Page 13 of It’s Me They Follow

Elle,

I hope all is well with you and work and that you’re writing even though you’re not joining the group this session.

The class was good up until recently. I can’t figure out if the new teacher is a quack.

Ray and Rose are enrolled, and a few new people have joined, but I can’t recall their names because their writing bores me to tears.

It is not the same without you. You balance us with your wit and wisdom.

I am writing to ask if you can come visit class sometime soon, like you used to do.

And bring more honey when you come, please.

As usual, I’ve been putting it on my tongue twice a day and reciting the mantra “I deserve sweetness. I deserve sweetness” in the mirror.

The honey is smooth going down. Helps me think of sweet things, like our walk by the river years ago and our stories about the honey goddess and the flowers we gathered and placed in the water for her.

Thank you for that. The honey must be working.

Though, I don’t know if it will heal me.

It certainly has attracted the sweetest-smelling man into my life.

Today we went on our second date—to a junkyard.

At least, he said we were going to a junkyard, and he said we were going on a date.

I almost turned him down, because who invites you on a date to a junkyard?

But like our grandmother used to say, God don’t make no junk.

It went in one ear and out the other. But as usual, our grandmother was right.

When I got to the bookshop yesterday morning, tucked in the door was an envelope. It said Ms. Harriett , large, on the front. Inside was a letter he’d written.

If you are reading this, our date has begun. Do you trust me? Inside this envelope you’ll find a blindfold. Any minute now—a black SUV will arrive. If you decide to get inside, put on the blindfold. And don’t take it off until your driver says it’s okay. Okay?

Just then, the black SUV pulled up. Now, I know you’re like, Girl, do not get in no strange car with no strange man and put on no strange blindfold.

This is not an actual fairy tale. This is real life.

Blindfolds and SUVs never end well in real life.

Especially because you’ve known this sweet-smelling man of yours all of what, two weeks?

But you know me. I love a good love story.

When I got into the car, the driver was an elderly man in a suit, with a big mustache and a very soft voice.

“Good morning, madam,” he whispered. “In your console is an apple. Would you like it before you put on your blindfold?”

His small voice made me feel safe. Of course, I wanted an apple.

I had been fasting for a week. I poured a lil honey on it, ate that thing to the core, put the seeds in my pocket.

And then did as I was told. Blindfold on and head back.

We rode for thirty-three minutes listening to John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme .

Sometimes when you’re blindfolded, thirty minutes can feel like thirty hours, but when you are blindfolded with Coltrane, time stops.

A love supreme. A love supreme. A love supreme.

I dozed off into a dream about ME. In it, we walked through a river together like Ms. Harriett, with water up to our waists, then chests, then chins.

As we crossed to the other side, something suddenly pulled him under, and only his hand was reaching out for me as he bobbed up and down for air, but when I went to grab his hand.

.. I passed out and woke up. These apples really give you vivid dreams.

“You may remove your blindfold, madam,” the driver whispered as we pulled to a stop.

“And there’s your next letter.” He pointed to the door of an old stone mansion in the middle of nowhere.

I rubbed my eyes. All about the grounds, as far as my eye could see, were garden benches and wrought iron chairs and chaise lounges and fountains surrounded by a sea of winter wheat in mixed hues of browns and yellows.

“Is this still Philly?” I asked the driver, but he didn’t respond and just drove away.

When I opened the next letter, it read:

Welcome to My Junkyard: Where One Woman’s Junk Is Another Woman’s Treasure. When you are ready, ring my bell.

At the side of the door was an old bronze bell as tall as me.

I tapped it with the gong that hung by its side, and I felt the vibration throughout my body.

The bell made the oversized double doors open like the pearly gates, and I was welcomed into antique-furniture-store heaven.

Dressers and wardrobes, side tables and rugs, mirrors and lamps, vases and chairs, couches and paintings and sculptures and birdcages and buffets and headboards—room after room after room of the fanciest junk you’ve ever seen.

When I picked my mouth up off the floor, I began taking note of every item I wanted, as though my bookshop isn’t just one small room.

You know handcrafted furniture is my jam.

Where am I gonna put all this junk? I laughed.

After hours and hours and hours of uninterrupted browsing and totally forgetting I was on a date, I got to the fourth floor of the mansion and realized it was dark outside.

“Hello, my s-s-sister,” an elderly woman’s voice stuttered, but I didn’t see anyone around.

“Hello,” I said to the thin air.

“And y-you are knowing what you are w-w-wanting?” the voice asked.

I still had no idea where the voice was coming from. I assumed she was asking if I was ready to check out, so I started looking for my list. “Yes.”

“Did you find everything you ever wished for?” the voice said, emerging from behind a small bookshelf.

It belonged to a tiny four-foot-tall woman with pale silver eyes and bright silver hair.

She wore an off-white dress under an off-white coat that was much too long.

Her clothes dragged but somehow remained pristine.

I tried to hand her my list without getting too close (you know my issue), but she didn’t take it and just kept talking. “And you found th-th-things you never i-imagined.” That’s when I realized that perhaps she couldn’t see me.

“I can’t see you, but I feel you,” she told me, like she could read my mind.

“What do I feel like?” I was confused.

“You feel r-ready. Well, almost r-ready.”

I was ready, so I started to tell her the items on my list.

“I want books to be hidden everywhere in the bookshop—inside of drawers and under tables. Under things, between. I want the very act of looking for a book to be an adventure.”

She knew the story of each thing on my list.

“Gilt bronze and green-tinted glass, decorated with balusters, central four-light sconces, nineteenth century. Gilt bronze clock decorated with garlands (matched with two candelabra), Louis XVI style.”

I even found a cash register!

“Sit d-d-down,” she said to me, gesturing to an armchair. “I hear you are preparing to open a bookshop, but something tells me you believe that is a destination when it is simply the beginning of your path.”

“I want to open by February 1,” I told her. “And I have no books.”

She told me she knew my work. Hearing this continues to surprise me and made my ears perk up.

“My nephew talks about you,” she told me. “A lot.”

More shock, since I’ve only known ME for a few days.

“‘You say the path with no beginning is worth beginning,’” she quoted my book. “But you’re afraid?

“Give me your hand,” she said. “I’ll read your palm.” She reached her hand out for mine. But I froze.

“Sorry,” I said as I stood up to leave. “I can’t do that.”

I just wanted the furniture and to get back before it was too late. I didn’t want to hold hands, and I didn’t want to know the future.

“ME was training with a sifu,” she shared as though I’d asked.

“They didn’t do anything but sit at the Schuylkill staring at the river all day.

He stayed there for five, six, seven hours watching the water in silence.

Then one day his sifu said he didn’t think ME was ready to join the monkhood.

ME asked him why. He said because ME was still searching for himself.

” I hate when spiritual people speak in parables.

“ME told him he was ready, thinking maybe his sifu was testing him. The only thing he was searching for was the monkhood. He sold his possessions. He stopped eating meat. He meditated. How could he not be ready, he cried. But his sifu repeated that ME was still not ready and that he should consider another path, then got up and walked away. ME sat out there for another hour staring at the water, not sure what to do next. And what came to him was to create his own monkhood. Create his own way. Write his own code of conduct and live by it strictly every day. So ME will forever be a monk in training.”

I felt for him.

But his great-aunt said, “One more thing before you go. I want to show you my book.” She gestured for me to follow her to a bookcase that turned into a door that led us into the back of a small room.

I couldn’t understand how a blind woman had written a book, but she insisted I follow her to see. She had a large cabinet filled with vials and liquids and powders and roots and a book almost as large as herself opened on the table.

“Don’t look at my photos,” she said as she flipped through the pages. “This has been in our family for ages.”

“I won’t look,” I promised, more confused, because why would she show me something if she didn’t want me to see?

“And these are my formulas,” she said, pointing at the vials of different-colored liquids and powders.

“Everything we need to heal or kill on this earth is right here under our noses. Your elders are here to help you,” she continued.

“You just have to learn to listen. Now run along.” She stopped herself abruptly.

“This room is not for everyone. Take the cash register. And leave your list.” She was unfazed by my obvious startle.

“We’ll have your things delivered tomorrow.

ME will be there to help you. Good night. ”

“But I haven’t paid,” I said.

“ME has,” she said. “He is very generous in that way. But like yourself, he has a lot of... issues. Who you love is always a reflection of you.”

And then the elderly woman said, “The next envelope is in your bag.” I never saw her slip it in there.

Or maybe she’d had it all along. On one side was a black-and-white photo filled with women who looked like her and dressed like her in all white, with their head wraps and bare feet.

They were all of a certain age. Like a yearbook of grandmothers in their back in the days.

The Shopkeeper thought the woman quite beautiful.

One woman looked just like her; another looked like Sister Sonia.

“That was in our younger days,” his aunt said. “Me and my literary society of sisters. Flip it over. Your letter from ME is on the other side.”

The letter read:

I hope you enjoyed our second date. It’s not over. See you tomorrow!

Ok. So, Elle, tell me your thoughts.

He is a quite complicated character, right?

I don’t know if I am mixed up in something sweet or sinister. So like I said, it’s like a Choose Your Own Adventure story.

What do you think?

Love,

Your Sister Friend, Gee