AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter 5
The bookstore was closed for the night. The shutters pulled, the coffee pot for customers turned off. The floors swept and the rugs vacuumed. The random books that lurked on various services like literary bugs had been scooped up and shelves.
The only light came from the break room, where laughter and the sound of drinks being poured. Music thudded out of a crackling wireless speaker.
Inside the employees-only room, a sarcastic half-plan was beginning to take form.
The bulletin board had been cleared of everything, save for a picture of Barret. Strands of red string stretched in a rough pentagram shape, held in place by tacks. At each tack was another small bit of information. A list of his known addresses. That ridiculous tower he'd built outside of town. His companies (along with a smaller, branching line of strings that included his wider holdings). A picture of his car, his suit and his shoes, plus a digital advertisement for the watch he wore in most photos.
There was scribbling on his face.
The DNF scattered themselves around the table, handing each other glasses of wine and cutting large swaths out of the Wethering Heights cake.
It was joked that they should kill him. Rebecca went into lurid detail about a case not too long ago where this woman dumped bodies into chemical vats to dispose of them. Ariana seemed slightly too enthusiastic about the idea until Olivia briskly changed the subject.
Nora tapped away on her laptop, sipping one of the beers Rebecca brought because “it was all I had in my fridge!”, the printer in the corner spitting out document after document. Ariana and Gertrude drank near it so they could collect each new paper, hold it up, laugh, and tack on the board.
“He told G3 magazine in 2019 that he only sleeps four hours a day. MicroNap Powersleeping he calls it," Gertrude said.
“I got that beat. In 2022 he told BusinessTomorrow that women have more value and contribute more to the economy when they’re having children.”
“Oh my god that has to go on the board.” Gertrude tacked it up, taking pleasure in stretching a red string back to Barret's face. With the eyes blacked out and the devil horns turning him into a bizarre death-demon, he was almost attractive.
“So we’re not killing him, okay, what if we just take his money?” Ariana asked.
Nora hit print again on her keyboard. “My dad has guns I’m sure we could borrow—”
“Why do we need guns?” Gertrude said.
“To point at him. You know, give me your money, man.”
“I was thinking maybe sneak in like cat burglars,” Ariana replied.
“I used to dress up as Catwoman for my first husband,” Rebecca said. Her words slurred slightly as she tottered over to the table full of wine to pour another glass.
“Still got the whip?” Olivia asked her politely, catching Gertrude’s eye, both of them struggling to hold back laughter.
“No, funny enough, I think he took that in the divorce… he really liked it, I used to stick it in his—”
Gertrude choked on her drink, a jolt of sticky red wine lodging in her throat. Her boss wacked her on the back, then handed her a napkin.
“Well, he's basically Gertrude's boyfriend,” Ariana said. “Flowers, cake, and it's not even your birthday.”
“Would he buy you a bookstore for your birthday?” Nora asked Gertrude.
Before she could answer, Olivia, getting steadily drunker, said: “Most I ever got for my birthday from a boyfriend was a gift card. To a different bookstore.” She sighed. “I was wasted on that man. I give really good head."
“Not good enough, apparently,” Gertrude replied.
That brought a wild peel of laughter from their normally reserved boss. With a jolt, Gertrude realized just how drunk Olivia was. How long had they been here, making fun of Barret, eating cake, emptying bottles of wine? The night was slipping away, and suddenly she found herself in charge. Like a mother hemming in a small family of swaying toddlers, she went about the room, taking drinks from people. “It’s midnight, we work tomorrow, go home, do you have a ride? No, you can’t drive. Yes, use an app and get one, no not one more drink—”
They each had to be soothed and coaxed into their coats, and one by one she ushered them into cars; driven by boyfriends, Uber drivers, Rebecca for some reason called an actual yellow taxi-cab. Finally, it was just her and Olivia, the bookstore settling into serene, cemetery-quiet now that the talkative ones had filed out. For a brief moment, Gertrude imagined owning the store with Olivia, having these moments of quiet respite with each other every night.
Olivia’s mood soured, twisting away from the buoyant false jubilance of earlier. Now that there was no one to put to on a show for, she slumped in a chair and laid her head on the table, looking at the board. A low groan echoed from her.
Gertrude was unsure what to do. She’d never been around someone so openly upset; her mother, even in her worst moments, was stubbornly prideful and would retreat to her bedroom to face her pain alone, the TV blaring criminal investigation shows and the box fan in her window whirring weak comfort.
It was unnerving to see Olivia, someone she regarded as firmly Adult, Adult with a capital A, tumbling down a well of emotions.
