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Chapter 3
He might well have been the worst man she’d ever seen. It was as though he’d studied fashion magazines and fragrance advertisements, utilizing what he saw to graft an image onto himself of pristine manliness that, instead of appearing powerful and competent, came across as pinched and forced. His hair was aggressively slicked back, held tightly by glistening gel. His skin had an unwelcome tanned, almost-orange hue that screamed he was not from this climate; this region, this land devoid of wealth and tropical sunshine.
When he said his name, he waited expectantly for the words to have some effect. Gertrude thought he might be an author or something, but either way, the name didn’t bring forth the adulation the man seemed to be expecting.
The Calvin Klein Xerox copy stood before her, smiling indulgently, as if he was prepared to forgive her momentary lapse in judgment. She was glad then, to leave him at the counter and slip into Olivia’s office, even as she heard him muttering: “Gertrude” to himself.
“Olivia? There’s a guy here. Wants to see you.”
“Did he say his name?” Olivia looked up from a sea of papers on her desk. It had been five short weeks since Gertrude had started at the DNF, and Olivia fascinated her endlessly. Her organization style was simple; there was none. She was simply relentless. Toss everything on the desk and sort it out with ruthless determination until everything was either thrown away or filed somewhere, normally in her bulging desk drawers.
“Woodrow Wilson or something.”
“What?”
“That’s not it. Uh, Baron? Woodrow Baron?"
“Woodrow Barretis here?”
“Yeah?”
Olivia began frantically gathering the papers, shoving them into piles, clearing open space on the wood tabletop, talking rapidly the whole time. “His company keeps making offers. They’re pressuring me to sell. I met his VP or whatever a few weeks ago, but Barret himself has never been here.” She smoothed her hair down and glared at Gertrude. “He’s worth several billion dollars and I have the one thing he can’t have easily. My stupid little bookshop. I bet it drives him crazy.” Olivia paused, then cocked her head at Gertrude. “What did he say to you?”
“I think he flirted with me.”
It was a joke, but much later Gertrude would remember this exchange and grow baffled at how right she was, and how weird things were about to get.
***
She’d been at the bookstore a little over a month, and something horrifying was happening.
She liked it.
Liked it a lot, in fact.
The women in the store took to her with enthusiasm, welcoming her with an openness and generosity Gertrude couldn’t help but regard with suspicion. What did they want? They had to want something.
This suspicion faded, slowly, as their affection wore her down.
They let her pick the suggested book of the week on her second day, and she was delighted to find that Rebecca and Nora had both read it as well. Nora, in particular, got along with Gertrude; they each had a list of vampire books that they compared, leading Gertrude to a grudging respect of the other woman due to her ability to match vampiric recommendations.
The work was sometimes dull, but she found herself looking forward to each shift. The break room normally had fresh baked goods (Rebecca) and someone was always lighting candles in the store (Nora) and too-damaged copies of paperbacks were free to take home.
About two weeks in she picked up some day shifts when she didn’t have class.
The customer service aspect wasn’t even that bad.
Ariana got her to wear purple instead of black, which bothered Gertrude greatly.
And, to round it all off, she found something of a mentor. A motherly figure in Olivia, who was shrewd and calculating in the exact way Gertrude wished to approach her own life. Olivia’s passion for books was a lingering presence in every corner of the store; from the shelves she’d painted herself, to the paintings she purchased and hung up, to the replacement armchair that Gertrude helped Olivia carry in one day, both of them struggling to squeeze it through the door.
Gertrude’s mother had been like that, once. But things had gotten worse, and the stern, reserved woman she’d been had eroded into someone sickly and needy. Gertrude hated to admit that being home was daunting; a second job. Her first job, at least, was rewarding and warm, and Olivia seemed to have an element of maternal affection towards her. Bringing her coffee if she was working a morning shift. Buying her lunch or giving her rides home.
Gertrude didn’t have the same repository of words for good feelings that she had for bad. Dour, melancholy, disdain; these were readily available.
Things at the DNF were just…
Nice.
