Confessions of a Curious Bookseller(53)
To: Mark Nilsen
Re: Invitation to Mark Twain Estate Event
Dear Mark,
Yes, I understand, but I thought I would extend an invitation to you since you so kindly did the same for me! How funny that they have landed on the same evening! And yes, I absolutely planned on going to the ballet that night, but my date insisted we choose Feb 8 and 9 and go to the ballet the following week, since his favorite ballerina won’t be performing that night anyway. Ah, c’est la vie.
So, if your event isn’t as successful or populated as you hoped, feel free to stop by for some excellent food and schmoozing with the Philadelphia elite. I’m sure you can get that Tom Sawyer book signed if you’d like, but just to warn you, there will naturally be a fee.
Wishing you all the best with your event,
Fawn, Owner, The Curious Cat Book Emporium (a The Adventures of Tom Sawyer specialist store)
February 7
Dear Fawn,
More coupons! Sometimes I swear Florence just throws them out, but the other day she told me she bought two bikes for the boys with one of the Walmart coupons I gave her. They have been wanting to learn to ride. She is such a good mother. I’m glad you two have patched things up, even if it’s tenuous.
Mother
THE CURIOUS CAT BOOK EMPORIUM
Blog Post #2
The Outlook of an Employee
My staff member Angela has volunteered to write a brief blog post on what it is like to be an employee at the Curious Cat Book Emporium. The below entry is unedited and, I’m sure much to the surprise of some of our readers, completely truthful on all accounts.
As an employee of the Curious Cat Book Emporium, I am never more satisfied than when ringing up customers and seeing the smiles on their faces as they walk out of the store with a surefire, good purchase. Even if one does not like a book, reading it was still an experience. Take, for example, a person you run into on the street. You may not like them, but they have taught you something about yourself—perhaps that you find smoking in public to be unspeakably rude and disgusting.
I feel a sense of ownership in this store. A sense of belonging. I do not feel as if I am going to work when I leave my tiny, dismal apartment in Center City but rather that I am going home. This is how every single person should feel about work, but so few do. For this I am fortunate. I thank Fawn for the continued opportunity to work in her store. Without her, I might be getting into trouble with men or smoking too much marijuana, waking one day to find myself on my way to cleaning up highways in an orange vest. This is not to say that I am prone to criminal behavior, but purpose gives me a sense of responsibility, as does ownership.
Eventually when I marry, have children, and leave this wonderful job for another, I will look back and think fondly on my experiences, on my family among the books, and of course, on Butterscotch.
February 7, 2019
Tomorrow it begins. The money from the ticket sales is in my bank account, and I am currently set to be able to pay my employees for another three months without letting them go. It is a real miracle.
Keith has been calling me all day to get the right wardrobe picked out. It’s all coming together quite well!
However, I am having trouble sleeping. Sometimes when I look in the mirror, I don’t know who is looking back at me. I often find myself caught in the doorways of my apartment just staring at my feet, terrified to move into the next room. I am so frightened that something terrible will happen, so continuing on in my day is doing nothing but hastening it. I want to curl up into a ball and force time to stop. And though all these dark thoughts have been running through my head, things are going so well! Is this what happiness feels like? Perhaps it is, since I only feel truly alive when the bookstore is packed with people. It’s as if my purpose in life has been fulfilled, and I am frightened to see it all end. I am frightened of March, frightened that after the event people will move on and forget about my store, frightened that the turnout won’t be all that I had hoped. Unlike for my sister, mediocrity was never an option in my life. I always aspired to be something so much greater than the circumstances into which I was born, so it never occurred to me that I could ever be anything less. Achieving this, surpassing this, and waking up with the knowledge that I could turn a great corner in my business this month makes the hairs on the back of my neck tingle with life. Because of my ingenuity and my unorthodox business skills, it has come to this. Everything feels different: Butterscotch is softer! The sun is brighter! The colors are more vivid! This must also be what success feels like.
Sometimes I think that if my father were aware of all that I do for my business, he would turn green with envy but never admit how impressed he is. He never allowed Florence and me to make suggestions about his store or decide what to sell, although without us it would have gone under years before it did. He preferred the company of mindless servants and would rather that we simply work, keeping our heads down and our mouths closed, than be a true part of his business. We were nothing more than cogs. So to see me now, strategizing and working around challenges like I do, might just shock him right into a coma.
And then there is Florence, the prize of the family, who is praised for everything she does, right down to buying bikes for her sons. Buying things is easy. Putting in time is the difficult part—something that I know so well and for which I have not been praised. If one doesn’t see the outward, constant fruits of one’s labors, then it is hard to understand or believe how hard one is trying. It’s funny: no matter how accomplished I may become with my bookstore, they will never be capable of caring as much as I expect them to. This is no fault of Florence’s but merely the environment in which she was raised. I wish I could go on with my life without holding resentment like this, but I’m not sure how to begin. It is much harder, I suppose, to let things go. One is then forced to deal with oneself. But then again, I deal with myself every day. And once in a while it feels good to hold on to resentment. Sometimes, it’s all that I have to hold on to.