Jess
Oh there she is, eternally pessimistic Junie P.
lara
Do you think she’s just freaking out because Ansel Barlowe is playing the lead?
WHAT?
jess
I’d say that’s a definite yes, Lara. Good call.
They were messing with me. Theyhadto be. There’s no way this information, thiscasting,would have happened without me knowing about it.
Fuck.
The entiremoviewas being made without me knowing about it. My game wasn’t as strong as it used to be.
Quickly, with only four minutes left in my break, I furiously tapped into the search bar…
Your search turned up about 1,740,000 results.
Barlowe Comes out of Retirement for Prestigious Role
Cosmos’ Star Ansel Barlowe Set to Play ‘Sad Old Man’
‘The Way We Move’ Finalizes Lead Actor
Oh. My. God.
For a moment, I considered whether this was a good reason to be sick for the remainder of my shift…
It wasn’t.
But it should have been.
I accomplished nothing in the second half of my shift. Raymond — my boss — yelled at metwicefor mis-shelving entire shipments. My brain was so far elsewhere it wasn’t even funny.
Partially because they were makingmy favoritebookinto a movie, and partly because Ansel Barlowe was playing the lead but…
Mostlybecause of what the customer had said earlier…shooting somewhere around here. My mind continued to wander back to the bar, back to the napkin… the convention.
The kiss.
None of it had been real. He was taking pity on a depressingly divorced woman. I wouldn’t see him — right? There would be no reason for the star of a movie to meander into an indie bookstore during production.
Now all I had to do wasconvincemyself that.
CHAPTER 7
The bell over the door chimed.
I didn’t look up right away, just murmured my usual “Let me know if you need anything,” and kept unpacking the new shipment of trade paperbacks. Tuesdays were always the same: a cart full of books, a playlist low in the background, the faint smell of coffee drifting over from the café nearby.
Normal.
Predictable.
