Page 4 of It's Me They Follow
Chapter 2
JANUARY 2, 2020
5:33 P.M.
The Shopkeeper was at home, getting ready to go to her writers’ group. She lived in a colonial apartment on Spruce Street in Society Hill. Her building, with its “Philadelphia doors” that led directly to a cellar, had once been a stop on the Underground Railroad. No one had to tell her this, she could envision it in her mind. Her landlord had discounted the rent because she kept the oil lantern in her window burning all day and all night. He said it had been in that window since the 1800s, and keeping it lit was a tradition that was passed down for generations, even though he didn’t know why. The Shopkeeper made pretend that it was a message from Ms. Harriett, a burning flame that meant lost souls could be found.
Her apartment walls were once lined with books, but now they were bare. “How can an interior designer have such an empty home?” her landlord had asked. She’d taken all her books to her soon-to-be-bookshop, and she’d givenher clients nearly everything valuable that she’d found; she tried to explain this to her landlord, who looked even more confused. Now all she had was the bearded man’s leather-bound notebook in the middle of her bed as she dressed in layer after layer of recycled denim. A denim shirt over a denim dress over denim jeans, all under a denim jacket. She wore a paperboy cap, boots, and knit gloves as she searched for her favorite patchwork scarf, the one her grandmother had quilted for her when she’d moved Up North. She couldn’t find it.
Usually she struggled to leave her home because she felt the need to straighten, dust, wipe, and rearrange her books before walking out the door. She thought books were why she was perpetually late for everything. But now she had no reasonable excuse for her lateness. She was going to be late to her Thursday evening writers’ group even with no books. Her bangles clanked as she spun in circles to find her wallet and her keys and her glasses. It should not have been so hard to find things in a near-empty home.
Now all she owned was a Heywood-Wakefield love seat that she had found at a Bucks County yard sale. She had it reupholstered in a durable orange wool—this chair was where she read, slept, ate, wrote, and lived. Her other piece of furniture was a vintage Philco record player, where she ONLY played Jill Scott’s first album,Who Is Jill Scott?: Words and Sounds Vol. 1, because it was the first album she ever owned. She’d bought itthe day she moved to Philadelphia twenty years ago and played it almost every morning since.Give her love, y’all,give her love...
Beside her Philco was a small, framed photo of her, her younger sister, her parents, and her grandparents posing after breakfast in front of a Golden Corral thirty years ago.
She kept a perfectly made bed that she never slept on, so she never had to make it. The rest of the house was filled with plants, which she spoke to by name—giant black-eyed Susans, Joe-Pye weeds, Jacob’s ladders, and Solomon’s-plumes. She liked her place; it was filled with sunshine during the day and moonlight at night. In her home, she had space to roam. She did not need a lot to have enough, she told her plants as she searched for her keys. She swore the mischievous plants hid things when she wasn’t looking, but found the keys still in the door as she left. She apologized to Susan, Joe, Jacob, and Solomon, and told them goodbye.
Her writers’ group couldn’t figure out why she’d registered for a session while she was opening a bookshop, but these were the things that The Shopkeeper did.
“I need to write,” she convinced herself as she walked downtown to the local arts university where the group met. But it wasn’t that she needed to write; she could do that anywhere, including her empty home or her empty bookshop. It was that she needed a writers’ group. She needed people who spoke her language. Connection. She needed friends who weren’t characters in stories, historical figures, orplants. Friends who didn’t mind that she couldn’t touch them and they couldn’t touch her back, because in writers’ group, they touched one another in other ways.
Yes, she had enough on her mind with finding shelving, a cash register, and an awning, but what were the chances that there’d be another session of her writing group, at her alma mater, this time taught by the foremost neuroscientist on touch, just The Good Doctor she needed, right before she opened the doors of her bookshop? It had to be a sign that she could be cured. “Thank you, Ms. Harriett,” she whispered when she read about The Good Doctor in her alumni newsletter. She wanted to believe she could be cured.
Definition
Her condition, haphephobia—sounds like “half a phobia”— is an extreme fear or dislike of touching or being touched. It is a compound of the Ancient Greek noun “haph?” (a touch) and the combining form “-phobia” (fear), from the Ancient Greek “phóbos.” “Haph?” is a derivative of the verb “háptein” (to grasp, to sense), which is also the source of the adjective “haptic” (of or relating to touch). People wonder if haphephobia is a physical or mental condition. It is both.
Today, the third day of the session, The Shopkeeper fumbled in, rummaging through her overstuffed tote bag, pretending to look for a pen and paper that she knew good and well she didn’t have.
The Good Doctor and twelve writers of all shapes and sizes sat around a single table, listening to the theme song from theRockymovie, “Gonna Fly Now.” When the song was over, pens had to stop.That’s brainwashing, The Shopkeeper thought. No one looked up when she walked in. No one except her friend Ray, who winked at her with teary eyes before getting back to work.
Though the racket of downtown Philadelphia blared outside the window, the writers’ group remained immersed in responding to the prompt that The Good Doctor had written on the board.
Tell the story of your first kiss.
The Good Doctor was attractive, fit, and somehow always well-lit—every class, she wore the same black T-shirt, black khaki pants, black leather belt, black boots, and black scarf to complement her thick silver hair and high cheekbones. The Shopkeeper wondered if the outfit was some sort of social experiment or if The Good Doctor dressed this way even on the weekends.
“I need a pen,” The Shopkeeper mouthed and The Good Doctor pulled a blue pen out of her pocket. The two women stood eye to eye in tense admiration. They were the same build and height. The Shopkeeper smiled to hide her suspicion of her new teacher.
“You don’t have to be suspicious of everyone.” The GoodDoctor placed the blue pen in front of her seat, stood up, and gave The Shopkeeper a place at the head of the table. She pointed at the board and then at The Shopkeeper. “Two more minutes,” she said aloud to the room but really to The Shopkeeper. “Two more minutes.”
The Shopkeeper could only write one sentence. She hadn’t been able to write much of anything since she’d publishedConversations with Harriettyears ago. She just had not been inspired.
Instead, she wrote out her to-do list:
Toilet paper
Desk
Cleaning supplies
Certificate of Occupancy
Insurance
Bleach
“One more minute.” The Good Doctor gave The Shopkeeper a nod as the song climaxed. The Shopkeeper nodded back. “One more minute,” The Good Doctor repeated slowly to the group.
