by Drea Damara
“Hey, good game, Henry. Thanks,” Ricky said, slapping Henry on the shoulder. He turned and proceeded to hobble up the stairs. “I’m gonna go shower,” he called to her without looking back.
She shook her head. “He’s still pissed off at me, I think.”
“Well, I hope I took some of the steam out of him. I was throwing him some long passes after practice got over. Had him running up and down the field quite a bit,” Henry said, breathing heavily and wiping some sweat from his brow.
She smiled, looking at his disheveled appearance. He had obviously paid a price for the effort. It was nice to know he wasn’t invincible. She was naturally slender but often felt out of shape and self-conscious next to him and all his muscles.
“Well, don’t die on me Henry,” she teased, following him to the doorway. “I’ll have to find a new deliveryman.”
He laughed, walking with evident rigidity down the steps, favoring his good leg. He turned back to look at her from the sidewalk and fanned himself by tugging at the front of his shirt a few times.
“Does it make you wish you were seventeen again?” she asked from the doorway.
Henry glanced down at his sweaty clothes and then back up at her. He looked at her for a moment like the answer was on her face. “Nah. Forty’s just fine with me.”
Later that afternoon, Ricky took his turn at the register. They’d been busy, which had helped to pass the awkward silence between them. She walked over and leaned on the counter to take some of the weight off her feet, when she noticed a scratching sound.
Ricky’s head was down, annotating sales on a spreadsheet. His other hand was slung over his back, scratching voraciously.
“What’s wrong?”
“Hmm?”
“Your back. You’ve been picking at it all afternoon.”
“I got tackled a few times. I must have gotten grass burns,” he said, still scratching.
“Well, quit scratching it. You’ll make it worse.” He stopped writing and scratching at the same time and folded his arms in a feigned display of obedience. “Maybe try some of that shampoo on it that I gave you. It’ll help to clean it out if it’s infected.”
“Sure,” he mumbled and went back to writing. “You want to sit down for a while?”
She looked around the shop. The customers had dwindled a bit. Ricky could probably handle it. Of all the days Shelby decided not to pop in, why today? Where was that girl?
“What are you going to do?”
Ricky yanked the top drawer open and pulled out the rag and dust polish can. “I…am going to go dust shelves,” he said.
He was pretending to be agreeable. She didn’t even want to know why.
Franci popped in later, providing a welcome distraction. She wanted to know if she and Ricky would be going to the neighborhood cookout.
During the summer, Blinney Lane’s residents got together Saturday nights in the courtyard behind Franci’s side of the street. Sarah liked going over there, seeing the grass, smelling meat on the grill, and having a few drinks with the whole crew, but with moody Ricky in tow, it probably wasn’t a good idea.
“I think we’ll pass this week,” she said, watching Ricky shove the dust rag back into the drawer beside her.
Ricky shook his head as he walked toward the couch. “You can go if you want. I don’t need a babysitter. I can stay upstairs and watch TV,” he called.
“No. I’ve been to enough of them,” she said, hollering to him over Franci’s shoulder. When Ricky turned his attention to the magazine rack in the reading nook, she whispered to Franci, “I don’t think it’s a good idea. What if something weird happens? You know how it is when we’re all together.”
“Yeah, maybe you’re right. I guess I can call Reggie and tell him he can still bring the dancing boots and get drunk then.”
“Great. So sad I’ll miss that again.”
“Oh, Sarah. That never gets old,” Franci added and headed to the door.
SUNDAY, ALL the shops on Blinney Lane were closed as usual. Sarah spent most of her time in the basement, rebinding old books that customers had brought in for restoration. She even rebound some from her own collection, long since neglected, until she was too bored with the process. When she finally went back up to the apartment, Ricky was gone. There was a note on the kitchen table: Went to Jimmy Burgers, back by 7.
When eight o’clock rolled around, she was livid and sick with worry. She started down Blinney Lane toward the metal archway that led to the street. It had been a while since she’d ventured outside Blinney Lane. It was discomforting.
“Damn it, Ricky,” she muttered and took a deep breath as she passed under the metal arch.
She gasped and clenched her fists when a burning sensation flamed over her wrists. Chiding herself for the outburst, she crossed her arms over her stomach and tucked her wrists underneath her elbows.
Agatha’s curse did not often permit foul utterances without repercussion. Sarah had never understood it. Maybe it was because of the awful words the woman had last heard from the townsfolk before they'd killed her. The combination of swearing and stepping one foot outside of Blinney Lane was enough of a blast for the scars on her wrists to flare up.
Sarah let out a breath when the burning subsided and headed toward Jimmy Burgers. When she reached it, she stared at the sign on the door, teeth clenched. Closed.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
Her wrists felt like someone sliced at them with a knife, causing her to cry out. She shoved her hands underneath her armpits and groaned.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” she whispered. Her eyes darted up and down the street for any sign of Ricky. She should have given him her cell phone. She should have injected a tracking device into his scrawny little neck. She should stop the negative thoughts before the curse racked any more pain through her.
Up ahead, she finally spotted him, leaning against the movie theater. He was talking to a couple of teenage boys with his back turned to her.
She yelled his name, refusing to go any farther away from Blinney Lane. Finally, one of the kids tapped him, and he turned around. She waved silently, beckoning him to come back. She didn’t hear him but could see him mouth, “Oh, shit.”
She stifled her groans, keeping her hands tucked under her arms until she saw Ricky head toward her. She shot him the most pissed off look she could conjure and headed back to her apartment without waiting for him to catch up.
She sat on her bed, rocking away the pain as she waited for the sound of Ricky’s return. When she finally heard his footsteps outside her bedroom door, she let herself relax and went into her bathroom.
She could hear tapping on her bedroom door and Ricky’s voice call, “Aunt Sarah? I’m sorry. I lost track of time.”
“Just go to bed, Ricky,” was all she could manage through the pain.
She turned on the cold water and unfastened the thick bracelet on her wrist. Wincing, she pulled the leather away from her skin and felt a bubble of flesh beneath it stick. She moaned when she saw the vivid red mark around her wrist. There were blisters along her radial bone. She rolled up the sleeve of her blouse and found the exact same marks on her other wrist.
Closing her eyes, she held both hands under the water. The key on the bracelet rattled up and down against the porcelain sink. She didn’t have to see it. She knew what the sound was.
Ignoring Ricky wasn’t the right way to handle the incident, but she wasn’t stepping a foot outside of her room tonight. If words started flying between them, she didn’t think she’d be able to bear the pain—in her scars or her heart. He wouldn’t understand what was happening to her.
When the throbbing in her wrists settled down, she took some ointment out of the medicine cabinet and rubbed it over the marks and blisters. She wrapped a thin gauze bandage around each and taped them in place.
Key still rattling, she fastened the bracelet back on her wrist. She chucked her shirt on the floor and collapsed onto the bed. Her hea
d sunk into the pillow like a baby into its mother’s arms. Too exhausted to worry about Ricky or the curse, she closed her eyes and fell asleep.
THE NEXT day, Ricky’s aunt didn’t say a word to him, and so he followed her cue. Nothing changed the day after that, and by Wednesday, he was so desperate for someone to talk to that seeing Shelby venture back into the store was a welcome sight. His aunt left to go over to Franci’s soon after, making him feel like he could breathe easier.
He dropped down on the couch across from Shelby with a magazine in his lap and sighed. Flipping open the cover, he batted away a page and glanced at her. She had to know he was sitting there, but her eyes remained glued to her book.
“You still mad at me?” he asked.
Shelby glanced over the top of her book. “I wasn’t that mad.”
He flipped a page before he stole another glance. If he didn’t have some kind of human interaction soon that wasn’t from a customer, he might die.
“What are you reading?” he asked.
“Do you really care?”
“I read. Just not as much as you.” He leaned forward and tossed the magazine onto the couch.
“It’s about knights and demons,” Shelby said matter-of-factly.
“You like that kind of stuff?” He couldn’t hide his smirk. What a weirdo.
Shelby sighed and shook her head. “You asked.”
“I’m not making fun of you,” he said with as much sincerity as he could.
“It’s hard to tell sometimes.”
“My aunt used to read me stuff like that when I was a kid. It was pretty cool.”
“Oh?” Shelby did something then that he hadn’t seen her do since he met her. She closed the book, set it down in her lap, and made eye contact with him—him instead of a book!
“I didn’t think you’d like stuff like that,” she said, sounding intrigued.
“I did. I just haven’t read anything like that since I was a kid. Okay, I haven’t read much at all since I was a kid. It kind of lost its appeal. I preferred getting out of the house and hanging out with friends. Pretending stuff just… I don’t know—made me think about how I couldn’t change anything at home no matter how much I pretended.”
She smiled at him for the first time. “Maybe that’s why I like them. I still hope.”
“Well, what’s your favorite?”
He watched as she brought her sparkly painted fingernails to her lips and drummed across them in thought, while she peered at the bookshelves.
She was damn cute when she wasn’t glaring at him. He watched her hop out of the chair and skip over to the fantasy section. He knew it was the fantasy section because he’d dusted it three times already over the last week. She came back toting a small hardbound book and handed it to him.
“Probably this one,” she said, handing it to him.
As he read the back cover, she sat down next to him on the sofa. He looked over, surprised at her willing proximity to him.
She leaned over and pointed at a picture on the back cover. “It’s got a lot of action in it, so it makes it kind of manly,” she said, looking up. It was clear that she noticed him watching her then. “Um, and it’s short, so if you don’t like it—”
“No. I’ll try it out,” he said to reassure her before she decided to flee. He leaned back against the sofa and opened the book to the first page.
“Good,” Shelby said, looking pleased. She leaned forward to retrieve her book from the chair and then she scooted back into the couch, leaving a little more distance between them.
When Sarah came back in, she gave him a look like he was an alien for reading a book. He paid her no mind, intent on proving to Shelby that he could read.
The next morning, when Shelby arrived, he greeted her from the counter. Sarah waved at her through a yawn and continued helping the first customers. She’d been yawning since they got up. Old people had trouble sleeping; maybe that’s why she’d been so cranky. She could do him a favor and take a nap any time she wanted.
Shelby propped her elbows on the counter and asked, “So? What did you think?”
“I liked it.” He’d actually stayed up all night reading. It never used to be this hard to impress a girl.
“Really?”
“Yes, really! I even surprised myself,” he said, laughing. “Do you know any others like that one?”
“Of course.” Shelby trotted over to her favorite chair and deposited her book bag. It was cute how she made herself at home there. He watched her walk over to one of the shelves to find another book for him. She came back a few moments later with one, a little bigger than the day before.
She must have caught him eyeballing its thickness because she winked and said, “You can do it. I know you can.”
For a wink like that, he’d do anything. He actually did like the book she’d given him the day before, but he was glad his friends would never find out about it. He flipped the book over to read the cover and enjoyed the flowery scent of Shelby’s perfume as she watched him read.
His aunt’s voice broke his thoughts. “Ricky, I’m going to go get a coffee from Franci’s and some breakfast from Freedhof’s. You guys want anything?”
“No, thanks,” he said without looking up. At least she’d spoken to him. He reached to his back and scratched at the tingling in his shoulder blades. “That guy’s sandwiches aren’t anything to brag about, though.”
“Suit yourself. Are you still scratching at that grass burn from the other day?”
“It’s nothing.” It itched like hell and burned, but he wasn’t about to let her know. He didn’t need her treating him like a baby in front of Shelby.
“Have you been cleaning it with the shampoo like I told you?”
No. He dumped that nasty-ass stuff out a little each day, along with the yellow toothpaste. He’d gotten Henry to stop on the way back from football practice the other day to pick up some normal stuff. His controlling aunt didn’t need to know that either.
“Yes. And I put underwear on today too, Mom. It’s a scab. It’ll go away.”
Sarah jerked the shop door open and stormed out, obviously getting the hint. He let out a breath and looked at Shelby.
“Sorry. I think she tries too hard, and it gets a little annoying.”
“Yeah, I can kind of see that,” Shelby said.
Ricky sat at the counter and delved into his new book. He set it down only if a customer needed to pay for a purchase and then found himself hurrying to pick it back up. He looked up once and caught Shelby smiling at him from her chair. He shook his head, knowing she could sense his renewed love of reading. By six o’clock he’d finished the book and was surprised to see how late it was. He put it back on the shelf. On his way to sit on the couch, he playfully smacked Shelby’s feet off the armrest of her chair.
She laughed and scolded him. “Hey!”
Sarah emerged from the second level. She was carrying her bracelet in her hand. Maybe the goofy thing had finally broken. Somebody should buy her something more modern. She’d had that thing ever since he could remember. He remembered a little key on it that she’d used to use to open up that case in the back and read him those silly stories. She walked over to the counter and set the cuff down by the computer.
“I need to go see Mary across the street. You guys all right?”
“Yeah,” Shelby answered.
Ricky just nodded. Why did his aunt always feel the need to add “across the street”? She never went anywhere but across the street. No wonder she was moody all the time. He was also really sick of how insulting it was to ask if he was all right while she went “just across the street.” He wasn’t a freaking baby.
“Okay. I trust you now,” Ricky said to Shelby, once Sarah had gone. “Get me something different, something really out there that you like. Like that knights and demons book you were reading.”
“What have I done to you?”
He enjoyed discovering her sarcasm. He watched her squeeze past him betwee
n the couch and magazine rack. Suddenly, he realized he felt like a puppy, getting treats for doing tricks. He’d read a book and she’d treat him by looking impressed. It could only last so long. He wanted to contribute to this kinship somehow, but he didn’t think inviting her to watch him run around on the football field would knock her silly socks off. She seemed more impressed by brains than brawn. Besides, he didn’t want to fall on his face and have her laugh at him. He needed to prove that they truly shared an interest. He knew exactly what to do.
He leaned over the counter and peeked through the letters on the shop window. When he saw his aunt go into Mary’s shop, he looked for her bracelet. It was just below the computer screen. He snatched it up and peered over his shoulder, finding Shelby standing on tiptoe and searching through books on the wall.
He bounded on tiptoe to the upper level and stood in front of the iron bars of the glass display cabinet. Under the soft glow of the cabinet lighting, he flicked charms out of the way, looking for the key. As he rotated the cuff, he saw a flowery gold ring, little white pearls, and other trinkets. Finally, he found the little silver key to unlock the cabinet.
Ricky craned his head around the shelf behind him and squinted to see if his aunt was coming back across the street. Nope. She’d probably be over there with cranky Mary and Mary’s daughter, “Big Jugs,” for a while.
In the nearly two weeks he’d been here, he’d only seen his aunt look at any of the shelves in the back part maybe once. She’d seemed to have altogether forgotten about the book she’d used to read him. If she wanted to treat him like a little kid, he might as well get to do something that actually was wrong. Although, he didn’t see what was wrong with loaning a book to someone like Shelby.
Shelby went gaga for books more than anyone he’d ever met. She truly loved them, while Aunt Sarah seemed possessive and overprotective of them. Shelby devoured books. She’d finish this big story in a night or two, and he could safely return it before his aunt noticed it was gone.
He inserted the key into the padlock and clicked it open. Carefully, he opened the glass doors and let the lock hang in its place. He picked up The Lands of Farwin Wood and couldn’t help but notice how cold and damp it felt. Staring at the massive book, he worried for a moment that his meticulous aunt would definitely notice the empty space. Glancing at the shelf behind him, Ricky spotted a book of similar girth on the bottom row. He tugged it out with his free hand and set it on the little wooden pedestal where The Lands of Farwin Wood had been. He quickly refastened the padlock, retrieved the key, and hurried back to the front of the store. Ricky tossed the bracelet back onto the counter and walked over to Shelby.
