Next are the vinyl sheets, a bold, shimmery golden color with a texture almost like pitted metal. The pages were five dollars each, but well worth it. I carefully mark and cut each sheet, treating them with the revere their gold sheen deserves.
Once I’m finished, I check the glue on the spine, but of course, I’m too impatient and it’s not nearly set yet. So, I move on to prepping the next steps.
Bastian crouches beside me as I lay out the fabric for the cover. He stares with the intensity of a lion watching its prey wander closer, but I pay him no mind as I smooth out the soon-to-be cover of the book. It’s a deep purple faux leather I had embossed at my local print shop before leaving Cali. The gold vinyl lettering is going to lookamazingaround the half-moon scythe blade.
I measure the spine, adding a quarter inch to my total for when I round it, then cut my end bands. A few swipes of glue later, I have two pieces that will protect the spine.
I jump when “I Did Something Bad” is interrupted by Tchaikovsky. “Trashy Trash Man” pops up on the screen and I answer with a breathless “Hello?”
“Ms. Kennedy, it’s Aaron. I’m on my way now with my brother Chuck for the rest of your things.”
“Okay, great. Thank you!”
I hang up and quickly finish coating the spine protectors in a rich purple paint, then set them aside to dry.
I run downstairs and open the door for the two men who are definitely brothers, then guide them to all the junk. They even bring in a couple of brooms and a shop vac, cleaning up all the floor space for free.
I run back up to the apartment to hammer the spine when my alarm goes off. I glue the bookmark down, then quickly press my end band on it and finish with another thick layer of glue over the cloth. I use my bone folder to get all the nooks and crannies, ensuring that the cloth sticks to the binding with a lasting strength.
My fingers ache a little by the time I’ve moved on to cutting the board for the covers, but it’s a good kind of ache. One that says I’m doing work I love. One that screams “Fuck you, Jerry.”
I lay the boards on the fabric when Aaron calls up to me. We settle the last of the bill, and Aaron apologizes again about his son. The memory of Robbie threatens to sour my good mood, but I kick Jerry in the balls and thank Aaron for all the hard work instead.
It’s well past lunch when I’m running upstairs again, but there’s no time for food. There is only time for book.
I mark the inside of the cover fabric at all the corners of the boards, then slap on the adhesive and bone them down. I do the same for the end pages on the manuscript, then pin the book back between my trusty plywood boards.
So close. So very close. But now I have to wait, so…
“Lunch?” I ask Bastian, who’s been silently drinking in my every move.
He looks up at me, his white eyes glinting with the light from the window. “Lunch?”
“Food. Aren’t you hungry?”
He shakes his head. “I only need to eat when I’m away from my hoard.”
“Well, want to go out then? There’s a restaurant I’ve been meaning to go to.”
He grimaces and the fear of rejection hits me.
No. It’s fine. If he doesn’t want to go, I’ll just ask Renee.
“How far would we be traveling?” he asks.
A little spark of hope zings through me.
“It’s just down the block. We can walk it in maybe ten minutes—but oh, you’ll need a shirt,” I say.
I grab the grocery bag from a few days ago and pull out the pack of black t-shirts. I tear open the plastic and hand him one of the shirts.
“It’s a little cold out, but you run so hot anyway, you’ll be fine.”
I glance down at his ripped sweatpants.
“You’re going to look like a hobo, though.”
Ugh…I bet I can sew it a little bit.
