Page 8 of It’s Me They Follow

A fter reading the letter and having started her fast with ME, The Shopkeeper got testy and tested. She went through withdrawal. She was not kind. Without coffee and hot food, just apples and water, she had the shakes and the jitters, and kept running to the restroom to “release the toxins.”

Again, the writers’ group wondered why she did these things, but these are the things she did.

However, fasting had its upside. It heightened her senses and gave her fantastic dreams. It was fasting that helped her sense that the lady delivering her awning from Signarama had That Energy even before the lady hopped out of her oversized truck with its huge yellow crane.

She just had that look about her. Big and gruff, with a fur vest and a fur hat—That Energy, The Shopkeeper called it.

No matter what, The Shopkeeper couldn’t open the door for That Energy because it would be touchy, and she didn’t want it too close.

But then That Energy started tapping incessantly on the bookshop’s front glass with her keys like she didn’t see The Shopkeeper standing inside. “I am here to install your awning.” The woman grew annoyed. “Open this door.”

“Hi there,” The Shopkeeper said, opening the door a crack. “I am not trying to be rude. But are you touchy?”

“Touchy.” That Energy’s inner teddy bear turned grizzly. That Energy was taken aback. “Yeah, I have been told that a time or two.” She put her hands on her hips.

“I can tell.” The Shopkeeper should have kept that to herself.

“Excuse me?” That Energy’s eyes grew beady.

“I mean, you look warm and fuzzy, like a teddy bear, and I can tell you give lots of hugs. I am not saying that you’re easily irritated, ignorant, and mean-spirited like a grizzly.” The Shopkeeper tried to de-escalate.

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, I have this thing about touch.” The Shopkeeper tried to explain some more.

“I’m not sure what you’re implying here. But I am not trying to touch you, ma’am. I am trying to install your awning.”

“Yes, I get that, but...”

“Ma’am, believe me, you are not my type, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

“No, that’s not what I was thinking at all.”

“Do you want this thing installed or not?”

“I do, but...”

“But you don’t want me to touch you. Got it. Never was gonna touch you, ma’am. I was gonna ask to see your books, but I won’t even ask now.” That Energy stormed toward her truck.

The Shopkeeper stormed toward the bathroom to release more toxins. ME was sitting back, trying not to interrupt or let anyone see him alone with her in the bookshop. He had only stopped by to drop off a few apples, but then they got to talking, and now they were stuck in stinky situation.

When she returned, the twenty-feet-wide, six-feet-tall awning was sitting on the sidewalk in front of her bookshop and blocking the door enough for it to only open a crack. That Energy was pulling off in her monster truck.

“Hey! Excuse me!” The Shopkeeper called out to That Energy. “Hey!!!!!” she screamed through the tiniest crack in the door, but That Energy was halfway down the block.

“What happened?” ME whispered from the back.

That Energy gave The Shopkeeper the middle finger and drove off.

“Touch that!” That Energy screamed.

“We’re stuck,” she whispered back to ME, not sure why they were whispering.

In silence, so ME couldn’t hear her, she had a temper tantrum, kicking, silent screaming, and punching at the air.

She was not proud of her response but could not stop herself.

“Is the coast clear?” ME asked.

But she had to tell him the truth. “You’re not going anywhere for some time.”

They were stuck in there, even though he was supposed to be heading to meet with his mother.

I’m being punished , he thought as he went into the bathroom to meditate, but instead he had a temper tantrum, punching and silent screaming at himself, feeling guilty for being in the bookshop yet again.

It was not their best moment. The fire department sirens snapped them both out of their self-torture, and the firefighters came to their rescue.

Just as a team of zealous firefighters jumped out of their bright red truck, it started to drizzle. The rain was the excuse The Shopkeeper needed to cry.

When it rains, it pours , her grandmother used to say.

And just like her grandmother had predicted, the rain started to pour.

The Shopkeeper couldn’t take another obstacle getting in the way of her opening her bookshop.

It took six waterlogged firefighters to move the rain-soaked awning enough for The Shopkeeper to open the door.

“Ma’am,” one firefighter shouted over the sound of the siren, the rain, and the wind smacking them all across their faces, “this can’t stay here on the sidewalk. It’s a fire hazard.”

That’s stating the obvious , The Shopkeeper thought as she stood there, face soaked with tears and rain, knowing ME was still stuck in the bathroom.

“I know,” she said, defeated. The Shopkeeper recognized this firefighter from the time someone had pushed her in front of the Joan of Arc statue downtown on Kelly Drive and she’d passed out at Joan’s gilded bronze feet.

He had wanted to put her on a stretcher and take her to the hospital, but she’d kept screaming, “Don’t touch me, don’t touch me!

” He’d refused to listen, and she’d kept passing out.

She almost ended up in a padded room because of him.

“You look familiar,” he said.

She shrugged, wiped her wet face, and hoped he didn’t recognize her.

“I am just trying to tell you, if someone trips over this thing...”

Who could trip over a big-ass awning? The Shopkeeper wanted to say, but instead nodded in agreement. She didn’t want it there on the sidewalk in the rain either.

“And I think there’s a typo,” shouted another firefighter. The awning was taller than him. The Shopkeeper didn’t understand why they couldn’t turn off that awful siren. People were starting to gather.

The Shopkeeper wanted to be excited. She was one step closer to opening.

She had a sign. She wanted to hug the awning with arms outstretched and kiss its bold white letters.

But instead, she was standing in the rain, listening to a firefighter give her an English lesson over the sound of a siren.

She’d asked for a sign and she’d gotten one, but if this was the sign, what did it mean?

The tiny firefighter continued.

“Are you Harriett? Where’s the apostrophe?

‘Harriett’s’ is a possessive noun,” he shouted, holding his glasses to his face, “implying ownership of the bookshop by Harriett, but you have no apostrophe, so it reads as though the bookshop belongs to multiple Harrietts, and even in that case, there’d be an apostrophe at the end denoting the ownership of the bookshop by multiple Harrietts.

I mean, it’s a bookshop, lady; the last thing you need is everybody laughing at you because of a grammatical mistake on your awning. ”

The Shopkeeper was wet. And cold. And hungry. And sad.

“Maybe it implies no possession at all. Maybe it’s more of a direction, like a command or an order for the Harrietts to Bookshop,” she shouted back.

“That’s a stretch,” said the tiny firefighter. “Then ‘bookshop’ would be two words.”

The Shopkeeper thanked the firefighters once more, and finally they left.

She then called Signarama, who said there was no way to replace the awning before her opening in twenty-six days.

But they could remove it, and she could push back her opening date.

She thought for a good long minute. But she kept hearing ME reading her poem out loud to her: The path with no beginning is worth beginning.

The path with no beginning is worth beginning.

“Let’s just push forward,” she said to Signarama. “They’ll get the point.”

That evening, after the rain, Signarama sent out a new delivery driver, who barely acknowledged her presence.

He popped the misspelled awning into place while she chewed apples and chugged water and released toxins with ME still hiding in the storage closet.

In less than an hour, the driver was done.

“Can you take my picture?” The Shopkeeper said to the installation guy. “Under my awning?” He reached for her phone. “No, you take it with your phone and send it to me.”

He did.

She sent the photo of herself, dripping wet under the awning, to her sister and said, “‘The path with no beginning is worth beginning. It’s worth it to walk, to stomp, to drag, or to DRIP.’” And finally, without speaking, ME left as well.