The Rabbit
It’s so welcome when William has a down morning in his events schedule, a rare one-evening-event day, because it means I get
a little break too. I’ve saved up a lot of vacation time from work, four years’ worth, and deployed it for William’s tour.
But I know my boss, Tim, was P.O.’ed that I asked to use it all at once, and the store doesn’t run as smoothly when I’m not
there. So even though technically I could do today what William was doing this morning at his Connecticut hotel, which is
to put his feet up and catch up on correspondence, I go in to work.
I have some correspondence of my own to attend to.
I’m in the staff room when Tim comes in. He’s the GM, but you’d never know it; he looks like a retired Marine, with a beefy
build and a crew cut and biceps that strain the sleeves of his gray T-shirts. I wouldn’t be surprised if he showed up one
day with a whistle around his neck and made us run laps. He used to play football before he blew out his ACL, and that’s how
he came to books: reading Stephen King while he was recuperating. Tim is the only straight man I know in publishing besides
William, though he lacks William’s elegance.
“Hey,” he says, sticking his square head into the room. “Somebody’s sitting in my chair.”
“It fits me just right,” I say, pushing the rolling chair back from the desk. I heard him coming, of course, and clicked out
of the screen I was working on. Now the desktop shows only his screensaver, his two adorable twin girls smashing rainbow Popsicles
into their mouths.
He leans against the doorway. “Seems to me I remember somebody pestering me for the whole month off. You miss us that much?”
“Just couldn’t stay away,” I say.
He shakes his head. “I can’t figure you out, Sparky.” He calls everyone Sparky, and sometimes I wonder if he can’t remember
our names. “If I were you, I’d be on the beach.”
“I burn,” I say.
He takes a box cutter from his pocket and tosses it to me. “Since you’re here, how do you feel about unloading and shelving
a shipment?”
“I feel fine about that,” I say.
He gives me another long, level look, then finger-guns me and leaves, whistling.
The UPS driver has left the Ingram boxes by the back door. When I was working at a much larger division of this same chain,
in Portland, the books were delivered to a loading dock by an eighteen-wheeler, there were so many of them. I could get high
on the smell of all that new paper. But that store was too far from William’s house. Two and a half hours in good weather.
Longer in bad. Just about impossible in snow. And an indie bookstore in a town nearer where he lives, even a library, would
have been a much better commute but a bad idea. There’s a saying, Everyone’s famous in a small town, and I don’t know about that, but I do know the more rural the community, the more visible you are. I need a situation that’s
as anonymous and disposable as a Dixie cup. Completely unmemorable. Hence Augusta, this strip mall, my sh*thole studio in
an apartment complex on the frontage road. I was surprised to find it suits me rather well.
I slice open the boxes, mindful not to cut too deep and slit a cover. Of course, William’s face stares up at me. The invoice
shows we’ve ordered another thirty copies of All the Lambent Souls. Even though it’s a bluebird day and nobody’ll come into the store, and although everyone complains about the high price
of hardcovers, I guarantee we’ll sell out of these by the end of the week.
I load William onto the shelving cart, but before I wheel him out onto the floor I detour back into the staff room, bringing a Lambent Souls with me.
From my tote bag, which I got free at the Boston Book Festival when William was on tour with Medusa, I take Sam Vetiver’s latest book, The Sodbuster’s Wife—we had two copies in stock.
I at least love the setting, because who didn’t grow up reading and watching Little House on the Prairie?
I used to secretly side with Mary, the goody-two-shoes older sister who went blind, because most readers favor the younger,
feistier Laura who became the famous author. You shouldn’t ever dismiss the good girls, is my feeling. You never know what
they might have up their sleeve.
Sam Vetiver is no Laura Ingalls Wilder. She’s got chops. But. I looked up her numbers on Tim’s computer, and that thing is
happening to Sam Vetiver I’ve seen happen to lots of authors over the years. She had one success, so her publisher’s making
her write the same book over and over, faster and faster. It’s like the tigers in the fairy tale who chase each other until
they turn into butter. The books get thinner until they have no substance at all, and readers get bored and go away. They
find different authors. There are always more.
I think this is what’s happening to Sam Vetiver.
Not that I feel sorry for her.
I set Sam Vetiver’s and William’s books on Tim’s desk face down, side by side. They look up at me from their author photos,
Sam Vetiver smiling with her jellybean eyes, William leaning with his arms crossed against his living room fireplace.
They do look good together.
F*ck.
But maybe Sam Vetiver is a nonstarter. Maybe William decided not to drive her off the lot after all.
Because I know what Sam Vetiver’s Jeep looks like now from when I accompanied her to it after the café, a very decrepit yellow
Wrangler with a row of rubber ducks on the windshield, which makes it easy to spot. Very considerate of her.
And I did not see it in the parking lot of William’s hotel this morning.
Nor last night.
Nor in the hotel or bookstore lots for the past few nights.
Nor was she at his events.
So maybe the email I’m about to send isn’t strictly necessary. But it’s always good to have insurance.
I reopen Tim’s computer, using his twins’ birthday as his password—really, a GM should be a little more circumspect—and compose
an email for Sam Vetiver care of her website.
Or rather, bibliogirl081569@ writes it, from an account I just created for her. Poor bibliogirl, not very original.
There are about five hundred thousand bibliogirls in the world.
STAY THE F*CK AWAY FROM WILLIAM CORWYN. IF YOU KNOW WHAT’S GOOD FOR YOU.
My usual opening shot.
I hit Send.
Then I delete the bibliogirl081569 account, erase Tim’s browser history—sorry, boss—and say a little prayer.
Sometimes this is all it takes. It scares off the weak ones.
I can’t tell if Sam Vetiver is in that group or not. I have an uneasy feeling she might be scrappier than she looks. A few
days’ time will tell.
I hope not. I don’t want to have to ratchet up.
Unless I’m really really forced to.