The First of June (standard:romance, 2502 words)
Author: BENTLINK	Added: May 16 2008	Views/Reads: 3524/2663	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
June loves books and authors.

The First of June 

(draft) 

Her key turned the locks cylinder with remembered ease and she stepped
inside closing and locking the door behind her.  She stood very still 
just inside the entrance with her eyes closed inhaling deeply through 
her nose, allowing time for her feelings to richen. 

If a place could be loved then she loved this store, she loved the odor
of the books, the special unique scent of ink and glue that over the 
years had subtly changed as solvent inks were gradually replaced by 
soybean oils.  No leather bindings or musky smelling first editions 
here it was not that kind of store.  She loved the order of the neat 
rows and stacks, the quite demeanor customer displayed as they ask for 
help and advice.  She loved watching as parents tried to pass on their 
love of books and reading to their children, most often with only 
little effect. 

This was her first day of what she hoped would be another long contented
summer.  For three years, she had taken on the full responsibility for 
running the Adam's bookstore while they lulled the summer away in 
Florida sunshine at their Destin condo.  She had started helping them 
out part time first at Christmas and then more and more often until 
finally they ask her to manage the store for all of her summer vacation 
from teaching at the Smithton School.  She gladly accepted the offer 
for she loved books and the people that read them and there was of 
course the added bonus of pay that supplemented her grade school 
teachers' income. 

She continued standing just inside the entrance for a few more heart
beats breathing deeply to complete the adjustment of her mood to that 
of a book store proprietor then walked quickly to the stores tiny one 
room office.  As was her custom, she had arrived an hour earlier than 
required to open the store on time.  Perhaps the early arrival was 
habit because when school was in session she always arrived well ahead 
of the children in order to straighten her classroom.  After placing 
her light sweater, purse, and keys on the offices little antique desk 
she carefully removed her grandmother's period teapot from the shopping 
bag of snack items and flavored teas she was carrying.  Bring the 
teapot was an afterthought, added to the bag only last night when she 
remembered a special order book illustrating Edwardian china had turned 
up and perhaps offered her a chance to learn something of the pots 
history.  She placed the teapot on a storeroom shelf then began moving 
about lightly touching the stores books straightening stacks and 
flicking at imaged motes of dust with a cloth that had been lightly 
damped with lemon oil. 

Everything needed to look its best as this was her first full day in
charge and this afternoon the store was to host a 
heretofore-unpublished guest author.  The writers' publisher had 
shipped dozens of copies of the new work to the Adam's store several 
days before and she had voraciously read it in one setting.  This was 
only the second time in her memory the store had opened itself for a 
authors' visit and book singing 

The stores first open house had been a complete disaster!  The previous
author, a middle-aged lady with a Boston upbringing; her book targeted 
the parents of teenagers and explained in rather pompous terms how very 
important it was to establish and enforce dress codes to preserve the 
mental health of teens.  How the “Bostonian” ended up in this small 
Midwest town peddling her books to the parents of kids that wore jeans 
winter and summer (cut off in summer) was one of life's bigger 
mysteries. 

This second author on the other hand had a lot to offer, his new books'
dust cover bio reveled he had grown up just across the state from this 
very store.  He had gone to college at Ohio State and now worked out of 
his home near Columbus.  Dust cover photos were sometimes misleading 
but he looked very young and even a little unsettled in the two-inch 
square picture. 

Unsettled looking or not he wrote with great certainty and the book
moved smartly along, taking a few liberties with local history to tell 
the story of a farm family beginning just before the start of WWII 


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