The Tales of a Future Hockey Wife

Chapter 16: The New Guy

~Eleanor~

I seriously have the best student part-time job in the world considering my professional aspirations. During my first week in Windsor, the first thing I did was to go job hunting. I knew that we wouldn't make it with just Ben's pension, and if I wanted to live the same way as when I was at my parents' I had to earn money. I gave out résumés to as many shops and restaurants as I could. I walked around University all day trying to find the perfect job. Only two blocks from the main building, I came across Aiko and John's Books, a small bookstore owned by a small Japanese woman of a certain age. As soon as I entered the shop, I knew I wanted to work there. It was the bookstore of my dreams. There are books from the floor to the ceiling meaning that there is one of those moving sliding ladders I only ever saw in movies. Aiko was so sweet, but unfortunately, they weren't hiring at the time. I still gave her my coordinates and told her to call me if they ever needed personnel. Two weeks later, she gave me a call saying that her nephew was moving back to Japan, so she needed someone as soon as possible. I had received other offers, but I cancelled my interviews the minute we hung up. The bookstore had always been my first choice. I went by her store that day, so she could show me the work she was hiring me for and everything else. "It's not complicated," she said with her strong Japanese accent. "All you have to do is sell books. The more the better." We spent the afternoon talking about anything and everything. She told me about her life, and I told her about mine even if it felt insignificant compared to hers. She moved here when she was only twenty years old to live with her husband. I don't know how many hours she spent talking to me about him during the past two years. He was a true passionate, "just like you," she added every time. She knows how strong my passion for books is, it's one of the first thing I told her when she hired me. Ever since that day, I work at the bookstore on Wednesdays from three to six since Aiko has knitting club, on Friday night, and on Saturday. I convinced her last year to take her Saturdays off. She is getting old, and I don't want her to overwork herself. She also gave me hours on Tuesdays after I begged her two months ago. Apart from Aiko and me, there is only another employee, Sasha, her thirty-five-year-old daughter, but she doesn't come often. She has another job, but she usually comes by on Saturdays to help me if it gets too busy, and she also helps her mother with accounting.

I love working at the bookstore. We have our usual customers like the man who comes by every week asking if his favorite author published a new novel or the mother who buys tons of books on all sorts of different subjects for her three children. Every day is different, with its flaws and qualities. Tuesdays are usually calmer since everyone is at work, so I have time to do my own schoolwork, Wednesday nights are inventory nights. It is also the day we receive most of our new arrivals. Friday is the busiest night of the week. Most customers are university student who come by after school to find a book to relax. Some come just to browse through the aisles, those are my favorites customers. I love seeing people read back-covers and flip through the ones they found interesting. Some ask my opinion on certain books, but most don't care if I tell them that I have read it. Saturdays are sometimes busy and sometimes not. We can never really predict the affluence there will be since many students went back home, but many other people have the weekend off from work.

Today is one of those Saturdays where the bookstore is empty. There is only a woman walking through the aisles of philosophical books. Sasha is in the backroom, ready to come help me if I need. I am sitting behind the cash register reading the requested book for my British Literature class. We have an essay to write this week about that book and I am just starting it. It's in those moments that I am most thankful for Google and Wikipedia. I am about to finish the fourth chapter when I hear the front bell ring. I raise my eyes immediately from my book to greet the customer. In two years, I have come to know our customers, but I have never seen this man around before. He looks a little older than me, but not so much. I would give him about two or three years more than me, making him 22 or 23. His blonde hair is short resting just above his ears. I hate to stereotype people, but he looks like the perfect bookworm. Round glasses cover his eyes, he has walked in a minute ago and he has already replaced them on his nose three times. He is wearing a burgundy scarf under a black felt coat. It is possible to see his grey button-up shirt under his unbuttoned coat. When he walks past me, I look down at his feet. He is wearing brown leather loafers. Finally, a pair of Harry Potter socks exceed his pants. Overall, he is a good-looking guy, not really my type if you compare him with Ben, but I can recognize a good-looking guy when I see one. He'd be Vivienne's type, she's always been into the nerdy type. I go back to my reading thinking that if he needs anything, he knows where to find me. I always hate when costumer service workers follow you in stores just in case you need to ask them something. I prefer to let them come to me.

About five minutes later, I can see him walking towards me, so I put my book down on the counter. He is holding two boxes filled with the same book. He sets them on the counter, and I begin to scan them. As I proceed, I can't help but ask him the question everyone would ask themselves.

"You must love that book. Why buy all the copies we have?" I give him a small smile earning a chuckle from the Harry Potter fan in front of me.

"Have you read it?" I look at the cover, Apocalypse 2.0 by Matthew Langley is written in bold pink letters on the cover. We received it two weeks ago. According to the back cover, it's the story of a man finding out that his wife is in fact a ghost. He has to process the fact that she's not who he thinks she is and all that. I shake my head.

"No, it's not really my thing." He laughs again. 

"What is your thing then, Eleanor?" I take a step back. It always takes me a moment to remember that I am wearing a name tag on my white t-shirt.

"Not boring dystopian novels about impossible stuff," I shrug. "But I am not judging. There is an audience for everything. Every one of Edgar Allan Poe's short story is proof of that." He takes an offended expression.

"You don't like Poe either? Jesus, who do you like?" He sounds offended, but somehow, I know that he is joking.

"I don't particularly enjoy reading the story of a man who rips his cat's eye out of his socket and then hangs the poor cat on a tree to die, no." I add a small laugh at the end. I like this conversation. It's rare that I get to argue about books with a man. Let's just say that the last book Ben read was Wayne Gretzky's biography and it took him a year to finish the 300-page book.

"The Black Cat, really? You take the worse one as an example, that's not fair." I raise my shoulders, but I can't help but smile. The man knows his classics, I love that.

"It proves my point, though. You have to admit that you have to be really sick to enjoy reading his stories, even more to write them." He pushes his glasses higher on his nose before nodding. He looks at his watch. I take the opportunity to finish the transaction with the card he handed me while we were talking. I place the books in a bag and it reminds me that he never answered my question.

"I'd love to finish this conversation later," he takes the bag I hand him and his card. "How about dinner tonight? Nothing fancy, I promise." Is he asking me out? Of course not, I have a boyfriend. Wait, he doesn't know about Ben. Fuck, he is asking me out, and weirdly I want to say yes. Not because I like him, or because I want to cheat on Ben, but because I enjoyed our conversation so much that I want to finish it too. It's either that or a lonely night in my apartment. Ben has a game tonight, and if I know him well, which I do, he will go out with some of the boys afterwards. I have plenty of time to eat something with this mystery book connoisseur and go back home without Ben noticing anything.

"Fine, but it's not a date," He raises his hands while nodding his head. "I get off at five." I have no idea why I felt the need to mention that it wasn't a date, but a part of me is glad that I did. That way, there are no grey zones.

"I'll be back by then. Have a lovely afternoon Eleanor. My name is Liam by the way." Should I feel bad? I try to convince myself that Ben will spend his evening at a bar probably filled with girls. Even more so, Brittany will surely be there. She sticks to everything that smells like hockey. Who knows what happens when I'm not there? It's not like I'll sleep with the guy, we're just going to go grab a coffee or something. I repeat the words to myself all day and I end up believing them.