Confessions of a Curious Bookseller(60)
From: Fawn Birchill
Sent: Tue, Mar 19, 2019 at 8:17 AM
To: Angela Washington
Subject: Windowpane
Angela,
When you get here, please find some cardboard in the back, cut it to size, and duct tape it to the broken window. Some smart aleck decided to throw a softball at our store.
Fawn, Owner
From: Gregory Harris
Sent: Wed, Mar 20, 2019 at 4:32 PM
To: Fawn Windsor
Subject: Hello
Dear Fawn,
I hope I didn’t overstep the other day. Since you haven’t written back, I’m worried I may have upset you. I didn’t mean to push my opinion on what you should do in such a forthright manner. To be honest, I am going through a bit of an identity crisis these days, so I was taking a lot of my angst out on my unsuspecting friend across the pond. Forgive me.
Regards,
Gregory
From: Fawn Windsor
Sent: Wed, Mar 20, 2019 at 4:59 PM
To: Gregory Harris
Re: Hello
Dear Gregory,
Please don’t think my lack of response was due to anger! I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I thought we weren’t friends. Life got a little hectic (Gordon is still missing), so I’ve been scattered. Your words and opinions are always welcome. Don’t feel as if you ever have to censor yourself or your advice toward me.
I hope you are doing well. You may always, always share your angst with me.
Much love,
Fawn
March 23, 2019
It has been three days since I found Butterscotch, and it’s still difficult for me to remain calm enough to sit down and write. I have spent the last two days feverishly cleaning and doing calisthenics, only to be interrupted briefly by intermittent sobbing episodes. I should have known not to allow Jane to keep open boxes of rat poison all over her apartment. I should have seen it as a hazard and discarded them.
It unfolded like this: I went in the other day to see if Jane needed help with anything or if anything needed to be tidied up. She asked for a book in her hallway on the shelf, White Fang. Why this sweet old woman wants to read a book about animals tearing into each other all day is beyond me, but I suppose it shows what I know. So I went to the bookshelf and immediately smelled something strange. I don’t know how I didn’t notice it earlier. Perhaps I was always in and out so fast that I couldn’t register the odor. I stood before the bookshelf for some time without looking at it, working up the courage to crouch and take a closer look—my thoughts already turning to the worst of possibilities. The smell was nearly unbearable by the time I knelt down to the rows of books to find Butterscotch huddled atop them, six weeks dead.
Spring is one of my favorite times of the year. I don’t know if I have it in me to walk to the art museum, which is what I usually do in the spring, but I think I will open the windows today. It’s becoming a bit stale in my apartment, and since I haven’t showered, it’s hard to tell if it is me who needs airing out or if it is my apartment.
I do not wish to write about the emptiness at the loss of a loved one. I do not think that whoever is still reading this wants to be told about feelings and pain when they very well may understand them well enough. But if you can imagine the worst moment of your life thus far and how it cripples your knees and turns your stomach inside out—it would be close enough to the truth. We all mourn in our own way. Ever since I was a little girl, my mourning rituals have been energetically cathartic. I would clean my bedroom, run laps around the house, and punch the trees until I wore myself out and fell into a stupor of emotional denouement, unable to leave my bed for days. I have memories of my father literally pulling me out of bed by the ankles, shoving shoes on my feet and carrying me to his shop while my sister looked on smugly, my knuckles still covered in dried blood from the birch bark. I used to be quite combative, but that all changed with puberty when I became quite the demure Scarlett O’Hara. I’m not sure exactly when this change took place, but instead of punching things when someone or something died, I simply cleaned and then, my head swimming in chemicals, fell onto my bed and sobbed into my pillow. Even at sixteen, however, my father was pulling me by the ankles. That did not ever change.
Every day I appear to be aging—I can actually see the changes in the reflections in the windows at night (I will not look in the mirror). Last night I went up to the dark window and pulled the skin of my face back and up until I thought I resembled Keira Knightley—especially from the side. Then I noticed someone looking at me across the way, and I pulled down the blinds. There is not a shred of privacy in this city anymore.
I plan to adopt a rescue cat in the coming days, and it has to be very clean in here. It has to be right, and there must not be any hazards. I have a lot of work to do.
From: Fawn Birchill
Sent: Sun, Mar 24, 2019 at 9:50 PM
To: Angela Washington
Subject: New lodger
Dear Angela,
You may notice a new presence wandering the store with regularity. Please do not be alarmed, as she is meant to be here. I met her outside Missy’s Co-op yesterday when purchasing sundries. You may be wondering why in the world I would still patronize such a cold place that turned its back on me with impunity; however, I am doing my best these days to forgive when forgiveness is due. Also, they have the best steel cut oats this side of the Schuylkill River and quite frankly, I will not deny myself such pleasures.