I realize this is not a bookstore but someone's garage. I have realized this too late because I am already parked in their driveway and the little fat old lady has already waved at me. Either this is a legitimate business that just happens to be in a garage or my grandmother is trying to get me murdered and honestly it is 50/50. I rest my forehead on the steering wheel while I gather the energy to go talk to another human being. I get out of the car and hit the key fob on my way up to the garage. As I am walking up the guardian of this little hole waves at me.
"Hi there have you come to look at my books?" She asks, I am trying really hard at not being an asshole so instead of saying 'the fuck else would I be here for?' I say
"Yeah my grandma told me about this place"
"Oh really who's your grandma?"
"Enid Thompson?"
"Oh my Mason right?" I nod "She told me you might be stopping by she actually picked out a few books for you to look at, here" She reaches behind her and picks up a stack of five books "she paid in advance so you just pick the one you want and off you go, you can also look around for a different book if you'd like" I take a quick peek at the books Grandma Enid has hand picked for me. My Sister's Keeper, Catch-22, Slaughterhouse Five, and Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock.
"Well which one do you think I should get?" I ask so I don't have to exert anymore brain effort in this interaction.
"Well I am a sucker for Jodi Picoult but I think Slaughterhouse Five might suit you better"
"Then I'll take that one"
"Great, do you need a bag? Bookmark?" she asks, reaching down in a bucket by her feet.
"Yeah a bookmark actually thank you" She pulls a bookmark that's holographic with a kitten winking on it.
"How about this one?" she asks.
"You know what it's perfect" I say, taking that and the book and the bookmark from her hands. I get into Clarissa and decide to go somewhere scenic to read my book. I decided on the nearby lake where, if I remember right, there should be some picnic tables I can sit in and smell lake water. A rare treat for me, being from Elkton I normally just go right for seabreeze. I try to find it on GPS by just typing lake into Google and thank goodness Google is a good friend to me and hooks me up with the exact place I was thinking of. I wave through my windshield to ole Betty Crocker and head towards my next destination on my tour of this small town.
I arrive after being shocked several times while driving at the sheer amount of roadkill that is on the side of the roads here it seems like an amount that may be present in a Wrong Turn spin off. The amount that tips you off that something is not quite right in this town. Maybe something's not quite right in this town anyway, I mean what kind of town has a bookstore that is run out of a garage? Maybe I am being too judgemental. I zone out on the lake and think if there may be some dark secret hidden in this town.
A honk from behind me snaps me out of my Hardy Boys. I look behind me and see some Camry driver arguing with some Hummer driver. I make note to not make eye contact with them when I get out of the car. I make my way over to the picnic tables and start reading and begin to realize that this place was not built for people like me to calmly read a novel about WWII but instead this place was carved out of nature specifically to allow redneck truck drivers to rev and race as much as they please with no intervention from local law enforcement. I have spent enough time in small towns to know that the idea of them being cute and quaint was fabricated. They are either racist or weird or both and this one seems to be both. There is no reason to have this many dollar generals in one place; it is near insanity.
I decide to give it up trying to read at this picnic table and decide to head home and use the hammock Grandma Enid has strung up in the front yard after stopping at a drive thru cooler for some sweet tea and pulling a table close to me I finally dig into the book I picked up today. I end up reading uninterrupted for like 30 minutes before I hear a girl's voice calling to me.
"Are you Enid's grandson?" The bleach blonde asks. She is wearing a peach pink crop top and some acid washed high waisted denim shorts. She is superbly tanned and looks exactly like the definition of a beach babe and she was standing over me with her hands on her hip.
"I am yeah, Mason" I say, sticking up my hand to try and shake hers from my horizontal position on the hammock.
"So here's the deal, I doubt Enid told you about me, my name is June. I am like part of this little charity/community service group called 'Sand Angels' and it is basically like a group that sends out teens to help Elderly people and keep them company" She starts taking off her backpack and squatting on the ground to start searching through it. "So my job is to make Enid's life easier, but, as you may have noticed Enid is not exactly a feeble old lady so essentially I am a cat sitter" She pulls out a Switch Lite and zips up her bag. "So I get community service hours and Richard and Dumptruck get socialization while Jack and Enid are at work. It all works out for everybody! So this is just a formal heads up that I will be here Monday through Friday until about five each day and most of the time I get here at noon so yeah. Any questions?" she picks up her bag and swings one strap over her shoulder and stands there a moment waiting for my response.
"No I think I got it, nice to meet you June." I say picking up my book and excited to get back into this surprising sci-fi book.
"Nice to meet you too Mason, if you wanna know fun things to do in town, good places to eat in town, or good and fun people to hang out with just ask me and I bet I could keep you entertained all summer." She walks into the screened in patio and then up the porch stairs into the trailer. I relax into the hammock again and fade back into the book I was reading.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After about an hour of reading on the hammock I decide to get up so I don't finish the whole novel in one single day and I actually have something to do tomorrow. I head indoors to find June laying on the sofa with Dumptruck on her lap and Richard batting at her feet mercilessly.
"Hey Mason! How was the book?" June say placing Dumptruck gently on the floor
"It's good so far, have you read it before?" I ask sitting down on the gross green loveseat and immediately finding Dumptruck making his way over to me.
"Yeah, I had to read it last year in Lit. I liked it because I couldn't really get anything spoiled for me since the book doesn't have a real traditional timeline." She kicks Richard off the sofa and heads to the kitchen and grabs a Dr. Pepper out of the bottom drawer and cracks it open. "I hope you like it. It would be nice to discuss it with someone else, the people in my class were not too fond of it and had a hard time keeping their reviews unbiased if you know what I mean" She walks over to the sofa and sits back down.
"How long have you been a 'Sand Angel' for?" I ask, grateful for some interaction with a peer that was not over text message.
"Oh just since I was 13, at first I was forced to go, but now I like it" she sips again from her soda and places it on the table next to her "You can stay in the program until about 21 and I think I will it makes colleges think you're super hero or something" She reaches in her bag again and pulls out her Switch and starts playing on it "Have you picked a college yet?" She asks and leans back on the sofa.
"No, I don't even know of anywhere that would take me, you know not exactly the best student and I don't have a super hero portfolio to use either."
"You never know unless you apply there's a few colleges that are only an hour or two away from here you could attend."
"I don't know if I plan to stay down here or not"
"Are you down visiting or is there another reason you decided to come to this podunk town."
And my heart drops to my feet and I immediately freeze up. Although I appreciate my grandma not dumping all my dirty laundry on this poor girl it sucks that now I am the one put on the spot with this nonsense and have to think so quick on my feet.
"I just decided it was time I spent some time with them you know?" I say shrugging. I feel like this is something that will come up again and I am gonna have to be honest but, I don't feel compelled to spill that much to this girl I have known less than a day.
"Are your parents cool with you being this far away from them you're from Maine right?" I feel like she believes me and is just trying to make conversation to be nice but lord knows I wish she would just drop it and move on.
"Yeah they don't really mind" A half truth being dead and in a coma does enable your ability to care what your child is up to. "What are you playing on your Switch?" I ask trying to casually change the subject.
"Oh cool, I'm playing Breath Of The Wild I have been stuck on this one part and I was taking a break before I reapproached it" She says fiddling with the controls. "My parents are very strict about me leaving county lines, my uncle is a cop so they feel like if I leave I am no longer protected which is dumb I know"
"It sounds like they care just in a weird way" I say, not trying to offend her in any way.
"Yeah I guess southern parents are weird"
"I think parents everywhere are weird."
"You are right on that one." She curses and turns off her Switch again and mumbles under her breath. She starts packing it up "What are you doing tonight?" she asks, putting her device up and zipping her bag.
"I did not have anything planned, just staying in to watch Netflix."
"You should come to the lake and hangout with my friends and I" She says, and pulls out her phone "We go down to the lake and talk, drink, shoot the shit, you know small town things" She types for a second "don't feel obligated or anything to say yes I understand it's kind of weird for me to invite you out."
"No, thank you, I mean like 'no' as in like you're good it's not weird and 'thank you' as in yes I will come tonight" I say wondering how I have ever been able to talk to anybody else before.
"Okay, cool, um we don't really have a set time so just like after sunset you can come out, you'll see my Camry parked somewhere" She pauses "here, let me give you my number you can just text me or something when you get there, make sure you bring bug spray or something cause the skeeters get mean this time of year."
I pull out my phone and open up the add contact screen and hand it to her. A few seconds later she hands it back displaying a screen that says "June Murphy".
"Thanks June I'll see you there later tonight, I am gonna head to my room and finish unpacking" I say making my way down the hallway to my room.
"Alrighty bye Mason!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To say that June was not the prettiest girl I had seen in over several months would be a blatant lie. I truthfully don't really see many girls outside of the ones that Joe makes me deal with. June is something else. She looks more like a California stereotype than a Floridian one and to pair with it she has a little bit of southern in her too. I feel like I just found a new crush. To pursue or not pursue is my next question. Although She is insanely gorgeous I know nothing about her and she is my grandparents assigned little helper, if I fuck up somehow that would be a very awkward hornets nest to walk into every day. I decide I should not be an idiot and worry about now and wait until she shows me a crumb of interest.
I lay down in my bed and wonder how I am able to get myself so worked up over literally nothing at all. I wonder which mental illness I have been diagnosed is responsible for my mind having no care for my general well being. Sometimes I feel like there is a glowing red button that is labeled as self destruct. A bunch of people in my head are constantly running toward it trying to smack it and send me into oblivion. I snap myself out of yet another spiral and boot up my xbox and start playing games with my curtain pulled back so I can watch for the sun to set.