The Noel Letters (The Noel Collection #4) - Richard Paul Evans Page 0,20
to attract skiers and the resorts’ parking lots were full. Seeing the crowds only made me feel lonelier.
It occurred to me that if I died at the house, it might be days, or weeks, before anyone found me. My only “friends” were people I worked with. At least I’d thought they were friends. More than likely, Lori had provided testimony for my termination, and Natasha had dropped the axe. And my former colleague, Diana, had kicked me out of our apartment. I really didn’t blame her for this—I was happy that she was working things out with her husband—it was just that the timing was unfortunate. There wasn’t a single person in my life whom I’d called a friend who wasn’t in some way distancing themselves from me.
This wasn’t the first time I’d felt this way. After my mother’s death, I’d felt like a loner for most of my life. Maybe that’s why I spent so much time lost in books. As Hemingway said, “There is no friend as loyal as a book.” But I knew better. I needed something more than paper. I needed to be around people. Looking back on this moment much later, I suppose that’s the reason I hired myself at the bookstore.
CHAPTER eleven
I love walking into a bookstore. It’s like all my friends are sitting on shelves, waving their pages at me.
—Tahereh Mafi
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 2
My father’s bookstore was located just a few miles north of the house, in what had become a trendy section of the city. It sat on the corner of Ninth and Ninth, across the street from a gelateria, a bread bakery, and a touring bicycle shop.
His store resembled an old English bookstore, with myriad-paned windows revealing carefully themed book displays. A sign hung across the front of the store:
BOBBOOKS
I pulled into the store’s snow-plowed parking lot and parked in a vacant space beneath a sign that read
Reserved for Robert Book
There was an employee entrance in back, which I tried but found locked. I knocked a few times but no one answered, so I walked around to the front. A brass shopkeeper’s bell rang as I opened the door.
Entering was a wonderful assault to the senses. The store smelled of lavender, sage, and old leather. Instrumental harpsichord Christmas music filled the air as richly as the fragrances.
It had been many years since I’d entered the old store. It had aged well, and those things that had once seemed outdated and old were now vintage and classic. My father had always had an artistic flair, but only now did I understand that the bookstore was the canvas on which he expressed it. On every vacation we took as a family my father would visit the local bookstores, always talking to the proprietors and coming back with a list of new ideas to implement in his own store.
Even with its struggles, the book business had a rich culture, and my father was one of its guardians as the digital waves of online consumerism crashed around him.
The store’s shelves were all varnished oak and strategically placed like a labyrinth, creating small nooks and crannies. Comfortable, well-worn old chairs were scattered about for people to sit in as they perused their books.
One bookshelf ran along a brick wall covered with English ivy that had grown and established itself in the time I’d been gone. There were book displays made from old wine barrels.
Along one side of the store the shelves went all the way to the ceiling, and there were ladders on brass railings that slid down the length of the wall to reach the upper books.
The place was magical.
Near the front door was a small display shelf with a sign that read robert’s favorites.
Hanging from chains above the shelf was a hand-painted sign on stained, weathered wood.
Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air.
—Emerson
My father’s “favorites” were about as eclectic a gathering of literature as might be found anywhere: East of Eden, Cannery Row, The Firm, The Color Purple, The Great Gatsby, Catch-22, The Brothers Karamazov, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and Brave New World.
“Hello.”
I turned to see Wendy, who had just emerged from the back. She was wearing a bright green sweater, bright crimson lipstick, and red leggings. She looked gorgeous, and still a little fragile. “It’s my elf outfit,” she said, anticipating my reaction. “Your father always embraced the holidays on the first of November. This is my homage.”