Part 4: Work

Olivia threw up her hands. “Alright, back to work. Rad, what are you putting up after you take Jane Austin down?”
Rad bobbed his head again, “Oh Dude, my fav, Sherlock Holmes. All this hype about the new movie, thought it should be the next on the wall.”
Olivia looked at him with her brow scrunched, “Sherlock Holmes?”
“Yeah thought I might print up the quote, ‘You know my methods Watson’ or ‘…when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth…’ or may fav ‘Now, Watson, the fair sex is your department…’ can’t decide. What do you think Miss. Liv?”
Right when Rad starts to quote Shakespeare or Emily or Anne Bronte or Jack Kerouac or J K Rowling and Olivia has almost forgotten Rad was Rad, he calls her Miss. Liv and she remembers Rad was Rad. “Rad I think you are the only kid like you that could quote Sherlock.”
Rad smiled. “Thanks Miss. Liv.”
“Sure thing Rad, I am not sure, put up whichever you feel catches the spirit of Sherlock Holmes the most. Which reminds me,” Olivia walked into the office were Tim had returned and was looking through some papers, Olivia started setting down her purse and jacket, sat down at the desk and started riffling through papers, “I saw the strangest thing at the bus stop this morning. Two men dressed in nineteenth century clothing walked by, one was holding a cane and pipe and referred to the other as Watson. Isn’t that odd?”
Tim nodded his head vaguely, “Yeah, not near as odd as these numbers though. Look at this charge from Jerry Spinelli’s publishers, that can’t be near right?”
Olivia got up from her seat again, “Didn’t you hear me at all?”
Tim handed the bill to look at, “Yeah, yeah two goof balls dressed up like Holmes and Watson, probably nut cases, look at that five-seventy three, I thought they said four-fifty flat, we wanted to see how the book did before getting into it for too much money.”
Olivia gave up on her story, “Well call them up, see what happened.”
Tim took the folder back from Olivia and closed it, “I will. You have two messages from Mike on the phone by the way. You might want to call him and tell him you’re ok. Oh you might want to call your Mom too, oh and your sister Monica.”
Olivia folded her arms and gave Tim a disdained look, “Is there anyone else you called for the Olivia search party I want to call and let know I am not dead despite your panic.”
Tim gently placed his hands on each of her shoulders, “Now Olivia, dear, how could you be mad at me, you were the one late and didn’t call-” Olivia tried to cut him off but Tim started before she could, “And any way I did it in concern for you. Now please tell me before you have another crazy morning!” and stalked off before Olivia could say another word.
Tim was the first person who lived in Fairfax she met, besides her sister’s family. After she had rented out the space for the book store she had put a sign for a manager of a quaint book store and put a few adds in the local papers. After the sign had been out for one week, she already had five emails and four phone messages from Tim Vlousky. He even stopped by the store still under construction twice. He was a little over enthusiastic for Olivia, but somehow his named managed to pop up everywhere, always swimming to the top of her paper work. She finally agreed to have an interview, which of course he went over the top about and suggested he bye them lunch, but his credentials were unbeatable. He had studied English in. He even minored in business during his bachelor’s degree. He got a little easily worked out about some things, but not too bad of a fellow and, actually, made for some stimulating conversation once he calmed down a bit.
Tim had worked at the book store for about as long as Olivia had, give or take a week and he invested as about as much care and effort into the pace as she did. Most of the time, Tim was closer to a partner then a manager. And most of the time, Tim was closer to a friend then a partner. Tim had introduced her to Fairfax and was a large part of her adjusting to a new place. The both held their friendship in high regard.