Olivia folded her arms tighter to her chest, “Well, two months isn’t that long.”
The room was stiff and cold. Mike put a hand on his side and rubbed behind his neck, “It could be up to six months, if it goes well.”
Olivia nodded her head. She took a deep breath and sat back down. “How about we talk about this in another meeting?”
Mike smiled and said, “Ok. We have to tell them soon if you are coming. The newspaper offered to pay your way and mine. And I was able to postpone the departure date back a month.”
Arms still folded and tilting her head to look at Mike she asked, “When would you leave?”
“A month and two weeks from now.”
Olivia repeated, “A month and two weeks? How could I get ready to go in a month and two weeks?”
Mike leaned down again squeezing her arm. “Look I could tell Craig never mind. I would love to still travel, but I have known in my heart if I ever wanted a family I would have to settle down. Maybe this is a good time to start.”
Olivia shook her head, “Let’s just put a hold on any decision making.”
With his hand still on Olivia’s shoulder, Mike stood up. “I guess I had better go then.”
Mike waited for Olivia to stand up, but she didn’t move. He walked around the desk and picked up this dish he left on the chair and put it in the trash. “Will I see you tonight?”
Olivia looked at him, “Of course.” She stood up, walked around the desk and put her arms around Mike’s neck. Mike had said once that she didn’t show her affection very physically. It wasn’t that she wasn’t physical, it just wasn’t the way she showed affection as often, but she was working on it, and when she did show physical affection she was about quality. She gently rubbed his hair line across this neck and leaned in with a kiss. Mike put his arms around her waist, then on her mid-back then on her arm. Olivia might not give him physical affection often, but when she did she made it worth his wile. She leaned back out, with her feet flat on the ground. “I still, you know, love you.”
Mike felt a little giddy and his wide grin showed it. “I love you.”
“Well then I will see you tonight.”
“Good.”
With that, Mike gave her one last good bye peck and headed out the door.
Olivia collapsed into her lazy boy chair. Egypt. For up to six months. In a month and two weeks. How was this ever going to work? Could she really leave to store for two months, none the less six? How would Tim respond to that proposition? She would have to hire someone else to help. Would she have the money to do that?
Suddenly a laugh like a barking dog echoed from the store.
Mark came up to the open door. He leaned on the door way sounding a little out of breath. “Olivia you may want to come see this. We tried to get him to leave, some homeless guy wondering the aisles.”
Olivia lifted herself off the chair and followed Mark out of the office to the front of the store. Near the large glass entrance, a man in a green coat covered in dirty it almost looks brown, gloves and a torn jeans was mindlessly pacing, repeating, “Bookbag, pocketshoe.”
Sam was standing a few feet away, trying to get his attention. “Sir, sir.”
Mark stood off to the side and Olivia stood next to Sam. Sam sighed. “I don’t when he came in I didn’t see him. I left him alone when I first noticed him, then he started laughing hysterically and hitting himself. He stopped as suddenly as he started.”
Olivia made her own attempts to get his attention. “Sir.” He made no response. “Sir?” This time Olivia gently put a hand to him arm, “Sir.”
The man looked at Olivia. At first Olivia wasn’t sure what to say now that she hadn’t gotten his attention but she said, “Is there something I can help you with?”
He asked, “What was the burn scale today?”
Olivia turned to Sam who shrugged her shoulders, then Mark who did the same. Olivia turned back to the man, “I am unsure.”
His look was piercing and made Olivia a little uncomfortable. He said, “They should have had the dome up.”
Olivia hadn’t moved her hand yet. She tried again. “Look, do you need a taxi or a bus, I would be glad to help...” Olivia trailed off as the man had started walking away muttering, “Bookbag, Pocketshoe.”
Olivia muttered, “First a cat, now a man.”
Sam walked up beside her and whispered, “What should we do?
“I guess, just let him roam. If we have trouble with him at close we can call the police.”
“Ok.” Sam watched him pacing the front window.
“I have a few more things to do in my office. Keep an eye on him.”
“What if he starts laughing and hitting himself again?”
Olivia started walking to her office, “Let’s worry about it when we get there.”
As she passes the fiction section, she sees a boy no more than eight, sitting on the floor, back up against a self and a heavy book propped up on his legs and looking intently at it. Olivia stopped short. She just stared then walked down the aisle. She crouched down next to the boy and asked, “Is that a good?”
The boy said sharply, “Yes.”
“What book is it?”
With a thick British accent he answered, “The Papyrus”
Despite her worry about why an eight year old boy who should have been in school was sitting by himself in the fiction section of her store, the curiosity of his book caught her more, “Really? Are there any good pictures?”
“No stupid, you have to go to the little kids books for that.”
Olivia was taken aback, “Well then what’s The Papyrus about?”
“It is an invigorating tale about a papyrus with a legendary Egyptian curse on it that a nefarious Pharaoh used when unpleased with his subjects that a clumsy archivist and curator finds and accidently uses which brings him an awful lot of trouble. Now, Elliot is about to have his head nicked off by some Nile guards, so if you wouldn’t mind I would like to keep reading.”
“I see. Well, where are your parents.”
He shrugged and said snootily, “How should I know? Probably trying to find a school to fit me special needs.”
The homeless man walked by the aisle while Olivia stood up. “What’s your name?”
The boys head was stuck back in his book, “Who wants to know?”
Olivia was running out of patients, “I want to know. Now, what’s your name?”
He looked up at her, “None of your business.”
“Well we will just see about that.” Olivia walked off a said under her breath, “I will just make it the policies business.”
Tim stopped her dead in her tracks, the clipboard he was holding almost jabbing her in the stomach, “Olivia the order of books came in. You have to come see this.”
Olivia pointed a finger at the boy, “You stay there.”
He stuck his tongue at her and Olivia walked off. “Tim, this had better be good.”
Tim was walking quick pace in front of her, “Well not exactly bad news.”
They walked to the other side of the store opposite the office to the back wall, they was a book with a home printed sign reading “Restricted Area” and in parthesis (enter at your own risk), which unfortunately invited more entry then not. What can you expect from a store full of avid readers? But Olivia had not gotten around to changing it. Behind the doors was a rectangular room lining the back of the store and stopped where the office started. Along the back wall where piles of boxes, each one of them filled with books, the other walls were more book shelves. It looked like a smaller book store but less organized. Above every pile of box was a home printed paper stuck on the wall with scotch tape with two dates with a dash between them, making each pile look like a little tomb stones and each book shelf had a letter printed on the side. On the wall to the left was a papers taped to the wall each with a list of two or three publishers. Olivia and Tim didn’t turn but walked the rooms short width and to a door that went directly out side. The door lead to a cement landing where trucks backed up to deliver books. The back was basically an alley way, wide enough to be a four lane highway that was flanked by stores and an apartment complex. Olivia always felt bad for the apartment renters who’s only view was the graffiti and colorful language on the garage of the liquor store two doors down.
“Ok Tim what’s the deal?”
A truck was backed up to the landing and the doors of the truck were open, two men with sleeves cut at the arm, one with a tattoo of a heart and the words Mom in the middle and the other with greases hair slicked to one side were in the truck pilling boxes on to carts. Tim pointed at a box already sitting on the landing.
“Look at the box. I don’t think we order it.”
Olivia looked at the box and read out loud, “The Monster Book of Monsters. Enchanted Books Inc.” Olivia started laughing, “Must be a practical joke from Scholastic.”
Olivia took a step toward it and Tim put his hand out to stop her. “Wait!” he pointed dramatically to the box, “Watch.”
Olivia rolled her eyes and folded her arms. Nothing happened. She turned to Tim. “Keep watching!”
Just when Olivia was about to go inside, she jumped back as the box jiggled, then jiggled again much harder, moving it an inch across the landing.
“Oh my,” Olivia clenched her chest, she started laughing again, “This is a good one.” Olivia stopped one of the men walking outside the propped open down leading a cart. “Make sure this one,” she pointed to the moving box, “goes inside too.”
Olivia walked back inside and started moving boxes on the wall under the sign with Scholastic. Tim followed, “You are just going to bring it inside, when I saw it maving I told them to leave it out.”
“Tim what’s going to happen? I am sure it is just in good fun. Now start looking through some of these boxes. We have a second order coming in we need to make room for.”
Tim put aside his clipboard and did as he was told, but it did not stop him from talking. As he started opening boxes he said, “What if it is a practiacal joke from some open who doesn’t like us?”
Olivia eyed him, “Tim we are not mafia or the government, who would want to hurt us?”
Tim shrugged, “I don’t know stuff happens every day.”
“Tim. It is probably some battery operated thing making it move.” Tim had a book in his hand he had picked up out of a box and was putting on his glasses. Tim looked at Olivia over the top of them. He said nothing. Just raised an eyebrow.
Putting down a box Olivia whipped her hand together and said, “Fine I will prove it to you.”
She grabbed Tim’s box opener and moved over to the box rocking next to the door. Before the she could get to it, the man with the slicked hair handed her a pen, and shoved a clipboard under nose. “Would you sign for these, lady.”
Olivia took the clipboard. “Did we get everything, Tim?
Tim had picked up his clip board and looked down his list “And more.”
Olivia signed and gave the board and pen back to the men, he said thanks and gave a suspicious look at the moving box.
Olivia rubbed her hands together. “Ok, now to prove that this is a harmless box.”
Tim pleaded, “Olivia haven’t you read enough to know not to open the mysteriously shaking box. Let’s just destroy it now and skip the adventure part.”
“Well how would any adventure begin?”
She put the blade to the tape and sliced. She carelessly opened the box. Olivia burst into laughter. Sitting quietly in the box was indeed The Monster Book of Monsters quaking, with teeth, eyes and all. “Wow, they went to hard work. These look so real.”
Tim seemed a little more relaxed. He leaned over from his hiding spot and looked into the box. Olivia stuck her hand in the box and tried to grab one. One leaped and nipped at her then retreated. She tried again, and one of the books bit her again and bumped into one of the others which growled at him and attacked. Those two books started fighting rallying other books into fighting. Olivia was sucking on her bleeding finger, “Man these are realistic.” One of the books flopped onto the floor from the box and two others followed. They started scooting around the room, hiding under book shelves. “Tim, quickly, keep the books in the box!” But paper was already flying out of the box as books grappled with each other. Books kept flying out of the box. Tim tired to close the box, while Olivia ran after the books hiding under the book shelves. But with a fully fledged bar fight ensuing in the box it tipped over, knocking Tim with it. The books swarmed out of the box and onto Tim. Tim gave a muffled cry, “Olivia.”
Olivia turned from her crouched position trying to coax out a book to see Tim covered in snarling books. “Tim!”
Getting bit, growled and hit on every side Olivia swam through books trying to get to Tim. “Tim!”
Rad walked into the stock room, feet dragging shifting his hair with a head shake, “Hey I heard some noise- Miss Liv!”
Rad came in to see Tim laying on the ground surrounded by snapping books and Miss Liv trying to swat them off with a clipboard. Rad yelled, “Stroke the spine!” Rad ran in. A book was scurrying past his feet toward the door. Rad bent over and started stroking it’s spine the book shivered happily and flipped open quite on the floor. Without hesitation, Rad marched past the other books and started rubbing the spine of a book leached on to Tim’s foot. It sprang open and layed still. Olivia was trying to fling off a book now clentched to her clipboard. Rad yelled again, “Stroke the spine! See!” Rad was stroking as many books as he could and left them silent on the ground. Olivia followed suit. Soon Tim was stroking the spines of books growling at him from his stomach. Olivia continually messaging their spines, started piling the quieted books back in the box.
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