We Are Made of Stardust - Peaches Monroe #1

by Mimi Strong

  The truth is, the shop is owned by the same people who own the whole building: the Oliver family. Mr. Gordon Oliver founded the bookstore in 1982, and passed it down to his son Gordon Junior in 2003, when he retired and moved to Phoenix, Arizona. There, he lived in a trailer park half the year with his Canadian Snowbird girlfriend Ida, who, from what I hear, is a terrible cook.

  Gordon Junior liked the money, but he didn’t like books. For a number of years, his money-focused system worked well for Peachtree Books, and business grew. He believed in customer service, and met people’s needs quite well. However, he still didn’t care that much about the actual books, and when Black Sheep Books opened up across town, the customers were ripe for the poaching.

  I was working there part-time, having just dropped out of college, when he started making drastic changes. Desperate changes. Like those internet coupons.

  To avoid bankruptcy, we brainstormed many ideas together, along with the rest of the staff, and came up with some good ones. Our initiatives always seemed promising at first, but then Black Sheep Books would copy things like our Customer Loyalty Program and find a way to one-up us. They literally ran a sale called the One-Up Sale, where customers donated a used book for charity in exchange for a discount.

  Gordon Junior knew we’d never be able to increase sales by much, so he set to work on the other side of the formula, reducing costs. Because his family owned the building, he had a lot of power.

  Without consulting me, he got the necessary permits, and a construction crew showed up one day when I was receiving stock and asked where I wanted the wall.

  Gordon’s big plan was to put a wall right down the center of the bookstore, bisecting the place to save money. He added another door and more signs. Now the shop on one side was books, and right next door was a brand new specialty wine and beer store.

  Just try and guess which business was more profitable.

  As the wine business took off, and he spent more time over there (he was as passionate about wine as he was dispassionate about books), I took over more of the bookstore’s operations. I put in the orders, then entered them in our computer. I received the stock, put it on the shelves, and hand-sold books to customers. I pretty much did everything except write the darn things, and I’ve half a mind to do that some day as well.

  It’s not so hard to write a book, I bet. You just pour yourself a tall glass of inspiration and start typing, right? I’ve already met a sexy, famous actor, so that’s plenty of inspiration and research all rolled up in one.

  I started thinking about Dalton Deangelo on the walk into work, and my vagina (I hope you’re not offended by my frankness, but I’m not going to call it a funny word every time) got swollen and lubricated in a way that made walking both pleasurable and embarrassing. I tried walking like a mermaid, the way Dottie had recommended, but that felt too much like foreplay, what with all the rubbing. What had gotten into me? Not Dalton Deangelo, if you didn’t count his fingers, which I didn’t. Oh, but I wanted him to get into me. Big time.

  By the time I opened the front door of the bookstore, my pleasure pumpkin (ha ha! I lied!) was demanding I take some “art” books into the back room for a little personal time, or “Safety Session” as my friend Ricky would call it.

  Ricky was a college friend I fell out of contact with, but who will always remain in my heart. Over pizza and after tequila, he told me the most disturbing yet sweet story about watching movies with his parents. Whenever a sex scene came on the TV, his parents wouldn’t ban young Ricky from the room, but simply said, “Blanket!” At that command, Ricky would cover his eyes with a blanket to avoid being exposed to on-screen sexuality at a young age. I’m sure you’re snickering, thinking that listening to on-screen sexuality with a blanket over your eyes and your parents at your side is so much healthier!

  There were a lot of things about sexuality that Ricky found confusing, perhaps due to sitting on a couch with his face under a blanket while his parents watched movie sex scenes. That could warp a person. Ricky’s cousin was the one who introduced Ricky to pornography and masturbation, assuring the young boy that jerking off was not just acceptable, but healthy, because it staved off the horror of blue balls.

  Ricky checked his balls every day for signs of blueness, and self-scheduled weekly Safety Sessions, usually on Sundays, as a necessity.

  I learned these things about Ricky during a game of I Have Never, which is basically the greatest game ever for fun people, and just okay for people like me. Have I kissed a girl? No. I have never. No drink for me.

  ~

  Me and my regrets reached the door of the bookstore ten minutes before opening. I had my mocha in hand, and my plan was to use the computer for nine and a half quiet minutes before opening the shop, but I was thwarted by over-eager customers who followed me in when I unlocked the door.

  I turned on the lights and turned off the alarm, feeling grumpy. Who needs a book so desperately that they show up at the crack of ten in the morning, just as we’re opening? People who need to tell you their whole sad story, that’s who.

  Trying not to think about how much I’d rather be drinking my mocha and looking over email to start my day right, I listened as the customer, a middle-aged woman with frizzy hair and terrible halitosis, told me all about her sister’s daughter, whom she was hoping to induce into a lifelong love of reading.

  I brought the woman over to our YA section, but she turned up her nose at the “trash” available and picked up some moldy old thing from our clearance table, whose only redeeming feature was the five-dollar price sticker.

  “Good choice,” I said, ringing it up. You can only offer your expert advice; you can’t make them take it, especially if something else is cheaper. When I put the book into a bag, I slipped in a flyer for some better stuff, the paper discreetly folded in half.

  The woman thanked me and started to leave the shop, looking very pleased with her decision. I hoped her niece would genuinely love the bargain book, which was not about cute vampires, but an English translation of a Swedish book about a young man coming to terms with degenerative eye disease; however, I had a bad feeling it was the sort of thing that scares kids away from books, much like outdated high school English curriculums and E. Annie Proulx’s The Shipping News.

  “Oo-OO-OOH!” the woman exclaimed on her way out the door. She was ooh-ing the person coming in, not me.

  She held the door open for a man carrying a lavish bouquet of peonies and other pink and white flowers, blossoms and leaves hiding his face.

  My heart jumped up. It’s happening, I thought.

  The flowers lowered, past dark brown hair.

  This is it. We’re falling in love, I thought.

  The flowers lowered some more, revealing eyes a bit less twinkling-with-lust than I expected.

  Nope. Not happening.

  Brown mustache.

  It wasn’t Dalton Deangelo, but his trusty butler and driver, Vern.

  With a heart full of hope, I peered behind Vern, but he was coming into the bookshop alone.

  Frowning, he put the vase of flowers down on the counter between us. “You ran away last night. I was supposed to see to your safe return home.”

  I held out my hands. “As you can see, I’m in one piece.”

  “Mr. Deangelo requests your company on Friday afternoon, if you can make yourself available.”

  “Three days from now? What does he have in mind?”

  Frowning under his bushy, ultra-serious mustache, Vern said, “That’s confidential.”

  “Ooh. Mysterious. And so dramatic! Is Dalton always so dramatic?”

  “Also confidential.”

  I plucked the card from within the flowers and opened it up. The note read: Thanks for the fun.

  Thanks for the fun?

  What the fudge did that mean? Was fun code for blowjob?

  Without Dalton’s gorgeous face in front of me, I felt differently about him. His charm was now coming second-hand from his butler, a
nd Vern had a charm-dampening effect. With his grouchy face, Vern was the cold shower of charm.

  Charm.

  What would the pink-haired lady who gave the charm workshop advise me to do here? Dottie would want me to play hard to get.

  “I’m really busy,” I said, handing Vern a business card for the store. “Have Mr. Deangelo phone me when he’s got the time.”

  Vern took the card, his face grim. “There’s no need to play games,” he said. “It’s quite clear to me that you like Mr. Deangelo, and I’ll tell him as such.”

  “Fine, do that.”

  “Why is everyone in this town… so odd?”

  I put my hands on my hips. “Oh, no, you didn’t. Vern, did you just insult all of Beaverdale?”

  “I suppose not,” he grumbled. “It’s just that…”

  “What?”

  “I thought people in small towns were supposed to be friendly, but hardly anyone’s been friendly to me.”

  “You can’t just expect people to show up at your door with pie. You need to make the first move. Take an interest. I know you’re not here very long, but check out the community cork board on our wall and find something you’re interested in.”

  He walked over to the board and started looking, his hands folded behind his back. I let him have his moment as I cupped the beautiful flowers and fluffed up the arrangement. Flowers. From my gentleman friend! How old fashioned and wonderful.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Vern take down one tear-tab for a community event, and then another. This made me smile, and I was already smiling from the heavenly scent of my flowers, so my face nearly broke from smiling.

  Just then, the door jingled and another person came in.

  “Good day,” Vern said with a curt nod, and he scurried away.

  “Not a customer?” asked the man who’d just come in. He was a slim man with ginger hair—my father. “He didn’t leave with a book.”

  “Dad! Don’t worry about it. We’re doing fine, and sales are steady.”

  He pointed to a light switch next to the front door. “Want me to turn this off?” Without waiting for a response, he flicked the switch off, which turned off the flood lights that lit up the exterior sign. We didn’t need the lights on during sunny days, but they kept the store from being invisible in the evenings and through drizzling Washington winters. The owner, Gordon Junior, had been meaning to put the lights on a light-sensor switch, or a timer, but hadn’t gotten around to it, what with all the wine tastings next door. We just left the lights on all the time rather than forget to turn them on when needed, but this didn’t sit well with my father, who believes that a penny saved is a penny earned, and that there’s no penny more shiny and proud than a penny saved on the electricity bill.

  “Dad, it’s pretty cloudy today. Might start raining any minute.”

  He leaned over to inspect the window display, then glowered up at the halogen spotlights. “If you retro-fit some compact fluorescents in there, it won’t heat up and fade the book covers so much.”

  “Then what will be my incentive to change the window display?”

  He stared at me like he couldn’t believe we shared DNA.

  After a moment, he cocked his head to the side. “Is that the air conditioning running? You could just open the door for a bit. Air the place out at night, get it good and cold, then pull the blinds until you get here in the morning.”

  “Dad, you do realize it’s not my bookstore, right? I get paid the same no matter what the electricity bill is.”

  He scratched his head, looking very much the absent-minded professor. My father and his business partner run a niche business selling parts for radio-control helicopters, or as I like to call them, “flying chainsaws.” They rent office space just down the street from Peachtree Books, so it wasn’t unusual to have him pop in like this.

  “Your mother wants you to bring your new boyfriend to dinner Friday. She hardly got to talk to him at your cousin’s wedding.”

  “Yes, I did a good job keeping her away.”

  He gave me a perplexed look.

  “Dalton’s not my boyfriend,” I said. “We’ve only had two dates, and that surly man who just left is his butler.”

  “I’d like a butler,” my father said, as casually as if he’d been commenting on his desire for a grilled cheese sandwich.

  I continued, “What I mean by mentioning the butler is, he’s a fancy actor, and I’m a fat girl who manages a bookstore, and there’s no dating book that covers this kind of a situation. I may see him again, but I shall not be referring to him as my boyfriend.”

  My father winced and stared up at the light fixture over the display window again. “You really should replace that whole fixture. I’ve got an extra one I can bring by.”

  It was so exactly like my father to evade a thorny question and obsess over something involving math instead.

  I’d barely had a sip of my morning mocha, and was already exhausted from telling men no, so I said, “Sure. Bring the new light fixture over any time.”

  ~

  For the rest of the day, I basked in the warm glow of the pretty flower bouquet and all it implied. The arrangement came from Gabriella’s, which was the most expensive florist in town. Most of our weekday customers are women, and there wasn’t one who didn’t close her eyes and deeply smell the flowers with a beatific smile on her face.

  The phone rang a few times, but not with Dalton on the other end of the line. Closing time came and went, and I kept finding tasks to keep me there well into the evening.

  Why hadn’t I written my personal phone number on the business card? Because I was stupid, that’s why.

  I was, and continue to be, very stupid—stupid in the way that only girls who score well on academic papers can be stupid.

  How stupid? When I tell you about the thing I did when I was fifteen, you may just write me off as worthless.

  I can’t think about that too much, though, or it makes me depressed, and not the kind of mild depressed that I can shake off with a laugh, like the way I feel when I see a wireless network named “Cankles.” (I enjoy browsing around and seeing creative wireless network names like “I can hear you having sex” and “Derps” and “Click here for drug-resistant scabies,” but the term “Cankles” isn’t funny if you have them.)

  An hour after closing time, the lights were still on and people had ceased to wander in browsing, so there was no reason for me to stick around waiting for the phone to ring.

  Unless… I was changing out a light fixture.

  My father had dropped a new one by, and I sent a quick text message to Gordon Junior to make sure I had his permission.

  He texted back: Knock yourself out, Petra.

  I frowned at my phone screen. Why did he sound like he was making fun of me whenever he used my name, either in conversation or in text like this? He was a nice enough guy, but he had a tendency to come off condescending.

  I shrugged it off and got to work, first turning off the breaker for that strip of lights. Growing up, my father felt it was important for me to master basic home repair, so I learned from my mother how to make biscuits with bacon drippings, and learned from my father how to change a light fixture, how to snake a clogged sink, and how to hide out in the garage before dinner to avoid being asked to help make biscuits.

  Instead of standing on a stool, which I’d been doing the day Dalton Deangelo literally knocked me off my feet, I used the stepladder, even though the nasty creak the aluminum thing made when you opened it caused my skin to crawl.

  With my arms held high over my head, the pressure on my olive green button-down shirt caused one of my buttons to pop off. Annoyed and sweating from holding the fixture up while fiddling with the plastic connectors, I said a few choice words, then pulled shut the decorative curtain across the display window and took my shirt off completely.

  As I dropped my shirt to the floor, I stared over at the yellow telephone, which was an old-fashioned, heavy thing that hun
g on the wall.

  Ring, damn it.

  As if that ever worked.

  I looked down at my peaches, perkily packed into my hot pink bra. There was some serious hotness at the bookstore that evening, and a certain hunky actor was missing out on a good time.

  I climbed back up the stepladder and finished installing the light fixture, then screwed in the new bulbs. My hot night was just jammed full of screwing! First all the screws, now the bulbs. I giggled at my joke, and when I flipped the breaker on the old electrical panel, I jumped up and clapped for joy that the light worked.

  What I didn’t know, and wouldn’t find out for a few days, was that someone was watching me. Not just watching, but photographing.

  In my haste and irritation, I’d neglected to close the curtain on the other window, and anyone passing by on the sidewalk would be able to see me traipsing around in my brown trousers and a hot pink bra.

  When I was done tidying up, I grabbed my purse and took one last baleful look at the silent telephone. I’d stayed another half hour, sewing the button back onto my shirt using the emergency sewing kit from the office.

  The yellow body of the telephone seemed a touch grimy, and I considered cleaning it.

  The phone rang.

  That’s weird, I thought. Now I’m having auditory hallucinations.

  It rang again, so I answered the phone, curious where this break with reality was going. By now it was half past eight, and I was so hungry, I could have eaten raw kale, no dressing.

  “Good evening, Peachtree Books.”

  A low chuckle. “Is it a good evening?”

  “That depends on who this is and why you’re calling.”

  “You hurt poor Vern’s feelings.”

  I smiled and wrapped the long, curly phone cord around myself as I twirled in excitement.

  “Poor Vern,” I said.

  “You hungry?”

  “No.” My stomach growled. “Yes.”

  “Is this spaghetti place any good? I’m standing out front, reading the menu. They have a Forest Folk platter that’s free if you eat the whole thing, but I don’t know if I’m quite that hungry.”