A quiet story from a soft, blue chair in a used bookstore

I wandered into The Dusty Bookshelf with my book bag of books to sell. Holly was working behind the counter and she smiled as she looked up at me. “I’ve got these this time,” I said. “It’ll be just a few minutes,” she replied. We had done this before.

Tall shelves of books stood all around me. I circled around a large wooden table that held small piles of books arranged like daisy petals on a stationary wheel. I quickly glanced at the covers on the top of each pile. None of them quite tempted me to pick them up. Then I took a turn through the children’s books in the back corner nook. Often interesting illustrations and a simple story would draw me in.

Holly had finished looking through my books when I got back to the counter. “I’ll take these,” she said. She had taken most of them this time. I took the store credit as I always did and Holly added my credit to my total on a slip of paper and tucked it back into the credit box. I put the remainder of my books along with one I had found into my bag.

I turned around and then settled into a soft, blue chair that was tucked into the literature section where the M’s begin. Out of the corner of my eye I could still see the central counter piled high with used books on either side. It was an island in a sea of books. Holly stood behind it, cleaning up books, putting fresh plastic dust jackets on the hardbacks. It was just another day in The Dusty Bookshelf.

I looked over at the shelves next to my shoulder and then I pulled out Carson McCullers’ book, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, and began to read. The book began easily with the simple life of two mutes, Singer and Anatopoulis, in their southern town. They talked silently back and forth to each other with their hands. As I read to myself I looked up from my book from time to time. Dinah, the sleek, black, bookstore cat was meandering around the store. I watched her sniff at a man’s tennis shoes where he stood looking at a picture book over near the front window.

A mother and a son came in through the near door. They simply had to be that. Then without a word, they separated, each going their own way. The young man looked to be in his twenties. He had a soft, round face. His mother quickly found a book and then sat waiting for her son in a wooden chair. With her book resting unopened on her lap, she searched the faded carpet at her feet. Her face looked worn. The young man was taking a considerable amount of time. He looked up and down through the tall shelves of used books, disappearing occasionally from my sight. Then, eventually, he returned and approached his mother with a large handful of books. “I may have found too many,” he said. And then her face turned suddenly bright as she smiled up at him. “You always pick good ones,” she said.

I looked away. I was not part of their world, after all. I spotted Dinah on the other side of the store and then I went back to my book..

A few pages later, a younger man and his daughter - again I made my presumptions - came in through the far door. They approached Holly and said that that were looking for a particular book. I didn’t quite hear the title. Holly walked them back towards the young adult books. In only a few minutes, they had returned to the counter without finding the book they had wanted, but the girl had found another book instead. “I’ll take this one.” She held it out to Holly. I watched from behind the pages of my book as the father watched his young daughter, a slight smile in his eyes. She reached into a small purse and handed some money to Holly. Then the girl stepped over to where Dinah sat near the audio books shelf. She carefully offered her fingers for Dinah to smell, and then petted the cat’s shiny black back. Dinah stretched appreciatively.

The store had nearly emptied. I read, glancing up from time to time. A young man in a ball cap, who had seemed to have been looking somewhat aimlessly for books behind the far shelves, approached the counter. He appeared to be trying to find some kind of an opening with Holly. I perked up my ears. I couldn’t help myself. After a few words, I could just hear him say, “I like the streaks in your hair.” Holly laughed and gave him another minute or so of small talk before gently letting him go.

The Dusty Bookshelf was quiet. Holly had gone off somewhere in the back. I sat thinking. I had finished the first chapter of my book. Singer was alone. His friend, Antonopaulos, had been sent off to an insane asylum. I knew how the story would end, but I couldn’t remember the middle. Maybe I would read more of the story some other day.

I put the book back where I had found it and sat for a minute longer, looking out at all of the waiting books.

Then I looked down. Dinah must have slipped silently over to where I was sitting while I had been reading - and watching other people looking for whatever they had been looking for. After a careful look into my eyes, Dinah jumped up into my lap. She kneaded a bed for herself and then quickly fell asleep in the crook of my arm.

I thought for a moment that perhaps I should not have put the McCullers book back onto the shelf. I couldn’t quite reach the book again with a sleeping cat in my lap. Bu it didn’t matter. I had my own thoughts. I listened to the music playing faintly out of a speaker somewhere over my head.

By the clock on the wall, it was only a little after three. I really had no place I would rather be. A few more customers came and went. Among the few, a young boy with his younger sister trailing behind him had passed by my chair. I was full of suppositions. Dinah catnapped in my lap.

And then it was only ten minutes or so before Dinah woke up from her nap. She nimbly jumped down to resume her unappointed rounds.

I had myself come into The Dusty bookshelf only a little less than an hour ago. I had exchanged a handful of old books for fourteen dollars in store credit. Bought one off the bargain shelf for a buck. Read part of another book for free. I was well ahead of the game.

I got up from my soft, blue chair, picked up my nearly empty book bag, and walked the few steps back to where I found Holly sitting cross legged on the floor among the piles of unsorted recent arrivals. I asked about the music. It turned out to be a random Pandora compilation of the different musical tastes of The Dusty Bookshelf clerks over time. I told her that the music had suited me and then I wished Holly a good day. In turn she smiled back at me and wished me the same. And then I walked out of the near door of The Dusty Bookshelf into a nearly perfect early fall day.