Lately, there’s a girl in the place I work in who sleeps inside the shop.

She would come around early afternoon, just after lunch. The boss, the owner and my grandmother, already knows her by face, and would greet her with a smile. She would greet in turn, but not with words or even a smile. Instead, she’d bow slightly towards her direction then head straight to the stairs leading to the first floor, as if nothing was displayed in the ground floor at all.

The bookshop is just one small flat, cramped between huge commercial buildings in that vague zone that divides the urban and the suburban areas, with a one-way alley on its right for delivery trucks. It’s one of the oldest establishments in the neighbourhood, and has been in our family for generations.

It has three storeys, the first two for the shop, and the top as our living quarters. The boss manages the ground floor while I take care of the first. Though on few occasions I go downstairs to help her unload new arrivals and reorganize the displays. Today is one of those days, and it’s my first time seeing the girl come into the shop.

“That young lady rarely smiles, you know,” the boss says as we watch her quiet figure amble along the displays. The stockroom is at the very back, behind the checkout counter. We’ve opened the door just wide enough so we can still see the shop while we unload the boxes. But I guess it’s not wide enough for the girl to notice us in here. She just walks straight past, without even looking for any signs of life. The boss unpacks new batches of general fiction. “The only times I see her smile is when I try to strike a conversation while I reserve her books, and that’s only because she’s too nervous to reply.”

“She reserves books?” I echo. I never noticed her carry away one or two when she’s on my floor.

“Why, yes. Always, actually,” she confirms. “She wanders around here a bit; reserves a book or two before she leaves.”

Always, huh. I thought she just comes here to sleep. I wonder what she reserves, the type of books she’s into...

The boss seems silent all of a sudden. There’s an awkward pause in the conversation. I glance at her, and she’s grinning at me.

“What?” I go back to wrapping my batch of books with clear plastic.

“Oh, nothing,” she says in a playful tone. “It’s just that I was thinking my grandson may perhaps be interested in the young lady.”

I freeze up, almost cutting myself with the cutter.

“Ah! Bull’s eye.” She makes a weird Western accent.

“What? No! No,” I stutter, pushing my glasses up. “I was just curious, is all. Something wrong with that?”

She sighs, counting the copies of the novel she just unpacked. “Well, I don’t blame you. She is quite pretty. Not to mention, bountiful too.”

I shrug off her comments and place the book I just finished wrapping on my left. There’s four more books on the pile. I glance over to my right, and there’s ten more to go. I sigh, catching myself reacting the same way as the boss did. Why are teen fiction novels so popular nowadays? Especially with a lot of authors mixing more fairy tale elements into the plot, it’s booming more than ever. It’s like my friend who likes spicy foods, and for him everything spicy is infinitely better than non-spicy foods. Meanwhile, I still can’t bring myself to torture my mouth with a taste that just hurts.

And because of these mysterious trends in the literary industry, I now have to wrap 15 copies of a book that may never even make the general British Library catalogue.

I comb my hair up and grab another copy.

The girl started appearing around the time I entered my first semester as a second-year university student. At first, she would visit every day. But after a month and a half, the visits reduced to at least once a week. I started focusing on my subjects more and helping less in the shop. And because of my schedule, the times when I can see her lessen, especially when she has no fixed days in a week of when she’ll come by. It has become more difficult than ever to catch her in the flesh.

But when I do, she’s always at her favourite spot in the reading section upstairs, nodding off next to the ‘big eyes’.

The reading section is like a small clearing between the labyrinthine shelves of the first floor. Only two tables, each with four seats, compose the space. While the wooden stairs that wrap around the antique lift are at the back corner of the shop, the reading section is up front, next to the ‘big eyes’. We call those windows as such because they look like a pair of dark glass eyes overlooking the street below, an unusual design choice for an Edwardian-style flat. It’s also the tallest ones in the building, around two-thirds the height of the wall, arcing at the ceiling. The boss installed a dark tint on them to keep the harmful sunlight from degrading the books any further.

I’ve never actually seen her face up close. And there have been so many times where I could have, but never dared. Sometimes it’s because maybe she'll hear me coming and think me a creep, but most times it’s just me thinking it’s rude. Especially when she’s asleep, I’ll feel like a pathetic stalker if I stare at her for too long.

Thinking back, it’s not too hard to see her face with the way she nods off. She's not the type to fold her arms on the table so she could lay her head on it, nor does she cross her arms and lean back like a tired person would in the tube.

Instead, she would just sit there, as if she was still reading, but had nodded off somewhere along the lines. Hands resting on an open book before her, her mind drifts further from the waking state, and she would slowly lean against the window, like a feather landing softly on surface.

It’s such a picturesque scene; all that’s left is a moment of sunlight to stream into the windows to touch her profile once more. Her oval glasses slightly gleaming in the light and shrouding her expression, short light brown hair floating above her shoulders and framing her face, exposing her pale slender neck and the glowing curvatures of her collarbones.

She'll look stunningly translucent in a spectacle of pure illuminated stagnance. Ah, now that’s pretty.

“Pretty?”

I turn to the boss. She has a confused expression directed at me. I think I just thought out loud again. I fluster away from her.

She huffs. “You think those books are pretty? Oh please, love. Stick to the classics. You won’t find anything new in those rubbish.” She gestures at the book I'm holding. It’s a copy of the teen novel I’ve just finished wrapping. It’s the last one.

“Ah, no, this isn’t what I’m thinking about.” I place it with the rest.

The boss comes over and places a new pile on my right. “Then what are you thinking about?” She’s grinning again, as if she just read my mind.

I turn away. “It’s nothing.” The words come out more like a mumble to myself than an answer.

I gather all of the wrapped books and lumber out the cramped stockroom. Urgh, this always happens, I think too much and I lose track of time and everything else around me. It’s annoying; it’s like a losing little chunk of life I should be enjoying, only to waste it recreating stuff that'll never even happen. I should really train myself to focus more on the present, or else that narcoleptic girl might catch me off guard instead.

My hands slip a bit, causing the pile of books I’ve been carrying to drop loudly on the counter. I hear a squeak, and I panic. Huh? Did I just catch a mouse? I look around the pile. It doesn’t seem to be slanting like there’s something caught underneath.

My eyes wander off the counter, and see chiffon fabric blooming towards me. I look up, and there she is, right in front of me. It’s the girl.

I almost choke on my own breath.

Honey-coloured eyes looking up at me from beneath those bangs, her hair looks fluffier up close, puffing a bit that it almost looks like a hamster’s cheeks. There’s a ribbon clipped on the side of her head. She hides half her face with a book.

“Is there anything I can help you with?” I manage to say. I give her the best smile I could muster.

And as soon as I do, she quickly averts her gaze elsewhere. She's doesn’t reply, and just looks around. For a moment I dread maybe there’s something on my face, but then I realize she must be looking for the boss. I’m almost always upstairs, so seeing me down here must be unusual for her. I turn to the stockroom, about to call for help, but the door’s closed shut. Boss!

“Uhm,” I hear her speak. I turn back to her, and she’s staring down at the counter. I can’t see her expression. “This book…” She mutters, but I couldn’t hear the rest of it. It’s like her voice just faded.

“Sorry? Could you repeat that again?” I lean in close, but she suddenly jumps away. I’m startled too. My body stiffens. “I-I’m sorry,” I blurt out.

“N-No, I’m sorry…” Her voice trembles with her whole body. Our eyes make contact. For a long moment we’re just staring at each other, my heart pounding louder in my chest. I, I don’t know what to do with her.

“I’m sorry!” She blurts out, bowing ridiculously low then bustling away, the book still covering half her face as she retreats upstairs. The girl rarely wears clothes that exposes her figure, and I always see her in long skirts and loose dresses. But today she wears a chiffon top and a high-waist velvet skirt, clearly emphasizing her curves. Not to mention her black thigh-high socks…

“You scared away the cat!” The boss elbows me.

“I’m sorry,” I say again without thinking. I’m still dumbfounded.

“Didn’t I just tell you that young lady’s not good with people? I give you one chance to get close to her yet here you are scaring her away.”

“… I didn’t mean to,” I mumble. I feel too guilty to even argue. My first conversation with her and it all went to hell. I review the event over and over in my head, but the more I repeat it the more I regret looking at her face. She was so scared of me. Now she’ll never come here again because of me. I can never face her ever again.

The boss ruffles my hair. “Aw, perk up, love. If she comes by again, you can just treat her for a cuppa then apologize.” She grabs my hands and slaps the clipboard on them. “That is, if you can even approach her.” She chuckles.

I don’t realize I was cradling my head in my hands until she grabbed them. I stare at the clipboard. Written on it is a rundown of all the new publications and their number of copies. The ones encircled in pencil are those I have to wrap in plastic. There are four new novels, with ten copies each. “Right.” I bonk the board on my face and trudge off. “I’m hiding in the stockroom.”

“And please tidy up the room before you go to out, love.” She calls before I close the door behind me.

I sigh, leaning against the door. I take my glasses off and rub my face on my sleeves.

(to be continued...)