The Words Between Us by Erin Bartels

Author:Erin Bartels
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Contemporary;Family secrets—Fiction;FIC042000;FIC044000
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2019-07-16T00:00:00+00:00

21

Now

What do you mean you got a job?”

Dawt Pi furrows her brow. “You told me look for a job. So I did.”

I can’t argue with her. But now that there is some slim chance of saving Brick & Mortar Books, I can’t quite picture its future without her.

“Yes, of course, that’s great.”

“It is just on the other side of the river, at a salon.”

“But don’t you need a license to cut hair in Michigan?”

Dawt Pi rolls her eyes. “Anyone can cut hair. I cut my own hair since I was ten. I cut my sisters’ hair, my brothers’ hair, my parents’ hair, my aunts’ hair. But it does not matter for now. I will be the receptionist, and the owner says she will help me get my license.”

I try to imagine the permed old ladies of River City attempting to make appointments with someone with such a heavy accent. Will they think her name is Dorothy like the postal worker does?

“When do you start?”

“Wednesday.”

“This Wednesday? That’s only two days.”

“It’s okay, Robin. I will still come by the store. I promise. But you don’t need me. Anne’s salon is very busy. She needs me.”

“Who will I talk to?”

Dawt Pi is unable to stifle a little laugh. “The better I speak English, the less we talk.” She puts a hand on my arm. “Talk to your customers. There are more since the book drive. You talk to them, okay? Talk to Sarah. And Ryan. Ryan is nice.”

We go about the day as normal. Only it’s not normal anymore. Every action takes on new significance as I count it among the last of such things. The last time Dawt Pi will straighten that book, the last time she will sweep that corner, the last time she will get the mail. I hardly acknowledge today’s fat, padded manila envelope. It sits unopened behind the counter until closing time when Dawt Pi flips the sign and locks the door.

“Are you ever going to look at this?”

I sigh and pick it up. It feels like my heart—large and hard and heavy. I already know what it is, and I don’t even have to open it to remember the poem I wrote after reading it that fateful week when everything I was building in Sussex—everything I was building with Peter—fell apart.

I chase my death upon the waves of Fate,

Thinking it a trophy for my shelf

And, triumphing, I leap into my grave

And pull the tender dirt upon myself.

In bless’d oblivion beneath the ground

My peace with vengeful rancor I have found.

I knew, despite my hunting faithfully,

Death was always in pursuit of me.

I put the package down again and start to count down the register. “You can open it.”

“Kentucky,” she says, followed by the dry hiss of paper fibers breaking apart as she pulls the red tab. “Mobby-Deek.”

“Moby-Dick.”

I don’t need to give her a summary of the plot, because it is spelled out in oil paints on the cover. A small boat, an angry monster from the ocean depths, a

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