Page 54 of It's Me They Follow
“An inch?” Charlie retorted, and then made a muscle. “Rose, my love, take a look at these arms in action.” He pretended to strain while pushing the heavy clock.
“Another benefit of having a younger man.” Rose fanned herself like he made her so hot.
“Perfection. Right there.” The Shopkeeper gave the giant clock, which reminded her of her grandfather, a hug and a kiss.
“This is an interesting piece of...” Ray tried to understand the upside-down surrealist lamp of blue-faced mermaidsdesigned to look like they were floating away.
“Art!” she exclaimed.
She had stacks and stacks of books from Down South. More than she could have ever imagined. She had no idea her grandmother, knowing someday she’d be a shopkeeper, continued collecting books for her even after she had left.
“This goes by the door.” She was standing in the middle of the room like a conductor, using her blue Sharpie like a baton. “That goes by the window,” The Shopkeeper directed her friends.
Ray couldn’t believe how content she looked in her denim romper and denim cape, laughing and keeping the rhythm and bossing everyone around. She was in her happy place.
In no time, they had her Harriett painting up on the wall and all her furniture in place. Rose had unpacked all the boxes, and the shelves were starting to sing. Even the teenybopper came by and surprised her with a cash register filled with cash so she could have change when customers finally came. After a few hours of work, their backs and bodies ached, and their stomachs grumbled. Rose made them all their own blend of tea—marshmallow, mullein, and lemon balm for Ray to help him stay calm; lavender and cinnamon for Charlie to help him relieve stress; jasmine and hibiscus with a bit of raw honey for The Shopkeeper to help her focus. When they were all warm and comfy and herbs and spices filled the air, they fell intoa collective silence. Ray had his book, Rose had her book, Charlie had his sketch pad, and the teenybopper was coloring, but The Shopkeeper had her journal and her blue Sharpie. Instead of reading, she was writing away.
We deserve sweetness, The Shopkeeper thought as she sipped her piping hot tea.
The word “sweetness” reminded her of ME and his sweet-smelling beard and bald head. She touched her lips with the top of the marker, thinking of his lips kissing hers while she was asleep. He must have been gone for good this time. But goodbyes didn’t have to be sad. If she saw ME again or never again, all would be well.Perhaps we’ll meet in a different story.She chuckled to herself, interrupting the silence in the room.
“Shhhhhh,” Rose said mischievously, as if she’d read The Shopkeeper’s mind.
The Shopkeeper listened to Rose, letting quiet fill the room again as she returned to writing her next book—a memoir.
Chapter 29
JANUARY 31, 2020
11:50 P.M.
Right before midnight, on the night before the bookshop opened, The Shopkeeper sat alone again as she’d done on New Year’s Eve a month prior. She was a shopkeeper, just as she’d declared, and if no one came to the bookshop or if everyone came to the bookshop, it wouldn’t change a thing.
Again she loved on her books, more now since she knew where they came from. She was nose-deep in her grandmother’s copy ofLove Poemswhen the sweetest-smelling man with a balding head bopped in. He smelled like herbs and spices, dessert and cologne, incense and deer hide, wet soil and Egyptian musk. She didn’t turn around; she breathed him in.
“I came to pick up my notebook,” he said, admiring the new furniture and the stacked shelves.
“Let me get that for you.” She tried to treat him like any other customer.
“Take your time,” he said, spreading his sweet smell everywhere he walked.
She kept his leather-bound notebook in her bag and had never once opened it, but she’d touched it every day. She pulled it out, ran her finger over its cover and spine, breathed it in, and handed it to him.
For the first time, their hands touched. Electricity pulsed through her, but not enough to make her stop.
She looked up at him. And they held eye contact there, with his notebook between them. She looked through his eyes and into her own soul. In him, she saw herself reflected—her curiosity and sensitivity, her quirks and her strength. And finally, after forty years of never kissing someone, she kissed ME, and ME kissed her back. She felt the electricity in her tongue, down her throat, and throughout her bloodstream; it was in her skin cells and hair follicles and toenails, but now she could handle it.
“Can I share something with you?” he said, opening his notebook. Her eyebrows wrinkled; she wanted to say,Not right now, just kiss me.But he stepped back and began to read out loud once again. “‘Once upon a time but not long ago, there was a shopkeeper who did not like to be touched.’”
The Shopkeeper looked at ME as a mirror. Held him tight in her eyes. She believed he breathed new life into her and she into him. He whispered in her left ear, “The path with no beginning is worth beginning,” and as his lips danced over her neck, she surrendered and let him begin. She hid in his smell like a safe space, his scent her sanctuary. It was her own fingers following the path up her own thighs that welcomed him in.He shoved sweetness into her sweet spots. She guided his soft hands around her soft body, and he followed. And he followed. And he followed again and again. He longed to smell the parts of her that he could not see and prayed she’d let him taste them. She sat back on her desk as his smell pressed into her. His aroma erotic. She unbuttoned his buttons fast, but breathed him in slowly. He allowed. And allowed. And allowed. She wondered if he tasted how he smelled. Her mouth wide open with anahhhthat summoned him in. He followed her to glory. He followed her to freedom. He followed her to the mountaintop. And all night they moved mountains with their mouths and their minds and their moans. Again and again and again they took turns adding chapters to their love story throughout the night. When she woke up the next morning, his journal was still there, but ME was gone.Endings don’t have to be sad, she thought to herself.
Chapter 30
FEBRUARY 1, 2020
5:33 A.M.
On February 1, 2020, The Shopkeeper got a call from CBS’sMorning Show. She had never sent out a press release, yet the studio wanted to send a news crew to cover the opening. Then she got a call from the mayor; he wanted to do a ribbon cutting with members of Congress. Then she got a call from the local newspaper, and they wanted to send a team to capture the entire day’s events. Then the neighborhood café wanted to bring coffee, and a group of local farmers wanted to bring fruit, and a florist wanted to bring flowers, and it went on and on like that with the community offering offerings the day of the opening, and The Shopkeeper saying yes on behalf of Harriett’s.
