“He told me to stay out of his way while he did everything,” I said, not that I needed to give Jenny anexplanation.
“Rainier was in a hurry, which is why you got away with it. I don’t have anywhere to go. Which means if we stay late and your dad has to pay me more, so be it. You’re going to learn the ropes, and you’re going to pull yourweight.”
“Whatever.”
“Here,” she said handing me a stack of books and pointing to the wall opposite of where we stood. “These all go on the fiction wall. It’s alphabetized by the author’s last name. If you can’t remember what comes after G, we have some alphabet books in the children’ssection.”
Oh, she’d gotten some attitude in the past year. The last time I’d spoken to her, she was a music geek with an unnatural love of the violin. She carried that thing all over our high school campus. One time, during senior year, I tripped her inthehall.
It wasn’t my fault the case went flying across the floor, and Tyler had kicked it even further away from her. I still remembered the way she tried not to cry while we all laughed at her. Seeing her so different now behind the counter of the bookstore made me feel…weird. It wasn’t exactly guilt because we were just having fun. That said, I didn’t think I’d be messing with her again anytime soon. She had a newfoundconfidence.
That was something I couldrespect.
I took the books she gave me and walked over to the fiction wall. I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of titles now that I was closer and had to find where the books in my hands went. Thank goodness, my dad didn’t own a Barnes & Noble. I’d only been in once when Avery wanted to stop in to get coffee and a copy of The HungerGames.
“Everyone else is reading it. I thought I might too,” Avery had said when I asked her what she wasdoing.
“We could just watch the movie,” I’dargued.
She hadn’t wanted to watch the movie though. It took her less than two days to finish it before she was buying the next two books in the series. At least she agreed to buy them from Between the Pages that time. Might as well help my dad out if she was going to beanerd.
Looking at the shelves on the wall now, none of them seemed like those books. There were scenic looking covers, symbol-ridden ones, even some wild artistic looking books. I didn’t see Katnissanywhere.
It took me about fifteen minutes to put the stack of books away, and when I returned to the counter triumphantly, Jenny handed me another armful. “These go in the romance section,” she said, before ringing up a customer'sitems.
I looked down at the book on top of the stack in my arms. It looked similar to the book I’d made fun of the other day. A shirtless man was embracing a woman in a flowy dress. The title was something about a rake, although I didn’t see anything remotely related to gardening. I opened up to a random page in themiddle.
Lord Chauncey steered Lilith away from the ballroom in which the many members of thetonwere dancing the waltz. What a scandalous dance indeed. Of course, it wasn’t nearly as nefarious as what the Lord had in mind once they reached the balcony of themanor.
“I had to see it for myself,” a voice shrieked from beside me, and I dropped the stack of books I was supposed to be putting away. I was startled and only slightly embarrassed by what I was caught reading. I looked up to see my mother standing in frontofme.
“I heard your father had you working here this summer and I could notbelieveit.”
“Believeit.”
She ignored me and bent down to pick up the books that had fallen onto the floor. “And now you’re reading thisgarbage?”
“I wasn’treadingit.”
“Honey, I caught you with it open and your eyes glued to the page. This stuff isdisgusting.”
“You’re onetotalk.”
“Excuseme?”
“You ran off with Daniel. I don’t think reading about a dance is any worse than that.” I snatched the book out of her hand. “Besides, what choice did I have. It was this or getcutoff.”
“You could move in with me,” shesuggested.
No thank you. My mom had never been the maternal type. She preferred playing tennis with her friends and getting massages than doing anything remotely motherly. But it was more than that. I’d watched as she snuck behind my dad’s back with some fancy plastic surgeon from Boise. They’d even met up in Cancun during our last family vacation together. He was born in Mexico before moving to the States as a young boy with his family. Now that he was a successful doctor, he liked to visit as atourist.
You know, enjoy the sights. Destroyfamilies.
I didn’t like the way Mom had done that to Dad. And I especially didn’t like the way my dear ol’ stepdad was always trying to help me. I couldn’t count how many times he had offered to help me with mybreast problem. I was a healthy c-cup. I didn’t particularly want to go any bigger. I didn’t want him anywherenearthem.
“I’m really okay. I’m thinking about moving on campus next year, so it’s only temporaryanyway.”
“Is your father payingforthat?”
