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Whenever Sera isn’t here and leaves the shop to me, it’s normally because it’s going to be a long, boring day full of positivelyno onecoming in to buy a book, which doesn’t often happen, admittedly. We’re notsuperdead constantly. Sera does have to pay her bills, after all, and she’s making that back in sales somehow. She must be turning a profit, too. Otherwise, I wouldn’t think it would be possible to keep running this shop as she does.
But some days are just…dull.
My only entertainment today, so far, is the rain that pounds against the glass of the windows and on the roof above us. The news had promised a storm, but I don’t consider just the rain to be that. I want thunder, lightning, wind…the works, or else this is no one’s definition of astorm. Besides, I could use that kind of tumultuous weather in my life today. Ienjoyit, for one. And also, it’s just…soothing to be awake during a storm.
Is that weird? Maybe I’m weird to think that. Things can get a little worse than other places in Solen since we’re perched on Banks Lake in Washington state, after all. But I still prefer a storm to a sunny day.
The door opens, causing me to blink and pull myself out of my storm-related fantasies. My mouth opens, forming the typical greeting I use for customers that come in here, but I stop when Frank, the local delivery guy, waves me off my spiel.
“Not buying anything today, Ari,” he tells me, his salt and pepper mustache twitching over his mouth as he speaks. “Got a package here to drop off.”
“For Sera?” I assume, patting the counter with one hand. I pray she hasn’t ordered more goddamn bird books, but with her, there’s really no telling. This box could contain obscure reference books oneels, or I could open it and find ten copies of the latest viral romance novel that we’ll sell out of within a few days. Honestly, I’m hoping for the latter. I don’t want to have to read up on eels or some other obscure subject just because I need to sell the books.
I already know too much about scarecrows and wish I could scrub the knowledge out of my brain fromthatreading adventure.
Frank shakes his head and slides the box toward me on the counter. “It’s addressed to you, actually.”
“Me?” I repeat, the idea unfathomable. I don’t get mail atwork. And I’m pretty sure I haven’t gone on any online shopping binges lately. Probably? And if I had, I don’t know why I would’ve put down the shop’s address.
But here’s this box, putting a lie to my words because it is most certainly addressed to me at this address.
I sign the screen of Frank’s little delivery scanning machine, and he waves goodbye, speed walking back out the door as if he’s allergic to the books we sell in here.
More likely, he’s afraid that his wife will catch wind he’s here, and thenhe’llbe the one bringing home an armful of books. Two of which will be about birds.
I wave goodbye as he does the same from the safety of being outside in the rain, and as he walks away, I look down at the box of something that I must have ordered while I was blackout drunk.
Not that I’vebeendrunk in a while. But if it’s something from another country, there’s a good chance I really just did not know it was coming and ordered it weeks, if not a month or two ago.
“Well, I’m not going to figure out what it is by just standing here,” I mutter, glancing up to make sure no one is coming toward the shop. It’s Wednesday, it’s rainy, and I’m pretty sure I can hear a roll of thunder in the distance. It’s going to be dead today, and I’m close to just walking over to the coffee shop for a few minutes and flipping the open sign toClosedon the glass door. It’s not like anyone is going to notice, anyway.
Grabbing scissors from beside the register, I brandish them at the box like it’s going to shrink away and set about stabbing through the packing tape holding it closed.
While I do, I look at the label.
There’s no business name or logo on it. And no return address. Justmyname, Ari Verlice, and the book shop’s address printed under it in neat, handwritten letters.
It seems…strange. It feels a little bit weird and echoes around my head uncomfortably as I push the flaps of the box back and am met with a veritable fortune of packing peanuts.
Sighing, I plunge my hand in, groping around the box, until finally, my fingers find…paper? Just a thin layer of it in the bottom, that’s all I can find in the box, and I use my nails to pry it upward, bringing it out past the packing peanuts that seem unnecessaryfor paper.
It’s a news article. The paper has been separated from the rest of the news, and the page shows a gutter in the street where men are carrying out black plastic bags with grim faces.
The headline, when I finally look up at it, reads,UNIDENTIFIED DECEASED MALE LOCATED IN SEWERS OF SAN DIEGO.
I stare at the title, then look back at the picture. I’m incredibly confused, to say the least, and as my eyes start scanning the article itself, which has few details other than ones that talk about the investigation being underway and still being unable to identify the body for reasons I’m not quite sure Iwantto know, it’s very…bland.
Generic, even. Like the headline is more important than the article itself.
But bile rises in my throat anyway because I don’t need to be reminded ofSan Diego,but here I am, getting a newspaper article from there in a box of fucking packing peanuts that I don’t remember ordering whatsoever.
I heave a sigh and force myself to try to be chill, not wanting to freak out, and instead dig in the box, my fingers shoving away the Styrofoam peanuts because therehasto be something else in here. One does not pack a box like it’s fragile fora newspaper article.
The door opens, but I barely glance up. I’m elbow deep in Styrofoam, and I still haven’t found anything other than the article that sits beside the box, half-obscured by the packing peanuts I’m throwing everywhere.
“Are you…okay?” a slightly familiar, very perplexed voice asks from the other side of the register.
I look up, my chin jerking upward so that I can look at the man. My eyes widen slightly and I pause, looking him over because how in theworldis my childhood friend’s lookalike standing in the bookstore I work in when I swear the last time I saw this stranger was in San Diego.
