Chapter 3
H e might well have been the worst man she’d ever seen. It was as though he’d studied fashion magazines and fragrance advertisements, utilizing what he saw to graft an image onto himself of pristine manliness that, instead of appearing powerful and competent, came across as pinched and forced. His hair was aggressively slicked back, held tightly by glistening gel. His skin had an unwelcome tanned, almost-orange hue that screamed he was not from this climate; this region, this land devoid of wealth and tropical sunshine.
When he said his name, he waited expectantly for the words to have some effect. Gertrude thought he might be an author or something, but either way, the name didn’t bring forth the adulation the man seemed to be expecting.
The Calvin Klein Xerox copy stood before her, smiling indulgently, as if he was prepared to forgive her momentary lapse in judgment. She was glad then, to leave him at the counter and slip into Olivia’s office, even as she heard him muttering: “Gertrude” to himself.
“Olivia? There’s a guy here. Wants to see you.”
“Did he say his name?” Olivia looked up from a sea of papers on her desk. It had been five short weeks since Gertrude had started at the DNF, and Olivia fascinated her endlessly. Her organization style was simple; there was none. She was simply relentless. Toss everything on the desk and sort it out with ruthless determination until everything was either thrown away or filed somewhere, normally in her bulging desk drawers.
“Woodrow Wilson or something.”
“What?”
“That’s not it. Uh, Baron? Woodrow Baron?"
“Woodrow Barret is here?”
“Yeah?”
Olivia began frantically gathering the papers, shoving them into piles, clearing open space on the wood tabletop, talking rapidly the whole time. “His company keeps making offers. They’re pressuring me to sell. I met his VP or whatever a few weeks ago, but Barret himself has never been here.” She smoothed her hair down and glared at Gertrude. “He’s worth several billion dollars and I have the one thing he can’t have easily. My stupid little bookshop. I bet it drives him crazy.” Olivia paused, then cocked her head at Gertrude. “What did he say to you?”
“I think he flirted with me.”
It was a joke, but much later Gertrude would remember this exchange and grow baffled at how right she was, and how weird things were about to get.
***
She’d been at the bookstore a little over a month, and something horrifying was happening.
She liked it.
Liked it a lot, in fact.
The women in the store took to her with enthusiasm, welcoming her with an openness and generosity Gertrude couldn’t help but regard with suspicion. What did they want? They had to want something.
This suspicion faded, slowly, as their affection wore her down.
They let her pick the suggested book of the week on her second day, and she was delighted to find that Rebecca and Nora had both read it as well. Nora, in particular, got along with Gertrude; they each had a list of vampire books that they compared, leading Gertrude to a grudging respect of the other woman due to her ability to match vampiric recommendations.
The work was sometimes dull, but she found herself looking forward to each shift. The break room normally had fresh baked goods (Rebecca) and someone was always lighting candles in the store (Nora) and too-damaged copies of paperbacks were free to take home.
About two weeks in she picked up some day shifts when she didn’t have class.
The customer service aspect wasn’t even that bad.
Ariana got her to wear purple instead of black, which bothered Gertrude greatly.
And, to round it all off, she found something of a mentor. A motherly figure in Olivia, who was shrewd and calculating in the exact way Gertrude wished to approach her own life. Olivia’s passion for books was a lingering presence in every corner of the store; from the shelves she’d painted herself, to the paintings she purchased and hung up, to the replacement armchair that Gertrude helped Olivia carry in one day, both of them struggling to squeeze it through the door.
Gertrude’s mother had been like that, once. But things had gotten worse, and the stern, reserved woman she’d been had eroded into someone sickly and needy. Gertrude hated to admit that being home was daunting; a second job. Her first job, at least, was rewarding and warm, and Olivia seemed to have an element of maternal affection towards her. Bringing her coffee if she was working a morning shift. Buying her lunch or giving her rides home.
Gertrude didn’t have the same repository of words for good feelings that she had for bad. Dour, melancholy, disdain; these were readily available.
Things at the DNF were just…
Nice.
So, in consideration of all of this, when raised voices echoed from inside Olivia’s office and the fancy young man in the ridiculous suit stormed out, buttoning his blazer as he strode past her, Gertrude was concerned.
She didn’t knock—her and Olivia were beyond that—she burst into the room, placed her hands on her boss's desk, and demanded to know what that was about.
“We,” Olivia said, “are going out of business. That—” she nodded to the door, “was the man trying to run us out of business so he can level the block.”
“The hedge-fund looking weirdo? Barret-Wilson or whatever?”
“Woodrow Barret. Yes.” Olivia bit her nails. “I’ll be honest, I’m not sure what to do.” Her eyes lost that sharp look that Gertrude had grown accustomed to. “I’m actually thinking about selling. I can’t believe it.”
“It’s not over yet,” Gertrude said, seizing on a wellspring of optimism that she never felt, yet hurling it hopefully at Olivia as though it could snap her out of her doomed spiral. She was used to Olivia being energetic; driven. This grim mood was alarming.
And Gertrude was desperate for the DNF to stay open.
It kept giving her glimpses of a life she could have. One where she was a brighter, happier person, a life with warmth and friendship and a sense of belonging. The DNF was balancing her out; a light to contrast with her perpetual dark, and she was horrifically attached to it in a way she’d never experienced. She was a black leech nursing citrussy blood out of a ripe fruit.
She would do anything to keep the bookstore open.
***
The following day, a funeral mood fumigated the bookstore. Black smoke despair oozed between the shelves, bitterness seemed to drip from the ceiling, forming dark stalactite fangs that sharpened into teeth, closing around the DNF employees.
Rebecca updated her resume.
Ariana came in even though it was her day off and sat in one of the chairs, looking sullen, an expression that did not fit her.
In fact, all of the employees came into the store and hung about, milling around the counter, chatting quietly, drinking too much coffee and wandering the breakroom.
Waiting.
Waiting for Olivia to fix it.
Their boss remained in her office. Any of them could go in there, but it felt as though she had barricaded the door. No one wanted to go in unless they had a solution.
Nora joked that they should play the lottery.
Rebecca responded that she already had.
Ariana floated the idea that they should celebrate the last months of the store, have a huge sale, make it a party. The employees all converged around the counter, Nora listening to this idea, Rebecca noting down stuff to bring in, a sign to make for outside.
Gertrude kept quiet.
They were giving up.
3pm on a Tuesday and they were giving up. They didn’t even put up a fight.
Gertrude was wondering what her next job would be. A brief glance at job postings on her phone filled her with misery;customer service sales, retail manager, receptionist. She could already hear the men at whatever gig she got next making jokes. “Ha ha, you should work at Hot Topic.”
Gertrude was filled with a quiet rage that didn’t get much better when the flowers arrived.
The entire lot of them turned when the door chimed and a delivery person strode forward, looking warily from woman to woman, holding a bouquet of black roses. His eyes flicked from purple haired Nora, to brightly dressed Ariana, to art-teacher Rebecca, before settling on Halloween-store Gertrude. “My client said to give these to the dark haired one,” he said, holding the flowers out to her. “Gertrude?”
Ariana giggled, so Gertrude knew she would never hear the end of this. She could feel her coworkers (friends, oh god they were her friends, weren’t they? She liked them!) vibrating with excitement.
Finally , they were all thinking.
Something else to talk about.
They descended on the flowers like vultures around a carcass, the clashing scents of each of their different perfumes combining with flowers to create a smell that echoed “funeral, funeral, funeral” in Gertrude’s mind.
“Who’s it from?” someone said.
“Check!” Ariana didn’t wait for her, she fumbled open the little note tied around center of the packaging.
“Be mine,” Rebecca read aloud, over Ariana's shoulder.
“From Woodrow Barret,” Nora added.
Each of her coworkers turned and looked at her. By now, the news of his visit to Olivia had reached them and he was public enemy number one. A picture of him was tacked to their bulletin board, and of course his eyes had been colored red and Ariana had drawn a penis on his face and Rebecca had drawn a Hitler mustache under his nose.
Now, their enemy, who had sworn to Olivia to squeeze the DNF to death if she didn’t sell to him, wanted Gertrude.
“Be mine,” Nora scoffed. “Can you tell he’s never been told no?”
“He left his phone number,” Ariana reported. “Can I text him for you?”
“Text him what?”
“I haven’t thought about it, but probably something along the lines of “die”.
Gertrude leaned in and snatched the note from them. It was written in curly, girlish handwriting, so that meant someone else had likely written it. What would it be like, dating someone like that? Would they outsource their affection? Would she date a stand-in, and that avatar would report back to Barret? Billionaires were aliens; people from a different plane of existence. Had he ever used shampoo on his clothes, soaking them in the bathtub, because the washer broke and it was too far a walk in the cold to the laundromat? Had he ever felt a cavity working its sinister magic on a tooth and brushed it furiously, cursing himself for drinking too many cheap sodas, praying that it magically went away because a two-hundred dollar filling meant rent was going to be behind, the water bill would go unpaid, or fuck it, maybe Mom didn’t eat much that week.
They were chatting, joking back and forth about bad dates they’d been on, when Rebecca looked sideways at Gertrude and said that she should marry him, take half his money and keep the bookstore open.
That set an idea flickering in her mind. A bad idea. A detestable idea. One she rejected immediately…
Until the following day when catered, gourmet lunch arrived for her and the entire DNF staff. “A taste of what could be,” the note said.
They were incredulous when, later that week, a giant cake arrived. Three layers, with green frosting in the shape of a book. It was Wuthering Heights but spelled “Wethering” and he must’ve typed all of it into an app when ordering because it had “by Virginia Wolfe” written in candied gold below the title.
This time, Olivia read the note. “You’ve caught my eye, from WB.”
Gertrude felt the need to apologize. “I’m sorry, I don’t know, I barely talked to him and like, I’m not friendly so I don’t know why he’s so into me—” She spat out a bunch of worried half-apologies, wanting to reassure Olivia that she wasn't in cahoots with an attractive version of the Monopoly Man.
Olivia nodded thoughtfully; a bemused expression stretched across her face as she let Gertrude rant. When she ran out of steam, Olivia glanced at the cake.
“I think the billionaire has a crush on our little dark princess,” she said. “I don’t blame him." She crumpled the note and tossed it to her. “Break his heart for me, will ya?”