nd not my own.”
Our food came just then, giving us both a small reprieve from the memories that haunted us every single day. The way she spoke about her mother was how I felt about my dad. He’d been gone for years, and not a day went by when I didn’t think of him or my mom. It got easier, of course, but they never left my thoughts for very long.
The sound of cutlery filled the space between us as we both dug into our food. The buttery pancakes I’d anticipated ever since we walked through the front door barely registered on my tongue. Maybe I remembered them wrong. Maybe they weren’t as good as when I was a kid. Whatever the reason, it seemed as though Cassidy wasn’t doing any better. She took one bite, grimaced, then pushed her plate to the side, calling the waitress over so she could get a refill on her coffee.
“Aren’t you hungry?” she asked me, tilting her head to one side.
“I am,” I admitted, staring at my pancakes while pushing another bite around the plate with my fork. The river of syrup I poured for them didn’t help. In fact, it made them worse.
With my pancakes ruined, I shoved my plate alongside hers, focusing on Cassidy’s slender hands and pink fingernails.
Embarrassed by my naked nails and their chipped edges, I placed my hands in my lap and turned my attention to the people walking outside.
When I didn’t say anything, Cassidy cleared her throat and smiled. “People watching?” she asked with a playful lilt in her voice.
“I feel like it’s all I do these days,” I told her, wincing when my words came out a lot harder than I’d wanted them to. “I’m sorry. That was out of line.”
“How come?” she asked with a laugh. “You’re frustrated, and you have every right to be. It must be hard working in a shop that is struggling to keep up with the rest of the world.”
Her words were nothing but kind, her eyes full of concern.
“How bad is it if you don’t mind my asking?”
I blew out a long breath and offered her a partial shrug.
“Not good.” I wasn’t about to dump a sap story on the table between us.
This was supposed to be my break away from everything I had waiting for me back at the shop. It was supposed to be fun, but with our food getting cold and my appetite gone, all it was turning into was a bad experience. Except for the company, of course. That was a welcomed change from me being in my own head all the time or eating alone.
“Folks just need to remember how things were a few years ago,” she said, oblivious to my thoughts. “We all have memories of going into a bookstore as a kid and picking out that one book we always wanted. I have dozens of them.” Her small laugh made me smile.
“In fact,” she went on, getting my full attention in the process, “there’s one memory that stands out most of all. It was on the weekend and my mom had brought me into the
store, same as always. You guys were having a reading circle back in the children’s section so my mom dropped me off and went to get something from the other side of the store. Your dad served juice boxes and cookies, but my juice box exploded all over my dress as soon as I put the straw inside the hole.”
Wait a second…
“I remember this,” I said as the scene played out in the back of my mind. “Your mom was pissed.”
She laughed and nodded in agreement. “And then your mom came out of the back of the store with some spare clothes she’d kept for you.”
“God, I’d forgotten about that. So much happened in the shop when I was a kid, I didn’t even realize we used to play together.” It wasn’t just that one weekend, either. After her mom dropped off the spare clothes, we hung out every weekend. That is until she stopped coming. “Hey, what made you stop coming? Did your mom get slammed with work?”
“No, we actually ended up moving away. Mom regretted it and moved back into the area years later. That’s why I wanted to bring the books here, because I knew your family cared about books as much as I did. Man, I was so jealous of you when I was a kid. That bookstore was my version of a castle.”
“It was,” I agreed, unable to wipe the grin off my face. “It even has a tower. Or, well, sort of. That’s what I call the second floor, anyway.”
“I’ve never been up there, actually. My mom always kept to the lower part of the shop since that’s what we liked to read. I might have to drop by again sometime to check it out.”
“I’d like that,” I said, chewing my bottom lip as heat filled my cheeks. “I mean…” I released a frustrated sigh. I had no idea what I meant, but just as she remembered me as a kid, I was starting to remember the weekends I spent with her.
It took some time to recognize her since so many kids came into the shop all the time, but once I did, I looked forward to her visits. I was heartbroken when she stopped coming and always thought it was because of something I’d said.
“It’d be nice to catch up,” she said, practically reading my thoughts. When I looked at her, there was a warm smile on her face. “I need to get back to cleaning out that storage, but how does next weekend sound?”
“Next weekend would be great.”
She gave me a curt nod, then ordered a muffin to go. In the end, we spent another hour talking about how we used to sit in the back of the store away from all of the noise to read books and how, even if we didn’t talk, we always knew the other one was there, stuck in her own world of fantasy and magic.