THIS WAS a huge mistake. Darlene should have known better, but in utter and total desperation, she agreed to this date. Now the guy in front of her—what was his name again? Steve? Mike? She couldn’t even remember now—had been talking non-stop about pro wrestling. But not even actual real wrestling. The stuff that was fake and basically just soap operas with some terrible phony fights thrown in.
“So then the Ice Cube challenged The Man to a battle!”
“Wow, really?” Darlene replied, feigning interest on every possible level.
This was her mistake. She had been spending way too much time at home lately, curled up on the couch, binge watching reality television shows because they made her feel better about her boring life. Darlene would leave for work in the mornings, do eight hours at a boring local bookstore, come home, eat and watch TV. She also stayed up far later than any normal human should, which resulted in limited forms of social communication.
That was how Darlene ended up on some free dating website. She deleted most of the messages she got. They were mostly from guys who seemed to think of her as a sexual fetish instead of an actual human being. Getting messages from guys who were into her being overweight made her feel uncomfortable. Darlene either got disgusted looks or sexual lust over her size. Both sucked. She had been about to delete her page for good when a guy who appeared to be normal messaged her. He hadn’t made any gross comments about her size and even made her laugh once or twice with his messages. It had been eight months since her last relationship blew up in her face. Why not try something different? She decided to accept his date.
The guy was so boring that Darlene wished the restaurant would go up in flames so she could flee. She was flipping through her options on how to end the date early when he finally pushed his plate away.
“That was delicious,” he said.
“Oh yeah. It was great,” Darlene lied, thinking the potatoes were too dry for her liking.
The check came and the guy—what was his name!—made an effort to search for his wallet. Oh here we go...
“Oh man. I forgot my wallet at home!” he said with fake surprise.
“Yeah, yeah, I got it,” she mumbled, slamming her debit card on the table.
It didn’t take a genius to figure out this asshole had asked her out to throw her what he thought was a “pity date” and get a free meal out of her. He would probably go home to all his idiot friends and talk about how he gave the fat girl a date because he was just so nice. Darlene felt like punching him in the face.
She paid, and they walked out of the restaurant in silence. He escorted her to her car and then glanced around, as if checking so that no one could see him, before he tried to kiss her.
“Yeah,” Darlene lifted up her hand to block him, “I don’t think so. Thanks for nothing though, seriously.”
The man scowled and before he could say something back, Darlene got into her car. She pulled out of the parking lot as quickly as she could, wanting to forget the entire terrible date.
What a mistake. What an absolute mistake. Not even just the date. The last couple years of her life had been a huge mistake. She wished she could travel back in time and re-do everything. The first thing she’d do would be to say a resounding no when Austin proposed to her.
Darlene pulled into her apartment complex five minutes later. She had picked a nearby restaurant so she could make a quick escape home if needed. She walked up to the second floor. The couple by the stairwell was fighting again. They were constantly screaming at each other over everything. Some nights, Darlene wanted to yell back at them to just break up. Other times, she wanted to tell them to make it work, because being alone was terrible.
She opened the front door of her apartment and glanced around. Her computer was on in one corner, and a few blankets were thrown on the couch for maximum comfort for those times when she drowned herself in ice cream and terrible reality shows. Everything else was clean though. Darlene couldn’t stand her apartment being messy or dirty. She wanted it to be perfect, as if she could make her apartment look like how she didn’t feel.
Darlene yanked off her high heels and plopped down in front of her computer. She deleted the online dating profile and stared out the window. That was it — she was going to become a hermit. Well, as much of a hermit as one can be if they still had to go to work and grocery shop and run errands…but other than that she was totally going to be a hermit from now on. People were not her thing. People were just terrible all around. And she’d had enough of terrible people.
She moved to the couch, wrapping herself up in a blanket. Darlene mused over what she would watch. Terrible shows about being tricked into online dating seemed like a good end to the night. It’d make her feel better at the very least.
***
Her cellphone rang loudly. Darlene jolted awake, startled. She wasn’t used to her new ringtone. It used to be the theme song of an old cartoon she liked, but after everything went to hell she changed it to a normal ring in an effort to seem more adult. Now the ring was bleating loudly and annoying her. She looked at the front of the screen… her boss.
“Hello?”
“Hey, sorry, did I wake you?”
“No, Maria,” Darlene lied. “What’s up?”
“I had to fire Jacob. Can you cover his shift? You’d be working till three.”
Darlene glanced at the clock to see it was a little past eight in the morning. “That’s fine. I’ll leave now.”
She hopped in the shower, letting the warm water rush over her. She wasn’t surprised that Maria had to fire Jacob. He was constantly late and unable to help any of the customers who came into the shop. The bookstore was small and dealt with books that couldn’t be found at any of the chains. Business was slow, but the books were rare enough that Maria only needed to sell a few each month to keep the business going. Darlene liked how quiet it was and the fact that human interaction was minimal. She knew she needed to get over this slump she was in, but felt no desire to. Almost everything Darlene did as of late seemed to feed into it — her lifestyle, her job, even the stupid things she spent time watching and looking up online.
The bookstore was only a ten-minute drive to downtown and located between a coffee shop and a cheesy massage parlor. Maria hated the massage parlor. She thought it was tacky and ruined the charm of the street. Darlene usually liked to watch to see how many guys went in there. She swore it was a front for some hookers.
Darlene parked her car and headed toward the bookshop. She could already tell no one was in the store. She walked inside and waved to Maria.
“Oh, I am so glad you are here!” Maria exclaimed when she saw Darlene. “I’ll have to hire someone right away, but you and I will have to work extra in the meantime.”
“No problem,” Darlene replied, shoving her purse under the front counter.
Darlene worked here for almost four years. Maria was a good boss. She always treated Darlene with respect and even gave her an entire month off after her father passed away three years ago. She was an older Native American woman with a bushy head of white hair that she barely cared enough to run a comb through. She wore large glasses that looked like they were from the seventies. Her fashion left a lot to be desired. Maria seemed to put on whatever she grabbed first and didn’t look twice in the mirror afterward. For instance, today she had on a blue shirt with an off-color green skirt and black shoes. Her earrings were painted octopuses she had probably made herself — she liked making crazy jewelry.
“So,” Darlene asked. “What happened with Jacob?”
Maria scowled. “He comes into work high as a kite, stinking of weed. Starts rambling to me about how he was in the woods last night and like, totally felt something, like, man,” Maria said, mimicking Jacob’s slow tone. “He was an hour late on top of it. I can’t have someone late, stinking of weed and scaring off the few customers I get each month… especially after the last incident.”
“Yeah, that was a mess.” Jacob had hit on one of their regular clients in such a crass manner that she had threatened never to return again.
“Anyway, thank you so much for covering. I’m going to head off now. One of the grandkids is having a birthday party. You’ll be okay?”
Darlene cast a sarcastic glance around the empty bookstore. “Wow, I hope I can handle it.”
Maria laughed and grabbed her purse, heading to the door before stopping. “Hey, how was your date?”
Darlene frowned. “A total mess.”
“Sorry, love. Hang in there, okay?” Maria said before leaving.
Hang in there. Darlene sighed. She has been hanging in there for way too long. When was she going to get a grip on her own life again? She walked around it to make sure everything was in its proper place. Darlene knew it would be, of course. It wasn’t as if they had a ton of customers come through.
Maria had the marketable books up front, which brought in some tourist traffic during the summer. The farther back in the store one went, the stranger the books became. Darlene ended up in the back again, like she always did. Maria kept the supernatural books back here — books about ghosts, werewolves, mermaids and all sorts of paranormal creatures. Darlene always felt drawn to these; she never knew why. As a kid, she liked to pretend to be a ghost hunter. Nowadays, she liked to watch terrible B-movies about ghosts.
She trailed her fingers along the spines, letting the musty old-book smell wash over her. Darlene stopped in front of one book about ghosts, pulling it off the shelf. She had just flipped it open to a random page when the tiny bell on the door jingled. Surprised, Darlene looked up.
A tall man in amazing shape walked in. He had brown eyes, a beard and scruffy hair and wore a leather jacket. Darlene found herself gawking at him. He was so handsome her knees turned to jelly.
“Hi!” she said, but her voice sounded too high pitched, like she was eleven. “Hi, sorry, back here.” She walked up front to him.
“Hello,” he said in a deep voice that sent shivers down her back.
“Hi,” Darlene repeated and then tried to get a hold of herself. “How can I help you?”
“I’m lost. I’m trying to find Roman’s Tavern.”
Her eyes widened. “I don’t know if it’s open yet.”
Was this guy a hardcore alcoholic? It was still early in the morning, and he wanted to find a bar. Roman’s Tavern was the only bar in town that Darlene hadn’t ever gone to. It seemed to bring in a wild crowd that made her feel uneasy. Any time she drove past it and saw the crazy partying in there, she realized how much she wanted to go and that scared her. She was never been a big partier. The fact that such an overwhelming urge to go overtook her when she drove by made her nervous. What if she went and lost her head?
The cops always seemed to be there as well, breaking up fights. Bike gangs were always seen there. Sometimes, if she left work at closing time, she’d drive by it and hear the thumping music and smell the cigarette smoke. She thought about going in every time. What would happen? Would she get hurt? What if she was missing out on something?
To Darlene, Roman’s Tavern represented a life she could jump into if only she wasn’t afraid. But she was too afraid. Life as a hermit was too comforting.
“Do you know where I can find it anyway?” he asked.
“It’s down the street. On the corner, kind of pushed back a bit. It has this rundown broken sign that you might see if you drive by it.”
“Thanks a lot, Miss…”
“Darlene.” She held out her hand.
He stared at it for a second and then shook it. “Idris. Thanks for the help. You guys sell books about ghosts?” He pointed to the book she was holding when he came in.
His hand was so warm that Darlene had to snap herself back to the conversation. Was he sick? Shouldn’t he be resting instead of going to some bar?
“Yes,” she managed to respond. “We have a supernatural section in the back. Ghosts, vampires, werewolves…the usual.”
“Werewolves, huh?” he replied. “Okay, well, nice to meet you.”
Before Darlene could say anything else, he was gone.
She stood there, clutching her book to her chest, thinking about the feeling of warmth from his hand. What in the world was that about?