Big on Education

by Laurie Ames

  Chapter 2

  The only bookstore in Bryony sat at the corner of Laine Street and Hannover Avenue. As Sophia approached the bookstore, she observed a woman sitting at the crossroads. Her palms pressed on the pavement, her ample chest stuck out, and her knees were pulled together. The woman wore a dark blue pair of jeans with a floral blouse clumsily tucked into them. Her feet were bound by a pair of strappy sandals and her pretty face wore a serene expression, aside from her eyes, which were squinting playfully against the glaring sun. Sophia could have easily watched her all day. The figure at the crossroads stood out from the bystanders, a visual force of nature. Her gut tugged at Sophia’s heartstrings, confiding that this woman was Alex.

  At that moment, Alex’s calm expression broke into a smirk and she rose. She had spotted Sophia scrutinizing her and guessed who she was. Sophia ignored the timeliness of this coincidence, offering a hand in greeting. Alex took the hand and looked into Sophia’s eyes for what felt like infinity. Looking into Alex’s amber cat-like eyes felt like looking into the sun for too long - it almost burnt, but the burning sensation was pleasing to Sophia. The two women stood there, while Alex claimed Sophia’s heart. Only a full minute later did Sophia realize the other woman had been talking to her.

  “Are you alright?” Alex asked. “Did you hear a word I said?”

  Sophia couldn’t find her voice and her cheeks were flushed hot pink. She mumbled something about the sun affecting her and felt Alex wrap a concerned arm around her waist, guiding her into the bookstore.

  “I’ll get you a glass of water. Take a seat. I won’t be long,” Alex said, and hurried away.

  The bookstore fell silent as Sophia cursed herself for behaving like an adolescent that had just discovered lust.

  Having regained her composure, she surveyed her surroundings. It was just an ordinary bookstore, packed with literature and void of customers. For the second time, she wondered why a bookstore would require an assistant when business was probably slow. Most were struggling to stay open, and rarely ever hiring.

  She looked across the street at the barber shop. A man cradled a baby in one arm and with the other, accepted a cigarette lighter held against the end of a Marlboro cigarette. Sophia felt a growing urge to bitch at him but having escaped one bothersome situation, did not want to jump into another. She turned away disgustedly but immediately brightened when she saw Alex approaching with a glass of water in hand.

  “That’s Rob,” Alex explained. “Responsible father of five. Believe me, we’d all like to give him a good talking-to. But what would it solve? He couldn’t care less.”

  Sophia opened her mouth to speak but found it hard to string together a coherent sentence. Her faculties were known to fail her whenever she was in an uncomfortable situation. Alex continued.

  “I have a job for you. But it’s not what you expected.”

  “What is it?”

  “I want to hire you as my assistant, but you won’t be working in the bookstore. You’ll be running errands,” Alex offered.

  “But I thought you had already hired someone.”

  “He was too tall.”

  Sophia stared back at Alex, astonished.

  “Don’t worry. You’ll understand soon enough,” was all Alex would say.

  “What kind of ‘errands” do you need help with?”

  “You’ll see.”

  A car had just parked outside, distracting Alex.

  “How can I accept a job I know nothing about? You have to give me more information,” Sophia pressed.

  Alex leaned back in her chair, eyeing Sophia interestedly.

  “Well … Just how badly do you need a job?”

  Sophia stared back silently.

  “You start tomorrow. Eight a.m. Bright and early,” Alex said.

  With that, she rose from her leather chair and walked to the back of the store. Sophia, somehow knowing Alex wouldn’t be coming back, saw herself out. As she crossed the threshold, a man stepped out of a black Mercedes and sauntered toward the bookstore. An air of arrogance clung to him. People like to describe folks who step out of expensive black luxury vehicles as typically sexy or good-looking. This is what Sophia tried to do but she could not in good conscience label this man as handsome. Instead, she guessed that he was one of those people who appealed to a woman because of his abstract qualities. Confidence, maybe, status, yes definitely. A bit of something that careened between a carefree attitude and downright selfishness. He strode across the pavement as if everyone knew who he was.

  According to Sophia, there were three types of people. There were people who became what everyone thought they should be. The “little” people who tried as hard as they could to fit the norm. Sophia knew she was of this nature and thought it was just as well. Someone had to do it to create room for the more eccentric individuals. If more people were “different”’ or unusual, what would the world possibly be like? She wondered if Alex ever thought about these things. Probably not. She was above all that. She had no time for philosophy when there was life to be lived. At least that was the impression Sophia got from the brief interaction she had with Alex. She struck off the nagging feeling that this defiant streak in Alex seemed to have gone stale, as if Alex had once been a wild beauty but had succumbed to a terrible episode in her life.

  Then there were people who thought they were one thing but were another. This man strongly represented this second category. He seemed to think he was royalty, a prince, yet there was something cheap about his demeanor. He modeled expensive gadgets but held the glare of an indiscriminate character. He lacked the nobility that gives substance to wealth. His mannerisms were forgeries of the real deal. Now, he yanked the door of the bookstore open and stood in front of Alex as if he had come to collect a debt.

  As Sophia watched Alex and the man talking, her heart skipped a beat as she immediately got a bad feeling there was some unresolved history between the two. He eyed Alex suspiciously as he talked. At one point, he stroked Alex’s sleek black hair smugly, the arrogance in his manner apparent. He said something that made Alex shake her head and turn away, then smirked in response and started toward the door. Quickly, Sophia walked away, not wanting to be caught watching them. She wondered if he had anything to do with Alex’s “errands.”

  The third category was undefined: the can’t-quite-put-my-finger-on-it type of people. This is probably where Alex belonged. She appeared nonplussed at the man’s dominant stance. Actually, she did not seem to care that he was even in the room. Yet, when he had parked the car in front of the shop, she had squirmed in her seat. Alex could be anything she needed to be at the given moment.

  Chapter 3

  The next morning, Sophia appeared at the bookstore at 7:55. Alex unlocked the door, disgruntled by the foul weather. Rain had been predicted by noon.

  “We might have to cancel our plans for today. We need a clear day for what I have in mind,” Alex said.

  They made coffee and began chatting about the derelict bookstore. A corner had been cleared at one end of the room so that the leaky roof wouldn’t damage books.

  “There were actually prosperous times, in the old good days when my father owned this bookstore,” recalled Alex. “Back then business was booming, and this store was a real bee hive of activity.”

  Sophia listened intently, sympathizing with her new friend. Briefly on occasion, she caught herself fantasizing about Alex. Whenever their eyes met, it was enough to make her go weak at the knees. She longed to reach for Alex’s manicured hands and caress them. She knew this was much more than just simple infatuation.

  Alex liked Sophia for her manners and contemplative nature. That was hard to come by nowadays. She cast a gaze over Sophia’s figure as they talked. “Sophia, your body is perfect.”

  “Oh really? How so?” Sophia asked in a low sweet sexy voice. Her stomach began to flutter.

  “Well, what I meant to say is your body physique is perfect for the job.”

  “Oh really?” s
aid Sophia sounding glum and feeling embarrassed. “Okay, so what did you have in mind?” She finally asked.

  “It’s pretty simple; I’m looking for something. I have an idea where this something is. The problem is, I have no access to it.”

  “I’m guessing that’s where I come in.” Sophia grimaced. Why must I always land myself in these situations? How did I end up with the one employer in this town who could get me into trouble?

  Alex pushed, “No one knows you around here. No one will suspect you.”

  “No. Not Interested.”

  “Sophia, this is important. I--”

  “No! And you can keep the job.”

  Sophia placed her coffee mug on the table, got up and began to walk away. Alex watched her one last opportunity leave and scrambled for a convincing line to feed her. Words failed her; the hopelessness of her situation overwhelmed her.

  “Sophia, please! I have no one else to turn to. I wouldn’t ask a complete stranger for help unless I was desperate, would I?”

  The panic in Alex’s voice brought Sophia to a halt. She paused to look at the frightened woman and felt the chaos of the past year wash over her. For a few moments, she relived that fear and uncertainty all over again, emotions she had grown close to. She sensed these same tormentors in this young, yet worldly, woman and felt deeply for her. She knew then that she could not desert her.

  “Okay, I’ll help you, but only if you tell me everything. And you don’t have to pay me. I know what else I could do for money.”

  “What will you do?”

  “Walk the corner of Laine Street at night.”

  The two young women laughed and gave each other a passionate hug. Sophia felt privileged to have eased Alex’s pain, even for an instant.

  “There are things I can do. I’ll look for a job online.”

  “Okay. Well, it’s a long story. I’ll get you another cup of coffee.”

  Chapter 4

  Engrossed in conversation, Sophia and Alex had not noticed the scrawny young man watching them. He stood outside the store window, captivated by the lovely women. He had seen some striking women on his travels but these two fascinated him. There was something about the way they looked at each other, trust embedded in their eyes. It had been awhile since he had witnessed two human beings who showed any amount of confidence in one another. He would have to hang around and keep an eye on these two. He wondered how long they had known each other. One was petite and dark, her auburn hair pulled into a ponytail to reveal an oval, pretty face. Her green eyes sympathized with her friend, who was animatedly telling or retelling what seemed like a horrible tale. The green-eyed lady had been on the train with him. The other lady, moderately curvy and blatantly feminine, gesticulated potently. He liked her plum-colored nail polish. He might borrow it sometime.

  The scrawny young man carried on down the street. He walked slowly, taking in his surroundings. He stole glances at the men in the barber shop. Some reclined in the big leather chairs, grinning at jokes that had been thrown casually around the room. Others sat blissfully with their eyes shut as the barbers massaged their scalps under a stream of running water. One barber jerked his arms in clumsy motions and slid across the room in what appeared to be a dance, while Nat King Cole crooned from somewhere in the middle of the room. The scrawny young man stood entranced as he observed the scene through the shop window. Everyone seemed at home and perfectly content in this cozy small town of Bryony. He walked on.

  It was dusk. The working girls on Laine Street had promptly shown up for work but none of them said a word to him. They studied his unfamiliar face suspiciously, wondering why he had landed in this particular corner of the world. As he passed an attractive redhead, she pulled her coat tight around herself and turned away. He scoffed at her as if he was beneath soliciting her services and kept walking.

  The playground was turning dim under the glow of sunset. The children had scattered, heading for warm dinners and safe beds. As he approached the swings, he smiled as though he was returning to his kingdom after conquering vast armies in distant lands. The grass whispered under his sneakers and a sense of tranquility prevailed. He lowered himself into the seat of a swing. His feet rotated from tiptoe to heel and back as he rocked himself gently to and fro. The harmony between his movements and his thoughts would have persisted if it hadn’t been for two familiar women moving swiftly in his direction. He leapt up as unassumingly as he could manage, then shuffled into the shadows.

  “Let’s hurry. It’s getting dark,” Sophia urged.

  “That’s the whole point. We don’t want anyone to see us, do we?”

  Alex led the way to a building behind the playground. The doors were locked, the interior silent. The front of the building appeared to be well-taken care of. But the grass growing unchecked at the back concealed a gaping basement window. Alex headed for the window, knelt down next to it, and parted the grass with her fingers.

  “This is where I need you. You have to climb into this room and retrieve something for me,” she said to Sophia.

  “What is this place? Why can’t you do it yourself?” Sophia asked.

  Alex waved her friend closer. Sophia knelt beside Alex and instantly saw what the problem was. A large block of wood, possibly a bookshelf, had been shoved very close to the window, leaving a limited amount of space between the shelf and the window. Only a petite person could squeeze their way through the window and into the room. Alex’s tall, voluptuous frame would have been stuck and wedged awkwardly in the opening of the window if she had tried it herself.

  “That’s why you wanted to know my height?”

  “You seem disappointed,” Alex replied.

  “I thought it would be a more interesting reason than being able to wiggle my way into a basement.”

  Alex rolled her eyes, “It’s a very important basement.”

  “Isn’t there another way? Why can’t you knock on the front door? Or ask a kid to do it,” Sophia suggested.

  “They would never let me in. They’re suspicious of me. And I don’t want them to know that I need something from here. They’ll start wondering what it is. I’d rather not explain.”

  “And the kid?”

  “Kids can’t be trusted to lie when they’re required to. No one must know I’ve been near here.”

  Sophia took the lighter from Alex, flicked the switch, and shined the light through the window, where it caught the brown wall created by the bookshelf. The dim glow of the lighter hit the edge of the bookshelf, revealing a space between it and one of the four walls of the room. When she directed the light toward the floor immediately below the window, she noticed the moisture that had collected there on account of the rain.

  “Why couldn’t we come here when it was raining, by the way?”

  “It would have been really muddy. Plus water usually flows in through the window when it rains hard enough. Your shoes would have been ruined when you hit the floor,” Alex replied. She made a face as she said it, as if that was the worst thing that could have happened. Sophia stared at her for a moment, then shook her head. She stuck the lighter in her mouth and began to clamber through the window. Just as she was wriggling through the opening, they heard the rustling of grass somewhere behind them.

  “Stop! Get out!” Alex whispered frantically.

  Sophia quickly dragged herself back to her knees and the two froze as they listened for the noise.

  Nothing.

  They looked at each other as if to say, “Did we really hear that?”

  Just then, the swishing of grass happened again and this time they followed the sound. As they walked toward it, they heard more swishing, rapid movements. They quickened their pace until they were outright chasing the noise. Soon, they were in the middle of the playground again. They could see no one and couldn’t even guess which direction would be best to resume the pursuit.

  The scrawny young man gulped one breath of air after another as he hid behind a tree. He watched as the two women gave
up their search and headed home.

  “It could have been anyone, Alex. There’s no point in trying to figure it out.”

  “Of course there is! Whoever it is, they’re onto me. What am I supposed to do? Just sit and wait for all hell to break loose?”

  “Okay. Make your list. While you’re at it, don’t forget the Marlboro man, one of his five kids and maybe a stray cat or two. Because it could have been anything.”

  ***

  Alex stood at the kitchen sink, seemingly examining a stain on a glass plate. Sophia watched her, concerned. Alex had hardly eaten a thing all week. Her main activities had included obsessing over The Rustling in the Grass, a tremendous amount of nail-biting, and staring blankly at inanimate objects. Her body leaned against the kitchen sink, bare feet squeezed firmly together on the tiled floor. Her shoulders told of the tension that had governed her for months.