Chapter 8

Pearl woke up Saturday morning feeling refreshed. She fell asleep at 9 the previous night and had a full 12 hours of sleep. Needed. Meetings with her divorce lawyers, court, settling into her new place and juggling work and her band had really taken a toll. She was thankful she had finalized the divorce and was able to finally begin picking up the pieces. She had lost nearly everything. Her house, her furniture, her car. She could have fought for more but she wanted it over. She let him have everything. He was a controlling, awful man. He was her first love and all she had known, meeting him when she was only 20 and getting married at 23. It had been such a waste of her younger years. Living in that hell. Everything was her fault. She was questioned constantly and isolated from friends and family. Nothing felt safe, always on edge. Not that her family was that great to begin with. She never had a real relationship with her mom and her dad was a tyrant as well. She always felt little. And weak. Until the day she made up her mind to start a new life and get out of the marriage. She found texts from her ex husband to a woman that sealed the deal. He was having an affair. She started by getting a bank account in her name only and slowly putting aside money that wouldn't be noticed in her savings. Signed the lease on her small apartment. Then step by step, she made the moves to leave. When her ex husband left for his "business trip" with his younger girlfriend for the third time, she took what she could pack into small uhaul and left. Never looking back. It hasn't been easy, but she wouldn't have gotten as far as she did without courage.

She decided to stop off before band practice at her favorite used book store in the city. It was a bit of a drive but it was the best place on earth to her. An old brownstone building with exposed brick inside. Shelves of books line the walls on three floors and in the basement there were old magazines and newspapers. Stacks of other worlds and words everywhere you looked. The place smelled like old paper and leather. Faded oriental rugs covered the floor and vintage lamps and leather chairs were placed around to sit and read. She'd wasted many hours of her life there. Her favorites were the poets and classic 18th and 19th century romance. She was a sucker for the Brontes and the gritty poets like Bukowski and the sad ones like Plath. To her, books were a way to live many lives, mostly to escape her own. And this place was the heart of that love for her. She smiled and said hello to Frank, the owner, sitting at his desk at the front, and started back toward the classics section. There was a first edition copy of Jane Eyre there last time that she couldn't afford til payday and she had come to claim it. But just as she made her way back to the corner of the section where the book was, her eyes found him. Standing in the poetry section, thumbing though a copy of Bukowski's "The night torn mad with footsteps". Her favorite by the writer.

He was young, definitely younger than her, dressed in jeans with holes and a white linen shirt tucked in the front with a brown leather jacket over it. His hair was dark brown, almost black and hung in loose ringlets to his shoulders. He was wearing what looked like very expensive boots. He may have been the most beautiful man she had ever seen, in person. He glanced her way and his eyes met hers. They were so blue she was sure they were contacts. She was flushed, she could feel it. She looked down and started toward the other side of the shelf, trying to seem unaffected. She peeked through the books and noticed he was coming closer, still thumbing through the book he was reading. She couldn't resist and blurted out, "One of my favorite books. Bukowski. He was such an amazing writer and poet. He wrote working man's poetry, you know? Dark. Dirty. A bit of a beatnik even. But it's the times that he transcends that make him such a genius. Like in "A Song With No End" she paused and recited from memory,

"when Whitman wrote, "I sing the body electric"

I know what he

meant

I know what he

wanted:

to be completely alive every moment

in spite of the inevitable.

we can't cheat death but we can make it

work so hard

that when it does take

us

it will have known a victory just as

perfect as

ours."

Pearl blushed at her outburst and realized she was coming across as an absolute weirdo. But who cares? It was a wonderful book of poetry and she was happy to pay it the homage. He looked at her for a moment, almost with a look of pride and surprise, then smiled. "What's your name?" He asked, his voice deep and rich, electric even. "Pearl" she replied, shyly. "I'm sorry for the outburst."

"Pearl, I'm Rhys. And it's lovely to meet you and your outburst." He replied with a smile. A beautiful smile. She smiled back, "nice to meet you too"

"Pearl. I really like that name. In high school, we had to read The Scarlet Letter. Pearl was the name of their child, right? Great book. What a love story. I read these books and poets from the past and I wonder sometimes, was love just that more intense back then or do we just not want to discuss it anymore? Have we lost something?" Whoa. Where did this guy come from? Planet Perfect Male? "I think love was and always will be what these writers describe it as. Not many believe in it anymore, which is sad. Too much convenience adorned in what love is supposed to be. I mean, men used to write love letters longer than college thesis's and now they just send pics of their penises to women hoping to grab their attention. It's really sad. " Pearl said, and she meant it. She'd had zero dates since her separation a year earlier and most of her offers included creepy messages from randos on her messenger and drunk guys hitting on her at the gigs. She looked young for 35. She was petite, 5' nothing and had long brown wavy hair. She wasn't much over 100 lbs, since her leaving her marriage was probably the best and worst diet she's ever been on. Her eyes were steel grey and she was told, more than once, that she was a dead ringer for Jennifer Lawrence. She didn't see it. She had very little self esteem from being with her ex husband. She always felt fat. Old. Unattractive. It would probably take years to undo that damage. And she knew life was short. She had to begin the healing now before it was too late.

Rhys smiled in an agreeing way. "So Pearl with the beautiful eyes, do you come here often?" He said as cliche as possible. "I do, in fact. I practically live here. Lol. You can't tell I'm a huge book nerd? " she replied with a laugh and wasn't joking in the slightest. "I can tell you are a lot of things." Rhys replied dead pan, without smiling. It was an intense reply. She looked at him with a sideways glance and shyly walked further down the aisle, toward the book she came there for. She found it and opened the front to look at the price again. Was it worth 300 dollars? She never really treated herself. Box hair dye and the same clothes she's had for years. She rarely went out to eat and the second job playing gigs helped. She decided to do it. She looked behind her and he was gone. She walked around through the store a little, hoping to see the beautiful man again. "Looks like he left." She said to herself. Oh well, what a beautiful moment in time. She could have those now. Those brief meetings. Shared glances. She was on her own and it never felt better. She headed up to Frank's desk and put a couple of books on his desk that she had grabbed along with the first edition. He bagged them up and told her to have a great day. "Wait, I need to pay for them" she said. "No, it was already taken care of by the young man that left a bit ago. He left some money and said what was left he'd like to donate to the shop. Oh and he left this for you, too "