Between the Covers

The tour bus took a different turn than expected and ended up in an old part of the city where there was a verdant park, a tinkling fountain, and comfortable wrought-iron benches. Various small shops lined the streets. The doggy spa rested beside the eyeglasses boutique; the pastry shop wafted its aromas toward the vintage clothing bazaar; and the bike shop did while-you-wait repairs for café customers next door.

The driver parked the tour bus and announced, “Everybody, half-hour break!”

Although some might buy a spare bike headlight, purchase a pre-loved appliqué vest, or sit on a bench nibbling a croissant, most of the tourists made a beeline for the famous Maxwell’s Bookstore. When break time was over, the tour bus left, full of satisfied booklovers, and life returned to normal.

Sort of.

In Maxwell’s Bookstore, the parade of customers had left behind many stacks of “Maybe Not” items. These were books that had been picked up, carried around, but ultimately not purchased. In that split second as the customer murmured, “Hm, maybe not,” the fate of a book was decided.

Dozens of “Maybe Nots” lay around the bookshop at the end of that day, piled high on sorting carts.

“Oof! Ow!” Dwight struggled to regain his balance as he was roughly shunted onto the top layer of one particular sorting cart. What a rude awakening from yesterday! He had been simply lazing about in the big plate-glass window of Maxwell’s Bookstore, basking in rays of sunshine, when he had been taken out and admired by the first of many tourists. He’d fully expected to be purchased that day. But now, as the bookshop closed for the day, he saw he was destined for the lonely life of the display window—again.

“Watch out, you’re trampling me,” came a melodious voice from a book below him. She pushed against the upper layer of books covering her with surprising vigor, almost knocking him off his feet. He held tight to the rail.

More grumbling and some polite apologies emanated from all sides in the sorting cart. “Why are they treating us like this?” said someone. “It’s a sign of the times. Disrespect everywhere,” said another.

“Everyone, just stay calm,” said a melodious voice “As Jean-Jacques Rousseau once said, ‘Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.’”  

The jumble of books grew quiet and readjusted their attitudes.

“Hey guys, wanna hear a joke?” asked a raspy tenor voice.

“Sure,” replied someone else.

The raspy voice began, “A string walks into a bar… and says, ‘Bartender, I’d like a drink.’ The bartender says, ‘I’m sorry, we don’t serve strings here.’ And the string says, ‘But I’m not a string.’ The bartender says, ‘Oh, yeah?’ And the string says, ‘I’m a frayed knot.’”

 The laughter was slow. Then everyone caught on. Even Dwight chuckled. And he noticed a melodious chuckle coming from nearby. His heart skipped a beat.

 Lenny, the joke teller, entertained the crowd of “Maybe Not” books with a few more jokes. After a while, Lenny’s voice began to grate on Dwight, although maybe that’s because he didn’t quite get all the jokes.

The melodious voice spoke up. “Lenny,” she said, “Thank you so very much for raising our spirits, but why don’t we all have a nap until we hear Maxwell’s Bookstore staff return and then we can all shout for help. Is everyone okay with that?

 “Oh yes, Vera,” they said. “We trust your wisdom of the ages.”

 Everyone grew quiet. And while listening for the sound of a staff member walking nearby, they all fell sound asleep.

 Except for Dwight. He had lain awake all night, restless and quietly, deliciously excited. Who was this Vera with the melodious voice? She’d had such a diplomatic approach to Lenny. And she had certainly won over the crowd with her intelligent suggestions. His senses were on high alert, listening for her melodious sigh throughout the night. But oh, what to say? What to say to this woman who had captured his heart?

The next day, at ten minutes to nine, the bookshop staff trudged into the shop and began sorting and replacing books on their rightful shelves. Some of the books scarcely woke up, quietly rustling their pages as they nestled among friends.

Suddenly, the freckle nose of Doug, the bookshop clerk, discovered the group of books containing Dwight, Lenny, and Vera. Lenny, whose cover said Doctor John’s Bathroom Humor went back to the Humor section. Vera, whose cover proclaimed Wisdom of the Ages, went to the Classics section. And Dwight was relegated to Candles and Crafts.

Dwight was a special book. His rugged beauty attracted many interested glances, which he modestly pretended not to notice. Once again he stretched out his comely form, even releasing his fancy brass buckle. More than one prospective client caressed his fine calfskin cover and stroked his jaunty blue-ribbon bookmark before taking a look inside.

And what was inside? A fly leaf that said, Personal Journal. And the rest of the book was utterly blank.

At night, Dwight could be heard sighing deeply. He was ashamed of his emptiness. The nearby cookbooks, several of whom had designs on how they would like to fill his creamy white pages, were all a-flutter. They viewed Dwight as an honorary cookbook.

In fact, Joy, the most famous of the cookbooks, said, “It’s a truth universally acknowledged that any blank-page book, when left in a kitchen, attracts cooking instructions. Within a year, half the pages are filled with recipes and the other half are stuck together with spilled cake batter.”

Dwight was cordial with the cookbooks. But he found them formulaic and didn’t fancy ending up as one.

One day, a customer browsing in Maxwell’s Bookstore left Doctor John’s Bathroom Humor in the Candles and Crafts area. Lenny took that as a sign to cheer up the sorrowful Dwight with a few knock-knock jokes.

Dwight laughed at the first one. He chuckled at the second. By the seventeenth knock-knock joke, he told Lenny to cease and desist.

“Hey buddy, I’m just trying to cheer you up,” Lenny said. “Your love-struck sighs have been casting a pall over the entire shop. What’s up?”

“I’m in love,” Dwight moaned, “and she doesn’t even know I exist!”

 Lenny grinned. “Oh, who’s the lucky edition? Have you got your eye on one of them lavishly illustrated coffee-table books? You’d make quite a pair, both of you, on display all the time in a lovely suburban split level.”

 “You mean, like, Treasures of the Louvre?” Dwight asked.

 Lenny guffawed. “Yeah, you get my drift. You two get together, you with your blank pages and her with them lovely paintings and you could produce a little calendar together.”

“No, no, no,” Dwight protested. Once he had been young and hot off the press. It was only natural that his head had been turned by the glitz and glamour of one coffee-table book or the cool chic look of another, but he was more mature volume now.

Lenny raised his eyebrows up and down suggestively.

“It’s Vera,” Dwight admitted, his pages turning a rosy tint. “She’s captured my heart.” He noticed Lenny’s look of recognition. “How well do you know her? Do I stand even the ghost of a chance with that—with that worldly book?”

“Listen, I’m a book of jokes and riddles,” Lenny said. “I get picked up pretty much every day. Shoppers put me in their bucket for something to read while they’re in the lineup, and then they just buy the serious literature and put me back on the “Maybe Not” pile.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Dwight said. It sounded like a guy who never made it past the first date.

“Why should you be sorry?” Lenny retorted. “I like to circulate. I brighten the shopper’s day, even when they groan at my jokes. I get to mingle with many titles, high and low.” He glanced sharply at Dwight. “Hey, did you know the Humor shelf is right below the Reference Books? So I often hear Vera. I know her quite well.

 “Oh yeah?” Dwight said.

“Yes, she’s a book of quotations. I think she dreams about Seneca.”

Dwight wondered, Is Seneca a person or a place? But he was afraid to ask, afraid of looking ignorant.

 Lenny leaned back and took a good, hard look at Dwight. “You’re a very handsome tome. Real leather, I’d say, right? Shiny brass accents. Why wouldn’t she like you?”

And then Doug the clerk picked Lenny up and whisked him away.

***

Dwight grew more lovesick. “What do I say after I say ‘hello’? Dwight furrowed his leathery brow. All his pages were blank. He was an ideas journal. But he had no ideas in him yet. He didn’t even have page numbers.

So he sat on the shelf and worried. The worry caused wrinkles to form on the fine calfskin. And over the weeks, fewer fingertips caressed his cover and fewer customers imagined jotting down their innermost thoughts. Other blank journals sold, like the faux leopard-skin journal book, the one with the fancy roses—and even those stuck-up utilitarian-looking Moleskin journals.

Two weeks later, Lenny was placed close to Dwight again, and they picked up the conversation as if he had never left.

 “Get Vera talking,” Lenny said, “and ask her what she thinks about things. You don’t have to come up with any facts. Just listen to her. Let her drive the conversation. It’s not rocket surgery.”

Still, Dwight worried and waited.

And then one day, disaster struck. A hurricane devastated the entire street of small shops, including Maxwell’s Bookstore. The raging wind scared the covers off many books, but not Dwight, who snapped his buckle tight as the mighty winds rose.

When he heard a melodious voice rising high above the crashing, begging for help, he unsnapped his buckle and tore off his own cover.

“Vera, over here,” he cried, and he threw the calfskin around her and buckled her up tight.

 They ended up in a box of rescued books from Maxwell’s Bookstore, sharing the space of refuge with a dozen foreign-language thrillers. Everyone was cold, wet, and shivering.

Only two were madly in love.

***

The boxes of damaged books were put out at the curb for the recycling truck. Several passersby stopped to pick over the damaged wares.

One excited pensioner picked up the naked Dwight. “Hey, a blank notepad,” she said. “I’ll use it for grocery lists. … How odd… there’s a ribbon bookmark still attached.

Her friend, another retiree said, “I had to extricate these two books—they were interleaved like playing cards being shuffled.” And she pulled the two lovers apart.

Vera whispered into Dwight’s pages, “Darling, my only regret is that we didn’t get together sooner. Why was I so oblivious to your kind and noble character?”

Dwight said, “No, I’m the one to blame. I didn’t want you to toss me aside as a lightweight… an empty head with nothing to say. I’m sorry it took a hurricane to destroy my silly soul-sucking fear.” His pages fluttered at her.

Vera’s tears added to the water damage already present in Wisdom of the Ages. “Oh, and now it is the end,” she wailed. “Farewell, my one true love.”

And with that, the two books were torn apart.

***

Months later, a shipment of new booklets arrived. These were journals, but they had a special quality. Each page bore a small quotation, a piece of wisdom, at the very top.

These booklets combined two features, the best of both worlds. They had their father’s inviting blankness and their mother’s deep thoughts.

The Personal Journal 2.0  began with the quotation, “All’s well that ends well.”

And indeed it was true.

THE END