Bookstore Geek

So I go to the bookstore, a place where geeks fit in. I always have my writing notebook and gold pen in case an idea hits. Normally a short, fat girl sporting red-rimmed glasses, a straight brown bob and a notebook is a flashing neon ad for geekdom. But in a bookstore, a character like me melts into the shelves of fresh ink. I’m college educated four times over. I’m well read and I write daily. I fit the part so nobody bothers me.

Except for the coffee shop.

You know, nowadays bookstores also contain coffee shops. That’s fine. I like coffee. I’m not opposed to new ideas. The problem is this coffee shop or “house,” as it is referred to, has become a fad. That’s why it’s in the bookstore – to draw people other than geeks – people who wouldn’t normally frequent a bookstore. Geeks also do libraries so bookstores need to attract more than just geeks to keep the profits up and the doors open. The coffeehouse reaches out to Yuppies, Goths, Refried 70’s, and other hipsters. Cool people don’t do libraries. Libraries aren’t fashionable and their books don’t have fresh, shiny covers. They are covered in dull film with remnants of other people’s fingers. Libraries don’t have coffeehouses. Spills would mar the books.

So there I am. Scanning the shelves for a good read while the teen-something next to me looks for a book with grunge décor. His long hairless fingers select 20 Ways to Wear a Key Chain Fashionably. He pushes past me on his way to the coffeehouse. No, “Excuse me.” This is the kind of guy I would have wanted in high school but was too unnoticed to get. I’m feeling a bit like a shelf-flower. In the high school library, I’d be the poetry book with the woven linen cover. The jock would never pick me up. Plain cover or not, he’d never read me. He’d never be in the library in the first place.

Thirty minutes later, I’ve selected The Writer’s Idea Book, Creating a Container Garden, and The Rural Life, by Verlyn Klinkenborg. Reluctantly, I pass over a selection of essays by David Remnick because my stack is getting too clumsy to carry. I meet up with Teen-something and his equally trendy friends in the coffeehouse. They barely even glance.

Pig Pen is behind the counter looking as unsanitary as is legally permitted by the State Board of Health. I order a tall mocha (which used to be a small cappuccino with a shot of chocolate before the fad hit). He whips it up quicker than I can count his body piercings. I’m somewhat miffed because I don’t have exactly $7.75. I place a Lincoln on the counter. He has to hand me change and I have to quickly open my zippered change pouch, deposit the change, close the inner zipper, turn both Washingtons face up, place them before Hamilton, and put the neatly folded bundle in front of the Visa, zip the pouch, zip the purse, return it to my shoulder, grab the mocha, my notebook and the books, and go.

Needless to say, this doesn’t happen smoothly. In a grand display of large motor ineptness, I turn too quickly, lose my balance and the quarter makes a mad dash toward the big-breasted lady behind me. She offers an impatient, “Hmph!” when I bend with one foot in the air to pick it up, almost spilling the mocha and the books on her great toe. Another near miss. Now Teen-something and his friends are staring. This is not the way a shelf-flower likes to bloom.

I’m so flustered I can’t find the proper seat, out of the way but with a view. A stalker’s perch. Here, I can observe what I wanted to be while I sip my mocha and be what I am, a book nerd.

Settling on a spot, I sink into the chair and take my first sip slowly. I drink my coffee with a straw so lipstick doesn’t get all over the thick plastic lid and then get re-deposited to the wrong place on my face when I take a second sip from a different angle. I move the liquid past my lips very cautiously. When I drink from a straw, my lips don’t get pre-warned of the piping hot liquid heading straight for my taste buds. They don’t get a chance to close up and protect the flavor assistants from utter destruction. Sometimes that happens. I suck into the straw and, before I know it, five or six hundred taste buds give their lives needlessly. The tip of my tongue becomes a disaster area, boiled red and smooth like a lobster. Sometimes in the chaotic aftermath, I spontaneously reject the boiling liquid and it ends up on my blouse or as drool with a full-bodied aroma. So, slowly I sip to avoid further embarrassment. Unexpectedly, this goes off without a hitch.

I begin to browse the book on container gardens when I catch some affection through the corner of my eye. Teen-something moves his hairless hand and ever-so-lightly brushes the left hind shoulder of the blonde next to him. I think they are a nice couple. He’s wearing a pintucked button-up with jeans and matte-black, Venetian slip-ons. She’s wearing a white, string-laced camisole, faded bell-bottoms cinched with a brown belt dangling long fringes, and suede wedges. Both refried 70’s. The coffeehouse is reincarnated too, from the beat generation.

Do they know this?  Do they know their parents wore the same stuff and they are hanging out in the same place as their grandparents did?  Would they just die if someone informed them?  No, they would just think that someone is a geek for knowing.

Taking quicker sips now, I turn to the section on terra cotta strawberry jars. I don’t like them because they’re sold at Ken’s Corner Market every spring. They procreate outside the entrance, next to the $24.99 hanging plants in white plastic pots. Buying plants at Ken’s is not for real gardeners. I decide any gardening that doesn’t require the regular use of garden clogs isn’t authentic and I close the book.

My next find has more promise. The Writer’s Idea Book is packed full of prompts, over 400, to jog pen on page. I decide I don’t have time to preview Verlyn Klinkenborg when I notice Pig Pen putting all the chairs around me on top of their respective tables. He’s placing the legs on the eating surface instead of the padded seats. I don’t think the State Board of Health would allow this either. Soon, every table bordering mine is prepared for closing. I’m flanked on all sides by Pig Pen’s restaurant-style fences. A book nerd’s prison. I see he hasn’t prepared the tables around Teen-something. He and Pig Pen are acquaintances. Teen-something is laughing and joking as if the coffeehouse will be open forever. He’s even oblivious to the fifteen-minute closing announcement. He’s so cool it doesn’t faze him.

At the end of the announcement, I take my last sip and drop the empty mocha into the garbage, return to the table, don my purse, gather the books I will purchase and hurry to the checkout. The one irresponsible thing I do is leave the container garden book on the table. I always do that to show I’ve been there. It’s like an epitaph of my existence.

At the register, I place the books on the counter, then my purse. I unzip the purse, unzip the change pouch inside and begin searching for my Reader’s Club card and Visa. Both must be available at the exact moment I am asked for payment. If I don’t hand the Reader’s Club card to the cashier on top of the Visa, my purchase is finalized without the discount. Then everyone behind me, including Teen-something, would have to wait for me to fumble through my belongings to find it, while the cashier stood there waiting to void and re-ring the purchase, and the line that formed behind me would stare in disgust. Mini-conversations would erupt and I would not be part of them. This time though, I’ve retrieved both cards in a timely manner. I’ve escaped public embarrassment.

The young male cashier blurts, “Receipt in the bag ok?”

No, no it’s really not. The receipt should be neatly folded in half and placed in the zippered inner front pocket of my purse, where all the receipts go in date order. At the risk of sealing my fate again, I scrunch up my face, nod and mumble, “Uh-huh.”

I look back and see Teen-something still parked in ignorance of the store’s impending closure. I get to my minivan parked in the front corner spot, slide in, quickly locate the receipt and put it in the zippered pocket. Right where it belongs. And I’m back where I belong, safely belted and tucked inside with all doors locked.

I see Teen-something and his group wander to their Corollas and Saturns and get in. A few of them linger at open windows to chat. Later, Pig Pen joins them. I look in my rear-view mirror and see that I’m grown, with a husband and cool kids of my own.

I pop in Mendelssohn, roll the windows down and crank it up. Pig Pen shoots me an immediate glare. To which I retort, “Let’s go son. Tomorrow’s a school day.”