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“The bookstore doesn’t officially open until tomorrow,” she announces in a faux-friendly voice, but she doesn’t look back at me. She pulls more books out of the box and puts them on the shelf.
“Really? You look ready for customers right now.”
“We’re not,” comes her less than friendly reply. Undeterred, I decide right then and there, that by the end of the week, I’ll have her smiling at me when I walk in the door every morning.
“I’ve got something for—” I start to point to my delivery van where her order is waiting.
The slam of her book as she drops it back into the box at her feet silences me. She whirls to face me. “Listen, asshole. You’re not the first boy to walk in here today.”
“Asshole?” I ask in real surprise.
“Don’t act innocent,” she scoffs “I know your mothers have been talking shit about me and my mom all week. So, let me save you some time. No, I won’t give you a blow job. Or show you my tits, or let you finger bang me if you promise to take me to the movies.” She ticks them off on her fingers.
I am taken aback by her words and angered by them, too.
I know that some of the founding families, mine included, act like their shit doesn’t stink. But to think that someone came in here and said things like that to her, or anyone, makes me want to find out who they are and go and straighten them out.
I’m far, far away from being able to actually lead my family’s business, but I feel responsible for it already. And none of the people who do business here should have to deal with shit like that. I make a mental note to pass on to the retail property managers when I get home.
She bends over to take some more books out of the box and I can see t
he tremble in her hands. “Now, you can leave. And if you try to touch me, I’ll kick you in the balls,” she says, and that shakes me out of my stupor.
“Has someone tried to fucking touch you?” I take a step toward her, a tentative, small one because I don’t want to get in her space.
“Isn’t that what you boys do for fun? Fuck with girls who are just minding their own business? Just because they can.” Bitterness drips from her words.
I go from cautious to offended.
“I wouldn’t know what boys do for fun. I’m a man.” She turns to face me then; her jaw is tight with anger.
“Okay, man. Why are you still here, I’ve made it clear I’m not in the mood for company?”
“And, not to sound like a cocky asshole—”
“Too late,” she quips.
“But I haven’t offered you any company. But if I did, you wouldn’t be saying no.”
She glances over at me, sweeps me from head to toe and quirks her lips in a dismissive smirk. “If you say so.”
“I haven’t had any complaints,” I say and shoot her an exaggerated wink.
She frowns at me. “Listen, I know your family owns whatever business they own. And you’ve probably got a hot car. Or whatever. But we own this store. I want you to leave.” She finally turns to look at me and there’s anger in her eyes, but I see the bone-deep wariness there. The same wariness I saw the night we met.
If my grandfather and mother are right, life didn’t get much better for her after that night. I wonder what she’s seen in the last four years. The skittishness from that night has been replaced by cynicism. I want to tell her I’m not like them. To ask her to tell me where she’s been and to tell her where I’ve been, too.
Our eyes hold and for a minute; I’m transported back to that night and the ways it changed my life.
“I found your notebook,” I tell her.
Her expression goes from blankly enigmatic to shock and then back to enigmatic. But she doesn’t say anything.
“Do you really not remember me?” I ask, completely nonplussed that she might not. She sighs and leans against the bookshelf. Her shoulders fall a little and some of the fire goes out of her.
“Of course, I remember you. I was kind of hoping you wouldn’t remember me.” She stares down at those beat-up blue Jordan’s.
I want to tell her that would have been impossible. Instead, I ask her why.
