Page 14 of Unlikely You

“Cheer up, Ellie Belly,” I told her, stroking her hair.

“Okay, Honey,” she said in a dull voice, practically ripping my heart open. Maybe I should send her home, but there was no one to come get her unless I asked Aunt Eileen, but she had MS and I didn’t like to burden her if I could help it.

“Hey,” I said, leaning down a little bit to look in Ellie’s eyes, “can you do me a big favor?”

Her eyes lit up just a little. There.

“Can you go and get me an iced matcha? And you can get yourself a strawberry lemonade.” Buying treats at the marketplace couldn’t happen every weekend or else my siblings would eat and drink their way through all our profits. But to cheer up my little sister, I could spare a few dollars for an organic, fresh squeezed strawberry lemonade.

I gave Ellie the money and she dashed off as the doors opened and the first round of customers filed in. I smiled and picked up the tray of honey samples and got ready.

Movement in the corner of my eye showed me that Bren was doing the same thing, but her smile was more forced. She’d be better if someone came over and was excited about her wares. Then her smile was more subtle, but it was genuine. You really saw it when a customer talked with her about books. Then she’d get fully into using her hands and nodding and sometimes she’d even softly laugh.

Bren just wasn’t an overly emotive person, but her pleasure when conversing about books was beautiful to see.

And my crush just kept growing and growing, taking up space in my chest. Sooner or later, it was going to start pushing against my organs. And then there was whatever the hell I felt for Bibliofile, squeezed in around everything else, making it hard to breathe.

Ellie returned with the drinks and I swirled honey into the matcha before sipping and letting out an involuntary sound.

“Ew,” Ember said from the floor where she’d been sitting behind our table.

“I’m sorry that I take pleasure in the simple things, Ember. You should try it sometime.”

“Not if I’m going to sound like I’m…you know.” I looked over the table to find her with a reddened face.

“No, I don’t know, what do you mean?” I asked, but she couldn’t answer because several people walked up and I had to hit the pause button on that little discussion and abandon the beautiful matcha until no one was around.

Time to work.

By the timeI got back to my matcha, the ice was melted and everything was watered down, but it was still delicious and improved my morning. Ellie seemed to perk up with her strawberry lemonade and was doing her thing giving out samples. People just thought she was the cutest and couldn’t help but say yes to her. Maybe it was shady, but we had to use every single tool at our disposal.

Mom called when I was shoving a veggie hummus wrap in my face and left a message that someone local had called for me to come and remove bees from a lawn chair in someone’s yard next week. It might be the perfect removal to film, which meant I would have to prevail upon one of my sisters to come and be in charge of that part while I dealt with the bees.

“Hey, Ellie, do you want to help me rescue some bees on Monday?” I asked and for the first time that day, she truly smiled.

“Yeah, can I help?” She’d gone with me enough times and was so gentle with the bees and she’d never been scared at all. Ellie was a natural with all creatures. They seemed to flock to her. Sometimes I joked that she was a secret princess and one day she’d finally get her crown and rule her kingdom with the help of all her animal friends. If I could have made that future for her, I would have. I’d just have to settle for buying her a tiara and loving her as fiercely as I could.

“Of course. I need someone to help and film for me.” Ellie bounced on her heels and I was so relieved to see her enthusiasm. I was still going to try and talk to her when we got home and tell Mom that she might want to check on her too. All of us kept a special eye on Ellie.

“Okay,” Ellie said, loading up the tray with some more samples to pass out.

I sent Mom a message back that we could do the job and I’d check the details later. The job was exciting and even though I might not prefer to be in front of the camera, the videos really helped get eyes on our business and help drive people to our online store. I’d have to enlist my siblings to fill orders next week because we had a huge shipment for a wedding that needed to go out. Packing and shipping glass jars wasn’t an easy task and required exacting standards to make sure everything got to where it was going in one piece.

Just thinking about all of it made me pre-tired, but it had to be done. At least my parents took charge of most of it.

A message from Aunt Eileen came in and I read the goofy meme and laughed before putting my phone away again. I needed to go see Aunt Eileen. It had been too long. I’d drive over and grab her and we could go out and do something together. Even more than my own mother, Aunt Eileen was the one I relied on for the best life advice. Unlike my mom, who would tell me to sing or spend time in the garden when I was wrestling with something, Aunt Eileen would tell me when I needed to stop feeling sorry for myself or when I needed to suck it up and get my shit together. There was a no-nonsense energy about her that I really needed sometimes. I could get too in my head about things, think too hard about how something would affect everyone else and not even consider my own internal feelings about it. She’d admonish me to stop putting myself last and start letting my parents take a little more responsibility. Aunt Eileen had no qualms about telling me what she really thought about my mother.

At the very least, I owed her a phone call. I’d try tonight, if I didn’t pass out too early.

Bren’s voice penetrated the commotion around me as she explained how her book sleeves were waterproof and could protect your paperbacks and hardbacks, and which sizes would fit most books.

For just a moment, I allowed myself to watch her out of the corner of my eye. A little reward for myself for ignoring her for most of today.

Her face was relaxed as she held up one of her book sleeves and showed how the book fit inside and closed it with the clever little button and loop. I needed to get more of them for my books. If I wasn’t careful, I’d buy her entire booth just to get her to notice me. As if I even had the money. If I was rich, I would. Then again, if I was rich, I probably wouldn’t be working here at the marketplace and I wouldn’t have met her in the first place, and that would have been a huge shame.

My perusal of Bren only lasted a few moments, because I had customers of my own and tea to pass out and questions to answer and sales to make.

What wouldyou do with a million dollars?I wrote to Bibliofile after I’d finished chores and dinner that night. I still needed to call Eileen, but I wanted to talk to Biblio first.

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