The Book Trader

Chapter One: "R"

I came down the stairs, like I have a hundreds of times before. But today, it felt different. It still had the same set up. Shelves and shelves filed with books. A cashregester on the left and the sun coming up, shining threw the window.

It felt like something special was going to happen. The only special and important thing that happened was when my grandma won the 50/50 drawing at our local amvets.

When I got to the bottom of the stairs and I felt a cool shiver going up my spine.I had left the air conditioner on all night. With the raising late May, Southern Ohio heat, it is still cold in the mornings. I went behind the cashregester to grab my sweater and turned off the air conditioner.

I looked to the clock. "8:30". It was the normal time I got down to the book store. Yup, just a normal day at the shop. It's been over a year now since my grandmother's passing. Although she was up there in age, she was my bestfriend. We were close, possibly closer then my mother and her. Right before she had passed, I promised her that I would take care of her shop. I'm still going to keep my promise to her that I will take care of the shop, although she said "Do what you think is right for your future."

I guess that what she ment is that whatever happens during the past and present will determine your future.

'Okay, I should get off the subject of the Christmas Carol'. I said to myself. And that was my grandmas favorite Christmas movie. So many things remind me of her, but I'm still healing. All you have to do is get through one year and the rest gets better. At least that's what I heard. All I have is this book store, my friends, and Nemo my cat.

The doorbell rang sending me out of my deep thoughts and into reality. It was Ronny. One of the guys from the shipping company giving us the weekly shipment. Ronny is a little bit bigger then most of the guys, he's nice, and occasionally he would hit on me.

"Good morning Page." Ronny said.

"Good morning." I replied to him. He gave me a clipboard with a paper confirming the order.When I started talking.

"So, I was wondering if you would like to go out to dinner with me tonight?"

"Sorry, I can't tonight. I'm going out with my girlfriends, but I know a person that would like to go out with you."

"Who?" He questioned.

"My friend Marry, she's a friend of mine. Do you have a scrap piece of paper? I could write down her number for you."

"Okay, here you go." He dug threw his front pants pocket unit he pulled out an old wrinkly reseat paper and handed it to me, along with the clipboard. I wrote down her name and number and handed it to him.

"Here."

"So, I guess I'll be seeing you next week then?"

"Yah. Well see you."

I walked away and grabbed a few boxes and headed inside. Okay so what I said about going out with my friends was only half true. I wasn't sure if my friends wanted to go to the club, a small city a little ways from here. I sat the boxes on the counter next to the cashregester, grabbed the phone, and started to put in my Mandy's phone number. Her phone rang three times and then she picked up.

"Hello?" She said groggy.

"Hey, it's Page! I was wondering if you wanted to go out clubbing with me?"

"Wow! Page Martin finally has arisen from the dead and wants to hang out with the girls!"

"Yah, I thought that I should get out more and put the past behind me." Then I immediately thought of my grandma and my parents.