“I’m not baffled. Are we there yet?” one of them says.
I trudge on. “Almost. If you’re into conspiracies—I am—some believe that Christopher Marlowe, a writer of the same time period, was really Shakespeare. Did you ask how? No? Let me explain. Marlowe was despised because of his antireligious works, and nearly everyone in the late sixteenth century was religious. So, the theory is that Marlowe faked his sudden death—supposedly stabbed in a bar—because he was also a spy for the Tudor court, plus there was a warrant out for his arrest. Marlowe was in deep shit. Then, two weeks after his supposed death, voilà, the first work of William Shakespeare goes on sale. How’s that for intriguing?”
“You need to take a break from Shakespeare,” one of them mutters.
“Right. To each their own. ‘To thine own self be true,’” I say.
“What are you even saying?” one of them says.
I wave her off. It’s over now. The moment has passed. They didn’t get it.
“Anyway, your teacher meant for you to buy one of these. Just a regular copy.” I indicate the correct shelf and grab two paperbacks of Romeo and Juliet off the shelf and put them in their hands. “I hope you learned something today. Enjoy the play. Mercutio is my fav. Oh, and it’s a real tearjerker.”
They smirk. “We know how it ends, book lady. They die.”
“‘Parting is such sweet sorrow.’” And with those words, I mosey away, and Magic meets me at the end of the row. What fresh hell were you spouting? his eyes convey. I give him a pet and head to the staircase as he follows. He’s fit in well in our apartment, and the expression on Londyn’s face when she first saw him was priceless. Pure amazement.
The PA system clicks on, and Babs’s voice blares: “Emmy, we have a cream situation. Emmy to the main floor for the cream.”
Cream? Then it dawns, and I groan. Last month our coffee station got knocked over, and a large plastic container of french vanilla shattered when it hit the marble tile. Sticky, sugary white stuff oozed everywhere, and the floor squeaked for days. It took multiple moppings.
I’ll need the big yellow bucket from the maintenance closet. Magic follows me as I hop on the elevator and take the ride to the basement and grab it. Ugh. The water is murky and hasn’t been changed, so I refill it, wrestle the mop back in, get back on the elevator, and push the button for the first floor.
“Attention, Emmy, please hurry! We need you to see the cream,” Babs says over the loudspeakers.
“I heard you the first time,” I mutter as I shove the mop and bucket out of the elevator and onto our main floor.
A man catches me before I get too far. He’s older, maybe fifty. “Do you have any books on . . . erotica?” he asks as he blushes. “It’s for . . . a friend.”
If Babs were here, she’d clasp his hand in hers, gush over her favs, and skip with him to the sexy books. I smile. “Sure. Second floor, on the right. You can’t miss it.”
I turn back to the bucket, and instead of bending over to push it, I shove it with one of my heels. The motion causes the wooden handle of the mop to whip back and bang my nose. Tears burst from my eyes at the pain. The inconvenience of not having a cleaning person ratchets up, and I curse vividly.
Babs dashes over. “You move like a tortoise. Why are you trying to break your face? You splashed water out on the floor.”
“You try rolling this thing. It’s heavy, and one of the wheels is wonky.” I wring out the mop and rub it over the spilled water. “There.”
“You shouldn’t be doing this.”
“Our maintenance person didn’t show. Guess who’s going to be here all night, cleaning? Me and you.” I push the pail forward, this time by the mop handle. She keeps pace with me as we reach the condiment area. “Where’s the creamer? You didn’t mean the cream soda, did you?”
“There’s no spilled creamer,” she hisses. “Is that why you’re dragging around this mop bucket like a bedraggled waif?”
Only booklovers use words like “bedraggled” and “waif.”
“Babs. What’s going on? Why are your eyes darting to the left?”
“Mr. Hottie in the cream suit is here. Remember? I told you all about him when you got back from your vacay. He’s near the window. Don’t you dare look, or he’ll know we’re talking about him, and it’s bad enough that you’re pushing a mop.” She gives me an exasperated look. “What am I going to do with you?”