Gloria was stocking a new book delivery. Slowly.
“You know you can read those whenever you want to, right? It’s not like once they are on the shelf you can’t touch them anymore.”
“Sorry, I know I’m slow, I just keep getting distracted! I want to read them all. Right now.”
Adele laughed, “I get it. Why do you think I own a bookstore? It was honestly less expensive than buying everything I wanted to read. Well, I mean, I guess I did buy everything I wanted to read, just all at once.”
Gloria smiled at her boss, “I really do love this job. I just want you to know. I know a lot of people hate coming to work, but it’s one of my favorite things. I’m actually kind of disappointed that I will have to go back to parttime when school starts again.”
“You are always welcome here, any hours you can work, or just to hang out and read if you want. I like the company as well as the help. But now I need you to get those books on the shelf so I can sell them and keep the lights on!”
“Got it, boss!”
Gloria got back to unpacking the latest shipment. Monday night was her favorite night of the week. Right after close they got to open the boxes marked DO NOT OPEN UNTIL… and see what new releases were out. She often had a book or two she was looking forward to and knew it was in one of those boxes, but other times she was completely surprised. Either by a brand-new release or by the next in a series she didn’t realize was coming. She also felt like she was getting away with something by opening and reading a little bit Monday night even though the official release wasn’t until Tuesday.
It was like Christmas every week. Especially because Adele would have a cup of peppermint tea waiting for her as soon as she finished. They would sit together and drink their tea and talk about the new releases. Not just because they both loved books, but because they needed to know what was out and what they were about as soon as the doors opened on Tuesday. Working in the bookstore was a lot like working in a library that way. People assumed if you were behind the counter you knew about every book in the place.
She didn’t. But she was trying to.
“Other than missing seeing me every day, are you ready for a new semester?”
“I am. I’m only carrying three classes, but they will be intense, and then all that is left is shadowing for a semester to get my teaching license.”
“And are you excited about starting that?”
“I have always wanted to be an English teacher.”
“That’s not exactly an answer.”
Gloria smiled, “I guess it isn’t. I mean I’ve wanted to be an English teacher since I was in elementary school. It’s all I’ve ever thought about doing. I love books, I love to read, I love to talk about them, I always have. Ellie is going to be a writer and I am going to be a teacher. That’s always been the plan.”
Adele nodded, “I’ve found that sometimes when we get what we always wanted, we find that it was what we wanted, not what we want.”
Gloria drank her tea and thought about what Adele was saying. She would be lying if she said she hadn’t had doubts about teaching at times. That sometimes teaching seemed like a dream she used to have. A path that she saw when she didn’t realize there were a lot of paths to choose.
“It would be a little late to change now. I’m almost through with school and my scholarship wouldn’t cover another four years.”
“So, you have actually thought about doing something else. It’s not always been teaching.”
“Ellie is so sure about being a writer. Everything she does is to push her in that direction. Classes she takes. Clubs she joins. People she seeks out to talk to. It’s all in the service of being a writer. Which, I’ve done a lot of that toward teaching as well. Really single minded about classes and what would make me a better English teacher especially. But the difference seems to be that she’s really joyful about it and I am really working at it. Does that make sense? Like I noticed last year that I was working on a paper for a class and really wanted to be doing anything else. Reading a book, watching a TV show, going for a walk, just anything. The paper was drudge work. Which I get it, sometimes classwork is like that. But Ellie never seems to have that problem.”
“Maybe she does and just hasn’t talked about it? Maybe she feels the same way you do but since you have both ‘always’ wanted to be these things she feels like she would be letting you down to admit maybe she wants something different?”
“No, not Ellie. She’s scrupulously honest about everything. If she had doubts, she’d tell me. And trust that I would understand.”
“And yet, you don’t trust her for the same?”
“No, I totally trust her I…” Gloria stopped. She hadn’t trusted Ellie to talk to her about maybe not wanting to teach. She had never stopped her when she described their plans, Ellie was going to write, Gloria was going to teach. It had always been the plan.
“I think maybe, it’s that I just didn’t want her to know that maybe I don’t want this. Maybe teaching will be great, but maybe it won’t. That, if I could, I would try something else, but I don’t have the freedom to do that. Not like Ellie. She could tell her parents she wanted to pursue 12 more degrees and they would just write the check and let her do it. I need to get a job as soon as graduation is over. I need to have one lined up before graduation actually. I don’t have the freedom she does. I think I didn’t want to tell her because I didn’t want to make her feel bad about that. Or maybe I didn’t want to seem jealous. Which I’m not. I mean not really. I’m envious. Which is the one that’s okay? Jealousy or envy? I can never remember.”
“The one that’s “okay” is the one that you are feeling at the time. The one that motivates you to make any changes you want to. And sometimes no changes. You can be envious of something someone has, or does, without even wanting it for yourself. We’re complicated beings you know. I think maybe there are few books around here that talk about that.”
“That’s true. Thank you.”
Adele took one last sip of her tea before getting up to leave, “There are multiple ways to be a teacher you know.”
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