Page 6 of It’s Me They Follow

Dear Elle,

A sweet-smelling bearded guy came into the bookshop the other day. Turns out his name is ME.

I know last I wrote, I was “dating” youknowwho again, who we both agreed I need not date, and youknowwhy.

I finally did block youknowwho. I am twenty-one days clean of him, so I am pretty sure he’s out of my system. But it wouldn’t be the first time I went back after twenty-one days, so pray for me. Pain can be an addiction, like tattoos.

Whenever I want to call youknowwho, I listen to tarot readings on YouTube, and the readings are so good because you can make them mean whatever you want, and I make them mean that I passed that youknowwho test with flying colors.

Let’s play a game. Choose your favorite reason why I blocked youknowwho this time from the multiple-choice options below.

Option A

YOUKNOWWHO: I can’t be sitting in no library with you. I gotta get to some paper.

GEE: But why not just tell me? I was walking around looking for you.

YOUKNOWWHO: You looked so happy.

GEE: You said you wanted me to help you write your book.

YOUKNOWWHO: I didn’t want you to write it with me; I want you to write it for me.

GEE: But you were my ride home.

YOUKNOWWHO: I left you the bus fare.

GEE: I can’t ride a crowded bus.

YOUKNOWWHO: Ahh, get over yourself before I tap you and knock you out.

Or

Option B

YOUKNOWWHO: Can I use your shop for tonight?

GEE: It’s not open yet.

YOUKNOWWHO: I know. I wanted to throw a kickback in that jawn. Start getting your name out there.

GEE: No thanks.

YOUKNOWWHO: You never let anyone help you, then you wonder why you can’t be helped.

GEE: That’s just not the kind of help I need.

YOUKNOWWHO: Nobody can give you the kind of help you need.

GEE: Really?

Or

Option C

YOUKNOWWHO: What’s your blood type?

GEE: Why?

YOUKNOWWHO: I might need a kidney for real. You know kidney failure runs in my family.

GEE: A whole kidney?

YOUKNOWWHO: Yup.

If I would have kept going with youknowwho, eventually I’d have been taking care of him, his books, his wife, and his kids, without my left kidney, and still not getting any of his “good hammer,” as he calls it. Not even a kiss without passing out. Ugh.

So glad the cards told me that youknowwho was a thing of the past and that I will open the bookshop on time and that I have indeed found my soulmate in ME.

That brings me to ME.

He came to the bookshop the other morning like a customer, but you know we aren’t open yet.

Turns out he is a sweet-smelling early-thirties monk in training. I think between his smell and his style and his smile, I am under his spell. He dresses like the sensei in The Karate Kid , all black everything.

ME had read my book already and memorized some of it.

Not even sure how that’s possible. But it felt nice to be seen.

And even if he was just love bombing me, I was quite impressed—youknowwho would never.

And where youknowwho, with his dirty, corroded nails, smelled like sex, sweat, lies, and manipulation, ME smelled like sanctuary and sanctification.

Then randomly, the next night, I ran into ME at Shakespeare and Co. downtown after my writing class. He said he was meeting up with his mom and his sister, and it was so weird. For a second, I felt like he was cheating on my bookshop, but oddly it looked like I was cheating on my own bookshop too.

I was there doing research on how bookstores are run.

This Shakespeare and Co. is three stories tall and something like a hotel.

It has a mural that reads Be Not Inhospitable to Strangers, Lest They Be Angels in Disguise behind the register.

It has an on-demand printing machine in the lobby.

It has a lobby! GORGEOUS! And author talks every night.

Turns out The Good Doctor has a talk coming up.

ME pointed at her photo and grinned, said he knew her work well.

Asked did I want to go to her talk. But I don’t particularly like The Good Doctor’s writing, so I said no.

Anyway, I was carrying my books (long story) piled high, like books up to my chin, in the third bookstore in one day, and out of the corner of my eye, in a back corner, I saw ME reading August Wilson’s How I Learned What I Learned .

I turned around to leave, thinking he was tired of me, but he said, “Hey, Ms. Harriett, need something?” as I was about to walk out.

“Hey.” I blushed, knowing I’d been caught by him once again.

He canceled plans with his mom and sister, and we had tea at a diner called Paradise up the street from the bookshop. He helped me carry my books—youknowwho would never.

We drank, like, nine cups of mint tea at Paradise and talked about my book because I’d told him he had the last copy, and there I was, walking with so many more. I tried to explain what happened, but it didn’t make much sense.

So like the cards predicted, I might be in love with ME, who is actually a monk in training.

Don’t say I fall in love with anyone who shows me a tiny bit of attention.

I know. I know. His rules say he can’t touch or be touched.

I told him about my thing with touch, which is kind of the same. He said I was the yin to his yang.

So he came back to the bookshop with me from Paradise because he didn’t want me walking by myself in Fishtown.

Again, youknowwho would never with his cruddy nails and crusty hands and selfish ways.

ME had to use the bathroom after all that mint tea, and he was carrying my books.

And he started to sing “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It.

” Everyone knows “Summertime,” who knows “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It”?

I did the Will Smith shoulder shimmy (you know, you know the shoulder shimmy).

He knew all the words—even the verses—and then wanted to break down what they meant.

I almost patted him on the back while I was laughing at his explanations (Why would Will Smith say he moved his mother to the outskirts of Philadelphia when his responsibility is to make Philly better?), but I caught myself.

(That would have been a huge mistake if I ended up sprawled out in a skirt in the middle of Girard Avenue because ME had me getting jiggy wit it.)

We were breaking all the rules just being in the bookshop together, as apparently, according to his monks-in-training rule book, he isn’t allowed to be alone with me.

I kept all the lights off so no one would see us.

But we could see ourselves reflected in the glass.

He apologized profusely for breaking the rules.

“I don’t want you to think of me as the kind of monk who breaks the rules.”

“Those aren’t my rules,” I told him. “No need to apologize to me. And you’re not a monk; you’re only a monk in training.

” I told him to apologize to himself. He told me that when his thirty-day fast was up, he was set to leave for his sabbatical, but thought he needed to make an exception so he could come to the opening of the bookshop.

February 1. Elle, write it down. I’ll never forgive you if you don’t come.

And that was it, no hug nor a handshake—though for the first time in my life I wished we could have—but we did try the assignment I got in writing class.

You should try this one with your new boo.

I asked him to give me one whole minute of eye contact.

He checked his rule book to see if it was allowed.

There was no rule about eye contact. We started off wiggly but went for way longer than a minute.

Way longer! Then we just sat there, and time stopped while it also flew by.

When it was over, I wanted a shower, and he said he wanted a hug. I told him that my grandmother used to say, We don’t always get what we want, but we do get what we need.

He said, “DEEP,” when I said stuff like that. That was his word for everything. “DEEP.”

We were up all night, laughing about haikus and Jill Scott and the Philadelphia Experiment, and he started telling me he doesn’t understand Sonia Sanchez—he’s, like, he hates the repetition. I told him that one man’s repetition is another woman’s rhythm.

And I was telling him how I don’t like flowery language, like, get to the point.

I put him onto “Haiku and Tanka for Harriett”—you know, the part that says Picture her rotating / the earth into a shape / of lives becoming ...

He told me he didn’t get that line. I told him I wasn’t the only one touched by Ms. Harriett; I suspected Ms. Harriett had visited Sister Sonia a time or two.

Ms. Harriett isn’t a person; she’s a spirit who travels, I told him, reminding us how to free ourselves, even from ourselves. “DEEP,” he said again.

Then he wanted to hear something of mine, the last thing I’d written.

The last thing I wrote in the writers’ group was only three words long.

I read it to him anyway: NEVER BEEN KISSED.

He stared at my lips a good long while after I said that.

But it turns out, whenever he hears my work, even something that short, his legs turn to putty.

I was like, What if he passes out? Can I touch him?

Please? Can I give him mouth-to-mouth? Please?

And it’s like, what kinda touch-deprived freak is getting excited about mouth-to-mouth with a passed-out monk?

Instead, I gave him an apple (which he said helped quite a bit), and I gave him a signed copy of Conversations with Harriett .

I walked him to the door so we could watch the sunrise together.

Good morning. Good evening. And good night.

Before he left, he asked me to fast with him to cleanse blockages and remove all obstacles.

He told me he fasted for thirty days every year, I told him that sounded like a disorder, but I would drink air for thirty days if it helped me get the bookshop open on time.

He said it helped him to see the beauty in all things.

But nothing quite as beautiful as me. He’s poetic, right? Like August Wilson.

So expect a few hangry letters. I have to be the first one in the grocery store tomorrow to beat the crowds, but I’ll be all fresh fruits, veggies, and water until I open the bookshop. Wish me luck.

PS: The tarot cards say all is well with you too—Empress card. Fruitful. I trust that’s true.

Love,

Your Sister Friend, Gee