One Tough Cookie (25 page)

"Em, will you watch the store while I run to the post office?"

"Sure. You can get me some stamps while you're there." Emily put her book down and popped open her till while Grace propped the door open between the two shops.
 

She walked toward Emily's counter. "What a fabulous day!"

Emily raised her head from the till and looked out the window. "It is, isn't it? I think May on Salt Spring is the best month of the year."

"Why don't we lock up at twelve and have lunch in the park? What do you say?"

"I don't know..." Emily was tempted, but she did have accounts payable to take care of.

"Come on,” Grace wheedled. “In another month neither of us will be able to play hooky. The tourists, bless them, will be upon us. We'll have to at least pretend to be responsible businesspeople. I say we goof off while we still can.”

"Okay. Why not?" Emily handed her a couple of bills for the stamps. As she did, she heard the jangle of the brass bell over Grace's shop door. Grace sighed.

"Wouldn't you know it. I haven't sold a muffin in over an hour, and the minute I plan a quick trip to the post office, the hordes arrive."

Emily laughed. By leaning over her own bookstore counter, she had a clear view of the cash register in Grace's store. "Hardly the hordes you might like. It's Mrs. Duncan. So scat, go to the post office. I'll take care of her."

“Bless you.” With that Grace was gone.

In the next second, Emily was behind Grace’s counter. "What can I do for you. Mrs. Duncan?" she said with a smile.

"One of those raspberry ones, dear." The elderly lady pointed to a metal rack filled with fresh muffins. "And a cup of tea, please," she added before taking a seat at a table near the window.

As Emily heated a muffin and readied Mrs. Duncan's tea, she thought about her play that would be staged by the Salt Spring Theatre Group in four weeks' time. It was called
A Change in Christine.
How had Grace described it again? A wonderfully warm and funny Pygmalion story. She liked that. The cast was well along in rehearsals, and Emily got excited every time she thought about it. They'd looked good last night, terrific in fact. Granger, the director, was convinced it would be a success, and his enthusiasm was contagious. If it hadn't been for Grace pushing her, she’d never have had the courage to submit her play.

After Grace reminded her for about the thousandth time that there was no point in writing plays if nobody ever performed them, she'd taken a deep breath and sent it in. She'd been terrified of rejection—rejection that, this time, didn't come. She dared and won. It was a whole new experience.
A turning point,
she’d told herself
. A definite turning point.
 
On that positive note, she smiled down at Mrs. Duncan.

"Here you are." She placed the tea and muffin on the tiny round table. "Anything else?"

"No, thank you, dear. This is lovely.” The elderly woman added sugar to her tea and asked, "Have the new romance novels arrived yet?"

"Not yet. I expect them next week sometime. Do you want me to call you?"

"Would you? That would be very nice."

Mrs. Duncan, eighty and counting, was a longtime customer of Welland Books. Every month, without fail, she bought six romance novels. In the summer months, when the island bulged with tourists, Emily, even though she didn’t share her belief in the romantic, put copies aside for her.

Romance, Emily believed, was for more adventuresome people. Her own three-year relationship with Bill Davis after high school surely didn't qualify. Seven years ago now, she’d been twenty when it ended, and she’d be twenty-eight in a few months. Her throat constricted.
Seven years. And there’d been no one since.
Feeling a pity party in the offing, she veered away from thoughts about her scant romantic history. So what if her love life, or lack thereof, bordered on pathetic, she had a great life and treasured friends. No point in wanting something you’d never have.

Good thing I wasn't around when old Noah was filling his ark,
she thought, a rueful smile playing across her lips.
Or the human race would be in serious trouble.

Instantly her visual imagination, her playwright vision, kicked in with an image of herself standing at the ramp to the ark patiently waiting for Noah to find her mate. As he tried, it kept raining and the water kept rising until finally Noah said to her, "Sorry, Em, old girl. Gotta go. There doesn't seem to be anyone out there for you. Too bad."

The image shattered when Larry Enderby rattled through the door, all denim, belt, and keys. He would be disappointed Grace wasn't here, she thought. Emily put her head down and wiped the counter, careful to avoid his eyes when he spoke to her. He made her nervous. Men made her nervous.

"Hey, Em. Did Grace make any of those banana-raisin ones today?"

Emily scanned the muffin racks and found what he wanted. "Yes. How many?" she asked, keeping her back to him.

"Two. Oh, and two coffees to go." He fished into his tight jeans for change.

Emily handed him his muffins and coffee but missed his friendly smile. She'd already lowered her eyes.

"Thanks. Tell Grace to keep making these. They're great."

As Larry went out, Grace came in.

"Hi, Larry. Bye Larry," she said as they passed each other in the door and exchanged grins. She looked across the tiny shop at Emily. "See, what did I tell you? Hordes! Hi, Mrs. Duncan, how are you today? Is that a new hat? It's great."

Emily smiled as her friend handed her the stamps and change. She wished she could be as easy around people as Grace. Why couldn't she banter and tease, make small talk? Why did people make her freeze up and choke on her words? Oh, she was better, perfectly fine with people she knew well or in her store behind her counter. But why couldn't she toss a few bright words Larry's way?
Because he was a man, that's why,
she told herself honestly. The people who made her panic the most were invariably male. She headed for her shop, stopping for a moment at the sound of Grace's voice.

"See you at twelve, Em. Do you want a muffin today?"

"Good idea, considering that I forgot my lunch. How about one of those strawberry ones?"

"You got it."

* * *

At twelve-fifteen the two women sat at a picnic table watching the boats in Ganges Harbor. All light and blue shine, the breeze-tossed ocean glinted and rolled under the May sun. Emily was glad she came. She loved her bookstore, but it did feel a bit like a cage on days like today, and this was not a day to be caged. She munched silently on her muffin.

"Larry asked me to go to Victoria with him this Sunday. Do you think I should go?" Grace asked, pulling a strip of shredded lettuce from her sandwich.

"Heavens, why ask me?"

"I was wondering what you thought of him, that's all. I get the impression you don't like him much."

"I like him well enough. He's... nice."

"Nice! You think everybody's nice. Nice is nothing. Nice is boring."

Emily watched Grace pull another piece of lettuce from her sandwich. "What are you doing to that poor thing?" She pointed to the wrecked sandwich. "And what's the matter with being nice?"

"Nothing I guess, but sometimes don't you want something—or someone—who’s more than just nice? Like maybe exciting, thrilling, titillating—"

"Titillating?" Emily laughed.

"Stimulating, provocative, arousing—" Grace was on a roll.

Emily held up a hand, still laughing. "Enough already. You might as well look for Xanadu."

Grace gave her a vacant look.

"Coleridge?" Emily prompted with a widening grin.

"I hate it when you do that!"

"Do what?"

"Quote some very obscure,
very dead
person."
 

"Sorry. Just making the point that you might as well search for a mythical Xanadu as look for 'exciting, thrilling, or arousing' on Salt Spring. All are pure fantasy. And titillating? Not a chance."

"Maybe, but there’s nothing wrong with a little fantasy. The trouble with you, Em, is you're too easily satisfied. You've made an art of contentment... of placidity. As for me, there are times this island
really, really
gets to me.” She shook her head. “It's such a small piece of the world."

Small and safe,
Emily thought to herself, denying her own midnight dreams of exotic countries and wild adventures. She knew they weren't for her; she’d only freeze up and panic. Even if she could leave here, she knew she’d always come back. It was home. But the word placid rankled. She didn't
feel
placid.

When Emily didn't answer, Grace probed again. "Don't you ever want to go anywhere else? Wouldn't you like to meet a fantastic man, maybe travel, live in other places?"

Emily was about to answer when her interest was caught by a cycler coming toward them on the waterfront walkway. She couldn't make him out clearly, but she knew he wasn't local. He stopped a few feet away and got off his bike. For a moment he glanced their way, and a brief, friendly smile flashed across his face before he turned away to prop up his bike.

Emily shut her eyes tight and opened them again, convinced he wasn't real. Until this second, if you’d asked her if men like this even existed on this earth, she’d have said no—not without the magic of film and camera work. Never, never in the flesh. But there he was—and just looking at him made her slightly breathless. A breeze tossed the ends of his dark, wavy hair, shiny hair streaked by sunlight. Tall, over six feet at least, and deeply tanned, aviator-style sunglasses hid his eyes. Had to be an early tourist. No one here was that bronzed this early in the year. She wondered what color his eyes were behind those shadowy lenses. Finally, Grace's voice seeped through her fog.

"Talk about arousing! Is he incredible or what?" Grace's tone bordered on reverential. "That is the hottest guy I’ve ever seen—in my whole frickin’ life. Em, are you looking?"

Emily was looking all right, gawking like a open-mouthed adolescent. But when she forced herself to shift her gaze away from the man’s long, lean, muscular body, it was as if she’d disconnected herself from a dream.
 

"Look, he's coming this way,” Grace whispered. “
He is.
He really is."

Emily's gaze shot back to the stranger. Oh, my God, he
was
walking toward them. The bile of panic rose in her throat, sealed it tight and hard. Her vision blurred.

Oh, no…
 

Excerpt from

OVERKILL

A Short Story

by

EC Sheedy

© 2011 by Edna Sheedy

“This is a joke, right?” Tanner Cross sat on a cheap bed in an even cheaper hotel in Loubomo in the Congo Republic. He was counting money. He was also naked, tired, and as of two minutes ago, when he’d stepped out of his first shower in two weeks, actually clean. A month of sleep, a haircut, and he’d be human again, although last he heard humans weren’t called on to kill their superiors. Holister had to be smoking something. Either that or he was speaking in code.