This is the first chapter of the novel I'm working on - let me know what you think. It's pretty dang long, sorry.
The faint scent of old coffee grounds mixed with the anxiety milling around me flows pleasantly through my nostrils, but I’m not the cliché and I don’t stop to close my eyes or enjoy the scene. I’m going to be in the way if I stop right here, just inside the doors that lead to below-freezing weather, and I don’t want to be cold any more. I’m always in the way, though, and no one lets me forget it.
I’m tall and I’m not sit-at-a-computer-all-day skinny, so the people I can see looking up at me are intimidated, even if they don’t show it. I’m not an athlete – haven’t seen the inside of a gym since high school, actually - and they don’t have a reason to be afraid of me, but tallness is a trait that I have discovered a lot of people are afraid of. I don’t know if it’s because I could probably hurt them if I wanted to, which I don’t, or what. Being tall just has its own stigma.
I’ve gotten a lot of places simply by being tall. Once I was taller than my mother, she started letting me do pretty much whatever I wanted, which would have been nice if I had had somewhere to go.
The aisles are narrow but not crowded, yet the people I pass as I take admiral-sized steps seem to want to disappear from view, melt into the mahogany shelves themselves as my eyes glance over what they’re holding. I don’t care what they choose. I find myself reading Kafka or Proust these days, trying to find meaning in my sad life, currently to no avail. They can judge me. I don’t judge them when I see that he has “Living with ED: Yes, it is that common!” or that she’s clutching a copy of the newest lesbian romance novel. I can see it in her eyes, pleading, “It’s not for me – it’s for a friend.” Whatever. It’s not my life. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not that courteous. I just don’t care.
I’m walking purposefully, as if I have one, to my chair. It doesn’t have my name on it, but I sit here every morning, feeling the old plush velvet fading away beneath my spine. One of the legs is almost shot, but I don’t tell anyone because then it would be taken away and I would have to find a new chair to sit in every day. I don’t like change, especially when it comes to my things. It doesn’t belong to me, but it’s more than just some person’s favorite chair. It’s my chair. It’s the only chair I have ever sat in at this store, and I need it to stay that way.
My palms start to feel a little moist, so I reach into my coat pocket where my keys sit, jumbled together like pretzels, only less breakable and not edible. Both fortunate and unfortunate, I consider, as my fingers slip their way in until they find what I’m looking for. As soon as my fingers close around the tiny black ball with the one flat side, I can relax, although my thumb still rubs the ball furiously with relief.
And that’s when I turned the corner, and I saw her.
In my chair.
There she was, in my chair. Sitting with her knees up, I can see the chair’s broken leg straining against the way I am not sitting in it, and she sips the whipped cream off of the drink she holds precariously with a few fingers while holding a worn copy of a Nietzsche in the other hand.
She is the very definition of everything I despise. Some nameless sorority girl, with money. I hesitate to call her a slut, though, because she doesn’t look like it. Then again, neither does my mom.
I stare at her, watching her thick black curls wound together in a braid that falls over her shoulder, strays curling out slightly from their forced conformity. Her jawline is so defined, so smooth with makeup, and a large gold hoop hangs from the ear that I can see. There’s probably another one, but I’m not going to crane my head around like an idiot to look for it. Jeans are simple enough, but that maroon jacket is some kind of expensive fabric, and I almost laugh at the irony that she matches and yet is the exact opposite of the chair. Maybe that’s why she picked it.
My interest is piqued slightly by the fact that she reads Nietzsche, but, then again, she doesn’t look like a Nietzsche. She doesn’t look old enough to be out of school yet, so it’s probably some assigned reading for a philosophy class or some other such class that will only disappoint her once she graduates.
She looks like chick lit, the latest romance trend. No, she’s better than trashy romances, but she doesn’t go far. I bet she reads Meg Cabot and Sarah Dessen, whose books are meant for high school girls but adults read them anyway because adults are lazy and those books are easy to read.
How do I know about these books? Like I said, I spend every morning here, reading and learning about people and books. I also work here, giving directions to what I have come to call the Continents of the Book Mark: Real Literature, Self-Help Land, Non-Fiction, Magazines, Non-Traditional Texts, and Other Books. I may be a book snob, but at least I’m good at it.
I have watched a lot of people. I know what they read. I’ve been coming here every day since I graduated college. These days, I am rarely surprised by what I see them read. And I am rarely wrong with my guesses.
Then she notices me, standing, staring at her, wondering what she is doing in my chair. She looks afraid at first, then tries to smile softly, still afraid to open her mouth. I can’t say anything, though, out of the shock. We stare at each other for a long minute, and I see her dark eyes open a little wider with fear. Of course, I must be terrifying her.
“Is there…Can I help you?” she asks, setting down her cup and looking nervously at me. I can almost see the fear crawling up her arms, and it’s clear that she thinks she’s going to choke on it if I don’t go away and stop staring.
“Um. No, I just…uh, it’s nothing,” I say dismissively, and shuffle away quickly, turning into an aisle a few feet away.
For the first time in a very long time, I found myself wanting to entangle my fingers in that unruly hair, feel my lips on the curve of her throat. I wanted her. But then again, I don’t even know her name, or anything more than the fact that I hate her for being in my chair right now.
But I know better than to go talk to her, to see if she wants to go to lunch. For one thing, I’ve already creeped her out today and I know she’ll say no. I sneak a glance through the books, and she’s still staring in my direction, obviously still confused by the strange encounter. I’m a little embarrassed, but I know I acted like an idiot, so I move on from it.
For another, look how well being in love worked out for my parents. They may still be married, but he’s never in town, and it’s only when he is that my mother pretends she still cares about life and isn’t out at all hours of the night with god knows who all. I certainly don’t.
I stand for a second, thinking about what to do. But even as I consider my options, I know I only have one choice for now, only one option. Who do I think I’m kidding?
My hand is still inside my coat pocket, I realize, wrapped tightly around the Magic 8 ball keychain attached to my car and apartment keys. I was never a sucker for keychains, but this isn’t really just any keychain.
This is my honest-to-god life, depending on the outcomes to make my choices in life. Maybe this is why I’m still wasting my life away in an apartment that my parents pay for because I don’t have a real job. That’s a lie. It’s not that I don’t have a real job – it’s that I can’t. My 8 ball won’t let me do anything long enough to call it a career, but it’s the only thing that will tell me the truth. People always lie, so I might as well put my faith somewhere else.
My fingers grab hold of the ball and drag the keys out, which jangle loudly in my grip, and a Jane Austen looks crossways at me, hoping to instill fear and respect and make me be quiet, but instead she catches a glimpse of me and turns her head quickly back to her gothic romance. Like I said, being very tall commands some kind of weird respect.
Should I ask her to move? I ask silently, letting out a deep breath and crossing my other hand’s fingers that it comes out no. I shake it twice for good luck, then look down, watching as my hand turns the fading white of the 8 ball over and the piece inside bobs against the plastic, begging to break free but knowing that it exists only to do my bidding.
[Concentrate and ask again.]
Damn. Not what I wanted to see. It is my slave, yet my decisions belong wholly to it. So, really, is it running my life? Ruining my life? How poetic. Fuck it.
I shake it again, this time closing my eyes for more luck.
[You may rely on it.]
What the hell does that even mean? You may rely on it? I may rely on my ability to ask her to move? Or perhaps I may rely on the fact that she will move if I ask her to. She does look like one of those. Chick Lit girls always are. The 8 ball has once again outwitted me, somehow.
I stuff the keys back into the pocket and go back around the corner, marching toward her with the question planted firmly in my mind. If she says yes, I will assume my usual seat and pretend that nothing ever happened. It’s likely that I’ll never see her again. If she says no, I’ll leave, probably to go back to my apartment and sleep. When the 8 ball doesn’t know what to do, I just go back to sleep, and then everything is fine when I wake up again later. I would rather pretend this didn’t happen than sit in an unfamiliar chair.
Awkwardly, I move to stand in front of her. She looks up again, obviously surprised by my second appearance, and watches me over the top of her book.
“Hi, um, well, here’s the thing. I’ve been coming here every morning for about two years now, and every day I sit in that chair. And I’m not really sure what to do today,” I say, suddenly uncomfortable. Maybe I interpreted the 8 ball wrong.
“Oh,” she says, and she just continues to look at me, confusion apparent.
“So, I was kind of wondering if you would let me sit there,” I say, and my meaning spreads over her face, and I can see her reaction as she processes this. She’s appalled by my rudeness, but as a people-pleaser, of course she doesn’t mind moving to a different chair to accommodate me.
She’s already gathering her stuff together before she speaks again.
“Well, if you’re going to evict me, you might as well tell me your name,” she says, now looking at me with the question in her eyes.
“Clark,” I say. “I’m Clark Belton.”
“Well, Clark Belton, I’m Sophia Girard,” she extends a pale hand as she rises to move, and I look at it before jolting myself into reaching out to take it in my own. “I also come here often, but usually at night. Perhaps I’ll see you around.”
I raise my eyebrows for a second in acknowledgment of her statement, annoyed by the grace with which she moves and the way she seemed to just take all of that in stride. Most of all I am annoyed by my attraction to her. She gives me a once-over so quick that I almost miss it before turning to move on to other shelves and other sections.
Jim, the man who frequently sits in a nearby chair – so often do we see each other that he has made the effort to introduce himself to me, stares at me, obviously embarrassed by my rudeness, and then I do feel bad. Jim is a nice guy, at least from what I can tell, and he’s given me advice about various things over the years. He’s one of the only people I’ve ever been wrong about when I classified him. I called him for a Clive Cussler, but he’s one of the rare few who rises above a single classification. I’ve seen him read everything from young adult novels to biographical tomes. Sometimes I think of him as a New Novels person, but then again, he may show up the next day reading a classic. I never know what he’s going to have in his hands when I see him next.
He’s an older man, closer to how old my grandfather would be if he hadn’t died in my childhood than he is to my father’s age, but he has aged well and his only real faults in his appearance are a few well-placed wrinkles and laugh lines and a need to use a cane while walking more than a few feet. He’s also one of the few people who refuses to be intimidated by my height, and instead scares the shit out of me with how much he knows and out of the respect I have for him.
At this, I see him rise to his feet to come talk to me. Usually, we only speak when he sees that I’m upset about something or he has some advice he’s thought of to give me. Usually his advice consists of words of wisdom such as “If you come to a fork in the road take it, and if they don’t want to go to the ball park, you cant keep ‘em from it,” but every now and then he’ll say something that’s really valuable. I sense this is about to be one of those times.
He shuffles over slowly, his refusal to use his cane for such a short distance clearly paining him. He offers his hand and when I put mine out, he grips it for support and looks ferociously down at me.
“Son, did I see you tell her to move? A pretty girl who looks at you like she just did?”
“Yes, sir,” I mutter, suddenly horribly ashamed. I don’t respect a lot of people in this world, but Jim is one of them and I hate feeling as though I’ve let him down.
“You’re a damned idiot,” he says gruffly, and it takes all I have not to laugh at the truth of it. “Are you going to talk to her before she leaves? I know she’ll leave before you. You could set a watch by when you come and go from here in the morning.”
“Why would I do that?” I ask, and I feel a bead of perspiration slip down the side of my face as Jim grips my hand tighter. I carefully avoided having to make a decision, but Jim interprets my answer in the negative.
“Then you’re worse than an idiot. You’re a damned fool, and you’ll regret it,” he growls at me, not loud but loud enough that I know anyone in the immediate vicinity of a few bookshelves is able to hear him. Meaning Sophia definitely heard him.
He uses my upper arm strength as a springboard, pushing off to shuffle back to his chair, where he gives me a stern look and uses his cane to motion to where Sophia now sits, a deep cherry blush risen in her cheeks. If embarrassment were measured in steam, it would be pouring out of her ears in clouds at this point.
Sophia Girard. She’s pretty, I guess. Maybe her eyes are set a little too high on her face, and she has too many freckles for one person, all over her face and arms like she spends too much time in the sun.
Who the hell do I think I’m kidding?
She’s beautiful. Even as I say that, I can’t believe that thought actually crossed my mind. When was the last time I called anyone beautiful? But I think I know that answer, too. Probably that last night I went out with Ella Fietz to eat Chinese and then took her to that party where Joe was, already doing body shots off Lola Hampton or any of the nameless, faceless party girls there that night. Where we said hi to a few people and promptly went upstairs to lock ourselves into Lola’s parents’ bedroom, where I presented my amateur juvenile sexual prowess and where Ella presented her own quasi-stripper sexual prowess, which made me wonder what she did for a job. Nonetheless, I was Clark Belton, cool enough to fuck at a party but not high enough up in the high school hierarchy to stick with for longer than a few days, and Ella took me for all I was worth on top of those vanilla-colored cashmere sheets that made her Victoria’s Secret skin feel like silk underneath my hands.
But Sophia Girard is beautiful. I refuse to say it resembles anything close to love at first sight because that would be utterly ridiculous. Maybe I like her because her name sounds exotic or because she’s Ella Fietz and Lola Hampton and the girls I used to have whenever I wanted or because I can’t have Sophia now. In the back of my mind, a little voice says I could pull out the old charm, but the overpoweringly stronger voice flattens it with a single word: “No.”
I desperately want to go back and get her, take her out to lunch and then have her in my house all afternoon, and then never see her again. But I can’t. Joe took that from me that night, the same night he took my father’s presence in my life and my mother’s soul and everything that I had inside me.
I sit in the chair, contemplating my options. Sophia hasn’t gone far, and I can see her foot, tapping the floor gently with her black high heel.
Tap tap tap. A pause.
Tap tap tap. Another pause.
I know what time it is, and out comes the 8 ball.
[My reply is no.]
I quash whatever feelings I have, knowing that the 8 ball isn’t lying to me. Somehow, sitting in my chair doesn’t quite give me the triumphant feeling I expected, especially after ousting a girl whom I have so much of an inclination to furiously dislike for a lack of reasons that are, to me, utterly infuriating.
The fleeting satisfaction that filled me when I watched Sophia Girard vacate my chair is now entirely gone, and I sigh, wishing I had a mug of coffee to fill the void.
I’m not sure what to do with my time now. I can’t focus on my Kafka, so I just sit and stare at the pages, rubbing my thumb up and down the spine and feeling like the most ridiculous of the classics fakers who frequent this area of the Book Mark.
I suppose I’m either the worst of former literature majors or the best of bookstore employees as I lump my stack of books and my messenger bag into my chair and amble over to the Graphic Novel/Comics section. Sometimes I read these as a guilty pleasure, when I can’t get into anything else. I run my fingers across the spines as I move, looking for one book in particular.
I spy it and my forefinger stops, pulling an old Superman graphic novel off the shelf. I’m named after Clark Kent, in case that’s a point of curiosity. As the oldest child, my nerdy parents named me after Superman so I could protect any younger siblings I might have and so I would be motivated to change the world someday.
What a disappointment I must have grown up to be. I couldn’t save my brother, so how could anyone possibly expect me to save the world?
I cover the images that want to jump off the cover with the palm of my hand and walk quickly back to my chair, now paranoid that someone will have moved my stuff and sat in my chair. It’s already happened once today. Accidentally, but I don’t want to chance it again.
I read maybe a hundred pages – I’ve always been a quick reader – and then Sophia distracts me again. I haven’t been able to stop glancing at her feet (the only part of her I can see now) since she moved, afraid she’s going to leave and I’m not going to see her again.
Suddenly, I look over and her feet aren’t there. My heart skips a beat and I do a quick double take and see that, yes, her feet are not planted firmly on the floor anymore. Then she walks out from the corner where her new chair sat and as she walks past me toward the front doors, she turns her head slightly to give me a cool sideways appraisal. Her glossed lips part as if she wants to speak, but then she thinks better of speaking to the asshole who rejected her and moves on.
Who could blame her, really? I’m not.
I consider jumping up and catching her, asking her out that evening. But then, she’s already gone and it’s too much hassle for someone who doesn’t really want to talk to me anyway.
I try to look surreptitiously at Jim, to see if he caught all of that, and he’s staring murder in my direction over the edge of – well, what do you know? It’s a Clive Cussler.
I’ve never seen him actually angry about anything, but I swear that he’s vicariously angry for me at this point. I should be furious with myself – any decent person would be – but I can’t find it in me to feel anything more than a slight apathy for how I’ve acted, and I just stare down at the graphic novel in my hands.
I look reproachfully at Superman, silently wondering why he had to be the hero. Why did he have to come to earth to save everyone? It’s not like he ever really had a choice in the matter, anyway, I guess. He just came to earth and grew up as Clark Kent, thinking he was a normal person and the son of Jonathan and Martha Kent, and then one day he was just expected to be this, well, superman to save the world.
I shake my head, now just frustrated with myself and my parents for naming me Clark and really just with life in general at the moment. I’ve got a few hours before I have to come back for work, so I pack up to go home.
I picked up my paycheck before I left so I could deposit it before the banks closed for the day, trying my hardest to ignore my coworkers in the break room.
It’s noon, so when I get back to my house I fix myself a tuna sandwich and some tomato soup, one of my standards in the winter. I watch a few hours of television, mostly reality shows and other things I don’t have to make my brain function to watch.
When I get to work that afternoon at the Book Mark, I spend my time reshelving and helping Self Helps – the irony is not lost on me – and other literary degenerates find what they think they need, although I’m practically dying to tell them what I think of their choices and suggest some real literature that might actually help them with their problems instead of just telling them what they’re doing wrong in their lives. I don’t personally love Jane Austen – what guy can really say he loves her without being held to the Darcy Standard? – but I have read all of her books and know that the words she penned so many years ago can do much more for relationship advice than can most of the books so desperately screaming for people to read only them to learn how to make relationships work.
I half expect Sophia to show up, striding down the aisle toward me to inquire into my prior behavior and see if I’m really a jerk or if I was just having a bad morning. But she’s a no-show, and I’m surprised to find myself a little disappointed. It’s not like we had an appointment, or –
“A date,” I mutter into the shelf I stand before, and I let the word rest on my tongue like a grape, so close to bursting with sweetness, yet the anticipation has the greater hold on me and I can’t release it.
All the same, I feel like someone is watching me all afternoon, and I can barely focus on what I’m doing. I shelved more than one book by its title rather than the author, and have to retrace my steps to fix my mistakes.
Who does Sophia Girard even think she is, being all in my thoughts like she is? I haven’t thought about a complete stranger in – well, I can’t even remember how long. That’s how long it’s been. I think about my family, but usually only to recall how much I dislike seeing them, although I spend at least a few hours a week sitting in their living room, reading or pretending to watch whatever show my mom is glued to that week. That was the deal, anyway. I pretend to like them and who they’ve become, and they let me live in my grandparents’ old house. I’m not ungrateful for the house, don’t get me wrong. I just don’t like feeling obligated to pretend I want to spend every waking hour with my parents in order to live in it, or whatever it is that I do with my time. I’m not sure I would go so far as to really call it living. Existing on the precipice of loneliness and longing, I suppose.
After work, I drive home and wander zombie-like through the house, wanting to sit and just relax, but too full of nerves to sit still for longer than a few minutes. Finally, I shuffle slowly into the bedroom, where I look at myself in the full-length mirror my grandmother hung on the wall before collapsing clumsily on top of my bed. I’m fully-clothed, but the only effort I make is to kick off my Converse before I wriggle up to the head of the bed and under the covers.
