and my two part-time employees were both students at nearby University of Wisconsin. I didn’t want Sara or Paoze to sacrifice study time for the sake of a job that didn’t pay much more than minimum wage.
Lois said I was dreaming if I thought college kids did nothing but study on weeknights. “Most of them are out spending Daddy’s money on video games and iTunes and beer. Not necessarily in that order.”
“Do you really think so?” But I was happy in dreamland, so it was easy to picture blond, blue-eyed Sara chewing the ends of her hair while working on arcane organic chemistry equations. Even easier to see the brown- skinned, brown-eyed Paoze sitting in the library surrounded by the novels of dead white guys as he scribbled away on a paper for his latest English literature class. “Even Paoze?”
She relented. “Well, not him. If he was freezing to death he wouldn’t have two quarters to make a spark.” She grinned evilly; quite a look on her sixtyish face. “Say, do you think I could get him on that?”
Lois had developed a habit of playing on the gullibility of young Paoze. From snipe hunts to Paul Bunyan exploits, Lois worked hard at her tall tales. Even I got caught once in a while. She’d nailed Paoze multiple times— the fact that he’d fallen for the snipe hunt story still rankled with him—and for a week she’d had Sara believing in a left-handed wrench.
Despite the fact that Paoze was born in Laos and didn’t move to the United States until he was a teenager, he probably knew better than most of us that flint is what sparks. “Remember last spring?” I asked. “He had that American Literature of the Early 1900s class and did a term paper on Jack London.”
“That’s right.” Lois looked thoughtful. “ ‘To Build a Fire’ and all that. Hmm.”
I made a mental note to warn Paoze about stories set in Alaska, and waved good-bye to her when she left at five.
The clock ticked time away slowly. A woman came in and asked if we had anything by Jackie Collins. “There’s a bookstore in the mall,” I offered, but she wasn’t mollified and went away empty-handed and annoyed. The course of running a children’s bookstore never did run smooth.
After she left, I did some alphabetizing, jotted down a few books to order, and was about to haul out the feather duster, when Marina breezed in.
“Hail, fellow! Well met!”
Along with my bigger-than-life best friend, the front door ushered in a blast of winter-cold air that made the back of my neck tense up. I cast a longing look toward the thermostat, which was resolutely set at sixty-eight degrees, and sighed. I loved Wisconsin, I told myself. There’s nothing prettier than sun sparkling on snow and nothing better than skating and skiing and seeing white puffs of air coming out of your mouth six months of the year.
Marina shivered, sending waves of damp chill over me. “Nasty out there,” she said. “Remind me again why we live so far north?” She shook back her hair and droplets of water scattered in every direction.
“Because this is where my house is?”
She unbuttoned her bright pink coat. The color clashed horribly with her red hair, but a few years back Marina had decided that she liked pink, that she
Though I admired her attitude—I still found it hard to wear white shoes before Memorial Day—sometimes fashion rules were rules for a good reason. I trotted out that point of view when we were coat shopping, but she said I had no sense of adventure. In my experience, limited though it was, adventure meant uncertainty, discomfort, fear, and pain. None of those seemed like very sensible things to pursue on a regular basis.
“You, my dah-ling”—Marina was back in Greta Garbo mode—“could use a large dose of excitement.”
“How can you tell?”
“You have a wistful cast to your dainty features. You have that air of faint discontent.” She put her nose high and sniffed. “And, yes, the scent of ennui.”
“It’s the smell of burning leaves, and the last time you said I needed excitement in my life we ended up sitting in traffic for three hours and overheating your engine.”
“Minor annoyances must be expected. Especially during Chicago’s St. Patrick’s Day parade. It was an excellent time and you’re everlastingly grateful that I kidnapped you.”
She was right. Watching the parade, seeing the cheerful crowds and the greened river, even sitting in a traffic jam had been the stuff of which fond memories are made. But saying so would just encourage her. “That was only eight months ago,” I said. “Talk to me about excitement when the snow melts.”
She brushed an infinitesimal piece of dust off the counter, and when I saw the way her pinkie was extended —high etiquette style—I knew the argument was far from over. She sighed. “It’s so sad.”
I looked at her warily. “What is?”
“Your precious children.”
The kids were with their father, having a great time stuffing themselves with fat-laden pizza, drinking sugar- saturated soda, and playing video games guaranteed to rip half an hour off their attention span. “What about them?”
“Growing up without any adventure in their lives.” Mournfully, she straightened a pile of bookmarks. “When they’re old and gray, they’re going to bow their heads and say, ‘Remember when we were young? We never once did anything that wasn’t sanitized, supervised, and structured. Why weren’t we ever allowed to be kids? Why didn’t we have any adventures?’ ”
I rubbed my forehead. “One minute you’re saying I’m boring, the next you’re wringing your hands over Jenna and Oliver’s old age. If there’s a connection, I’m missing it.”
She slammed her open palm on the counter. “You! You’re the connection, dear silly one.”
“Um . . .”
“Don’t you see?” She looked me solid in the eyes. “If you don’t teach them that life is to be lived to the fullest, that it’s worth wringing out every last drop of enjoyment, that there are no small parts, just small players, who will? Richard?” She snorted.
I leaned against the cash register. “So I should be something I’m not for the sake of my children?”
Marina crossed her arms. “Why did I know you wouldn’t take me seriously?”
“Because I’ve known you more than ten years. And, thanks to those years of precedent, I know you have something up your sleeve.”
“Me?” She tugged at the cuffs of her pink coat. “Nothing up there except air.”
“You invoked the specter of future unhappiness for Jenna and Oliver. You never do that unless you’re trying to convince me to do something I don’t want to do.”
“Poor Beth.” Marina shook her head sadly. “Always believing the worst in people.”
“Poor Marina,” I said. “Having her past actions remembered so clearly.”
She reached across the counter and, with her index fingers, pushed at the corners of my mouth until I wore a stretchy smile. “Much better.”
“Quit that. Just tell me what you’re after, okay? I know you enjoy the convincing game, but I have work to do.”
She pounced. “Exactly! Too much of it.”
“That’s the fun of owning your own business. You get to pick which eighty hours a week you work.”
“No, no, no.” She swatted away my words. “I’m not talking about the oppressive hours you slave without just compensation; I’m talking about the work you’re doing right now that should be done by someone else who shall remain nameless but her initials are Marcia Trommler.”
I tried, and failed, to diagram Marina’s last sentence in my head. “That again.”
“Yes,” she said, nodding so hard that her hair fell forward across her face. She hooked it back over her ears with impatient hands. “The problem isn’t going away.”
“I know that.” My voice gained an unattractive edge. “But where am I going to find someone to replace her? It’s not easy to find someone who’ll work long hours for low wages, no benefits, and no bonuses.”
“Long hours, you say?” Marina cupped a hand to her ear. “How many hours are on Marcia’s time sheet? And now she’s taking Wednesday nights off? Wednesday nights are PTA nights, remember?”
“It’s her grandson,” I said lamely. “How can I not let her have time off? She shouldn’t have to miss watching him grow up.”
Marina scoffed. “Then she should quit and spend all day with him instead of wreaking havoc with the store’s work schedule.”
