Love Letters to Literature

Two

The second time she met Clark, it was a Saturday night. She forgot to switch the door sign (and lock up), and was reading a book in the lounge area when she heard the door open. Afraid, she rushes to grab whatever was in front of her at the moment (a light blue curtain rod) and immediately appears at the entrance yelling at the top of her lungs. She was met with equally frightened yelling and a man with a broomstick. In fact, she was met with the said broomstick clashing against her curtain rod in a lightsaber-esque defense.

Immedietly the man throws down the broomstick, laughing and apologizing at the same time. "Sorry-so sorry," was all he could get out until another burst of laughter erupted from him. All the while she doesn't move, though, still mimicking a defensive Skywalker.

"Clark!" She berates, surprised herself at her unusually forgiving tone. "Why on EARTH would you DO THAT?" She questions, trying hard to sound as loud and authoritative as possible.

"Listen, I came in here, you are the one who turned Jedi master-"

"You are the one who decided to break into my place at eleven o'clock at night!"

"Only to return the broomstick-"

"-which you paid for!-"

"-and the door was open! The sign says open!"

At that, the shouting match ended. She forcefully switches the sign over to 'closed' and locks the door with a frustrated grunt. Exhausted and winded as they were, the two did not let the fact Clark was locked in the bookstore escape them.

"Listen, Shelley-" Clark begins as the woman before him frustratedly messes with her brow. She stops dead still and turns to him, looking him right in the eye.

"How do you know my name." It wasn't a question really, a statement; she made a terrified statement. Her eyes became so big at that moment, her mind racing with the fear that she accidentally locked someone in that she did not want in. Her hands fell to her side and stiffened around the curtain rod.

"It's in the name of your store," Clark says, confused, hands beginning to rise. "It's in the...this is your store right?"

"It is not in the name of my store." She says, brave enough to let go of the curtain rod and point at the little letters detailing the entrance door, letters that clearly read 'Cardinal Books'. Beneath the white lettering was a small red bird with outstretched wings, head turned upward.

With a nervous laugh Clark points up, "Well um, what about the letters above the awning? I saw them as I was walking here, they're lit up and everything..." he watched as the rod slipped out of her fingers, but her eyes stayed big and round and she still stood like a statue. "'Shelley's Books' ring a bell? No...?" he nervously began to wonder if he was locked in a place with someone he didn't want to be locked in with.

"Listen, sorry, yea...um, yea I just..." she begins to mess with her brow again with her hands, fingers massaging her temples. "I forgot that was there, to be honest." She closes her eyes and sighs, which was a relief to Clark who thought her eyes were going to explode any minute if they got any bigger.

"How could you forget something like that? They're like the hollywood sign- literally I think they're that big." Clark laughs, trying to lighten the situation. If he was honest, he didn't know why he was still there.

"This bookstore was recently inherited by me, and, well, I haven't had the time to go outside lately. Inventory has...well it actually hasn't started yet." She lightly laughs, setting the curtain rod aside the Zen Waterfall. "I guess I've been too afraid to go through all of that. I keep convincing myself that I'll stay late and get it all done, then morning comes around and I have other things to think about." She shrugs. "I'm sorry to frighten you."

Clark was definetly frightened, and still was. "Its okay, everyone has their off days. You saw me on mine, its only karma's way." She didn't need to know that. He did not want her to know he was frightened of a small bookstore owner weilding a light blue curtain rod and who has the biggest eyes he's ever seen.

"I don't think karma's in charge of those kinds of things." Oh yea, she knew.