When I went to the store, I couldn’t help myself and bought her some herbal tea, bananas, and saltine crackers. She seemed to appreciate it.
Sam Asimov/CuriousCatBooks/1d
So psyched to read To Keep the Sun Alive by Rabeah Ghaffari! #newrelease #fiction #novel
Sam Asimov/CuriousCatBooks/5h
Can’t believe I’m just finding out about Ohio by Stephen Markley. What an amazing book! #novel #fiction #betterlatethannever
From: Fawn Birchill
Sent: Wed, Jan 16, 2019 at 9:00 AM
To: Staff
Subject: The Parrot
Sam,
I have seen some of the things that you are posting, and I must say that nearly none involve my bookstore. Talking about new books coming out would be fine except for the fact that the store in which you are employed does not carry them. I thought the point of this was to boost our business? Please stick to what we have in inventory.
Many thanks,
Fawn, Owner
Angela Washington/CuriousCatBooks/10m
Good day at CCBE! Butterscotch the cat smells less like mildew this a.m. #miraclesdohappen #smellycat
From: Fawn Birchill
Sent: Wed, Jan 16, 2019 at 10:13 AM
To: Staff
Subject: Butterscotch
Angela,
Please explain to me how your post about Butterscotch is supposed to bolster sales. Do you honestly think people will flock from far and wide? Now is not the time to be bringing into question the cleanliness of Butterscotch since we have five supposedly “adorable” feline competitors down the block. We have to be nothing but positive when we speak of him. And please, post about books that are in the inventory, for the one hundredth time!
Fawn, Owner
P.S. Sometimes Butterscotch likes to sleep in the basement and drink from the pipes. I believe he is playing survivor cat and merely imagining that he is living off the land that is the unfurnished basement. If this bothers you, then perhaps you should merely stay away from him?
From: Fawn Birchill
Sent: Wed, Jan 16, 2019 at 1:13 PM
To: Twain Estates
Subject: Business Opportunity?
To the estate of Mark Twain:
It has been over a week, and I have not heard back from you regarding my proposition. I understand how busy you must be as the estate of Mark Twain. I do not know how many of you there are, but I only need one individual to assist. If you do not reply, you are actually throwing money away. You might as well put eight grand in an envelope and burn it. I hear burning money is illegal, however, so I do not encourage it but only use it as an example of the madness of your decisions. If someone were to make me an equivalent offer, I would buy a first-class ticket and be there in a flash—though I assume a first-class airline ticket can be about eight grand, so I would probably ride coach with the bourgeoisie and live off the complimentary airline food to make it as profitable a journey as possible. If you go this route, I recommend putting any handouts in your pockets and saving them for later, because that way if you are hungry around dinnertime you need only to pull them out and save yourself the price of a meal at a restaurant. That is, if you must fly to get here. I personally love the train myself. Anything invented after 1900 reeks of mass industry and sameness. After the Victorian era, the world unquestionably began to fall apart; don’t you agree?
Confessions of a Curious Bookseller Page 13
