Page 39 of After Hours at Dooryard Books
“Some place called Mama’s.”
“Jesus Christ, that place is about as gay as a bathhouse.”
“I did notice that.”
Patrick laughs, warm and bright and louder than usual, and the sound fills the entire shop.
* * *
“Let’s go out,” Susan says, walking into the shop, the chimes ringing as the door swings shut behind her.
“It’s only six,” Patrick says.
“I’m talking to Nathaniel,” Susan says. “His shift was over an hour ago. I hope he’s paying you overtime,” she says, directing her attention to where Nathaniel is sitting with his feet on Patrick’s desk, reading a book about a governess falling in love with her Byronic, mysterious, widowed employer. You could stock a modestly sized bookstore with novels that are effectively Brontë retellings and Nathaniel would read every last one of them.
“What’s the going rate for reading paperbacks and drinking coffee?” Patrick asks.
“You can’t afford me, darling,” Nathaniel says. “This is pro bono.” He turns to Susan. “Where do you want to go?”
She’s dragged him out a few times to listen to music. Once, they went to a coffeehouse a few blocks away where they listened to some friends of hers play some music with entirely too much banjo. Another time, they went to a jazz club uptown. They’d taken a cab there, but on the subway home Nathaniel was braced for disaster; instead he was charmed by a rat eating a donut, a busking saxophonist playing songs that were popular twenty years ago, and a few teenage girls jumping the turnstile.
“We’ll sit near the door and hit the bricks if you need to,” Susan says, which isn’t an answer. “I won’t ever be more than a few feet away.”
Nathaniel will never get used to people talking about his weaknesses so openly. “All right, then.”
“I’ll take Eleanor all day tomorrow,” Susan tells Patrick.
Patrick frowns. “You don’t need to do that. I wasn’t going out tonight anyway.”
Nathaniel’s been watching Patrick and Susan dance around this issue for months. Susan thinks Patrick’s doing her a favor and feels guilty about imposing on him. Patrick seems to grasp that he isn’t babysitting so much as raising a child, but doesn’t know how to point this out without overstepping. Nathaniel just hopes that Susan doesn’t decide that the best way to stop imposing on Patrick will be to move away.
“What do I wear?” Nathaniel asks Susan.
After a few thrift store excursions with Susan, Nathaniel now owns three pairs of cotton trousers, three plain white collared shirts, a camel-colored sport coat, a decent belt, and penny loafers. He also has a pair of jeans that feel much too tight but which Susan says he needs so she can take him places without anyone thinking she’s with a cop or a sugar daddy.
The first time he put on a shirt with a collar after months of wearing Patrick’s t-shirts and too-big sweaters, he’d been delirious with relief. It probably says something terrible abouthim, his longing for conformity, his gut instinct to preserve the status quo. Or maybe he’s just used to the way certain garments feel against his skin.
“Jeans,” she says. Oh well.
The shop door opens before Nathaniel can go upstairs and get changed. It’s Nathaniel’s least favorite customer: square jawed, broad shouldered, clean cut, like somebody ordered him right out of the catalog. The shop always smells like his cologne for a full ten minutes after he leaves.
“Oh, hi, John,” Patrick says.
John scuffs his toe along the carpet, all bashful innocence. Nathaniel wants to be sick. “I was looking for a Whitman biography,” John says, words calculated to go straight to Patrick’s heart. For Christ’s sake, the man doesn’t even need a Whitman biography; just get Patrick started and you’ll know all you need to know before the night is through.
“Settle down,” Susan says once she and Nathaniel are on the stairs.
“I don’t like him,” he says.
“No kidding.”
“He’s up to something.”
“He’s working up the courage to hit on Patrick.”
“I knowthat,” Nathaniel says. “He’s laying it on too thick. The downcast eyes, the stupid little smile. I was looking for a Whitman biography,” he mimics. “If he knew anyone in common with Patrick, he’d know that Patrick isn’t exactly a challenge.”
“Did you just call Patrick easy?”
