The Pepper in the Gumbo (Men of Cane River #1)(13)
Sliding into his desk chair, he brought up the ticket information again. Today he’d be voluntarily stepping back into the place that had nothing but a few good memories. His stomach dropped at the thought. Bringing up his email, he saw the realtor was ready to show the apartment. She’d sent him a few pictures of the inside. It wasn’t anything close to his penthouse suite, but Paul was satisfied. He didn’t want anything from this century. He wanted to stay in one of those historic homes with the twelve-foot ceilings adorned with vintage chandeliers, and living rooms with exposed brick walls and enormous fireplaces. It spoke of all the places he was denied when he was growing up. It was the kind of place he’d never even have been allowed to tour, before he created ScreenStop and made his fortune. And the historic district was perfect. Not because it was close to the new site, but because it was where everything important happened. Rich people lived, shopped, and hobnobbed there. The buildings were uniformly old and showy. Paul could have rented the graceful wooden river house with the wraparound porch for the whole two months, but he wanted this apartment. He needed it. He was going to come back to Natchitoches as if he’d born in high cotton, not dirt poor.
He leaned back and gazed at the photos of the enormous, sunny living room. He’d outfit the place with a sixty inch TV, the best gaming system around, and turn it into the techno bachelor pad he’d always dreamed of when he was fifteen. A wide smile spread over his face. They say the best revenge is success. Well, the wealthy snobs of Natchitoches better watch out. The day of reckoning was at hand. In a few hours, Paul Olivier was coming back to town and nobody was going to be able ignore him this time.
Or not. Hope springs eternal in the human breast: Man never is, but always to be blest, Paul whispered to himself. Alexander Pope said it, but he also had a lot to say about focusing on the good, instead of wasting energy on what couldn’t be changed. Paul opened one of the cardboard boxes and searched through the contents. He had just enough time to scan in a small volume of old poetry if he was quick about it. As if in answer to his unspoken question, he saw a slim volume of Alexander Pope poetry and essays.
Removing a box cutter from his drawer, he carefully cut each fragile page from the rotting binding. As soon as he signed the lease, he’d have Mrs. Connors pack these up and send them on. He didn’t want to neglect the community of readers who waited for the next out-of-print book to pop up in their notifications.
Paul paused, his hands full of paper. There was nothing better than the smell of old books. These poems reminded him of the miracle of words. They would have new life, in ten thousand different hands. Instead of molding in the basement of an apartment building, this book would be reincarnated in binary code, transferred in terabytes across the country, and read around the world. Alexander Pope’s Essay on Man would live again in a way it hadn’t lived before.
Chapter Five
Any sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from magic. ― Arthur C. Clarke
“Can I help you?” Alice approached the customer with a smile. It was rare to have anyone in so early on a Saturday. The twenty-something woman with short curly hair had the focused look of someone in search of a specific book. Alice held out a hand and introduced herself.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Karen.” She glanced at the display of brand new hardbacks and then around the rest of the store, her gaze settling on Van Winkle at the desk. “Is that a cat or a really big paperweight?”
Alice had to smile. “Both, I’m afraid. He doesn’t move much so on windy days I just tuck papers under his portly body.”
Karen giggled but it was cut short when she noticed Darcy on the top of the range. “Oh, he gave me a start! He looks so…”
“Severe? Yes, he can be quite intimidating.” Alice hoped the girl wouldn’t notice any more cats. Maybe she was allergic. Alice did have a sign in the window warning people, but some might think the resident attack cat poster was a joke. She used a high-powered air filter and a top-notch vacuum to keep hairballs to a minimum.
“He’s beautiful, even if he does look like he hates me,” Karen said. “Anyway, this is the first time I’ve been in a book store in years. I usually order everything online ‘cause I don’t have to search for it and it’s delivered right to my house.”
Alice kept her smile in place. She heard some version of this a few times a week. Everyone told her what great deals they found on Amazon. She wanted to tell them that Amazon couldn’t find your book when you didn’t remember anything except the author’s name started with a D and the cover had a seagull. But she could.
“Anyway, I read this great book and I wanted to find the rest of the author’s stuff, but it’s all…” Karen paused, as if searching for the right word. “Out of print, I guess. And you have to buy them from little bookstores, but I don’t want to pay shipping and I thought…” Her voice trailed off and she looked around the store, as if wondering how she would ever find what she needed.
“I’d be happy to help,” Alice said, doing her best to ooze reassurance. “Who’s the author?”
“Um.” Karen reached into her bag, grabbed a red, zippered notebook, and pulled out a tablet. She turned it on, scrolled through a few pages, and then turned the screen toward Alice. “Browning Wordsworth Keats”, she announced. “No, wait. That’s not right.”