and insisted every birthday be celebrated as her 'twenty-
ninth' along with the appropriate coy smirks, but she sure
didn't mind raking in the loot. Nothing I bought would
impress her, and yet I was unrelentingly determined to buy
her something perfect.
'If they weren't so expensive, I might think about it. She
colects that Limoges stuff. Who knows? She might realy
dig a ceramic clown.' I touched the umbrela of one
tightrope-balancing monstrosity.
Kira had met Stela a handful of times and neither had
been impressed with the other. 'Yeah, right. I'm going to
check out the magazines.'
I murmured a reply and kept up my search. Miriam Levy,
the owner of the Speckled Toad, stocks an array of
decora tive items, but that wasn't realy why I was there. I
could have gone anyplace to find Stela a present. Hel,
she'd have loved a gift card to Neiman Marcus, even if
she'd have sniffed at the amount I could afford. I didn't
come to Miriam's shop for the porcelain clowns, or even
because it was a convenient half a block from Riverview
Manor, where I lived.
No. I came to Miriam's shop for the paper.
No. I came to Miriam's shop for the paper.
Parchment, hand-cut greeting cards, notebooks, pads of
exquisite, delicate paper thin as tissue, stationery meant for
fountain pens and thick, sturdy cardboard capable of
enduring any torture. Paper in al colors and sizes, each
individualy perfect and unique, just right for writing love
notes and breakup letters and condolences and poetry,
with not a single box of plain white computer printer paper
to be found. Miriam won't stock anything so plebian.
I have a bit of a stationery fetish. I colect paper, pens,
note cards. Set me loose in an office-supply store and I
can spend more hours and money than most women can
drop on shoes. I love the way good ink smels on
expensive paper. I love the way a heavy, linen note card
feels in my fingers. Most of al, I love the way a blank
sheet of paper looks when it's waiting to be written on.
Anything can happen in those moments before you put pen
to paper.
The best part about the Speckled Toad is that Miriam sels
her paper by the sheet as wel as by the package and the
ream. My colection of papers includes some of creamy
linen with watermarks, some handmade from flower pulp,
some note cards scissored into scherenschnitte scenes. I
some note cards scissored into scherenschnitte scenes. I
have pens of every color and weight, most of them
inexpensive but with something—the ink or the color—that
appealed to me. I've colected my paper and my pens for
