Long Beach, Oceanside, San Diego… All great!
But Santa Monica is just so chill. I mean, it’s fair to say, since I’ve been to ITALY now, I’ve never experienced anything like SM. It’s more than the pier or the beach or the crazy-good restaurants everywhere. It’s more than Nico. Or my family.
Santa Monica is this secret that I haven’t fully unlocked yet. It’s the kind of place that, once you’re here, you never leave.
Wes pops his head into Brews and Views. He spots Kyra and waves.
“Welcome back, Crusher,” she says, tucking a few of her big, loose curls behind her ear. Kyra is one of the rare people who gets his name’s Star Trek reference.
Wes smiles apologetically, nodding his head in the direction of the bookstore.
“You’re late.” She wipes down a table. “You’re never late.”
“Jet lag,” he says as an explanation.
Kyra puckers her mouth. “You’re letting Ella influence you,” she says with just enough accusation to make Wes yelp.
“How dare.”
“Go open the store,” she says, shooing him away with her rag. “They’ve missed you.”
Wes sprints away without another word. It takes him a few turns of the key to jiggle the front door open. The lock has always been trouble. In his peripheral vision, the neon BOOKS sign shines like the North Star. Its pinkness makes him think of Mrs. Rossi and her vintage vibe, the one he fell in love with when he was eight years old.
Mrs. Rossi, like the bookstore, is some unrealistic version of perfect. She’s a second mom to him. Some weekends, he finds a way to her house for home-cooked meals. Occasionally, he stays late at the bookstore just to listen to her recount stories from an era he knows nothing about.
“Home sweet home,” he announces while flicking on the store’s lights.
Rows and rows of deep, red oak shelves overflow with paperbacks and hardcovers. Bookcases line the walls and stretch into the store, connecting like Legos in the center. An endcap display of novels, every cover a different color of the rainbow, awaits customers near the front. It’s a Pride presentation that Anna helped Wes with before he left for Italy. He grins at it as he passes.
He follows the thinning gray carpet toward the back. On the way is a showcase of all the latest teen apocalyptic-dystopian-fantasy sagas. Each one has a title that starts with “Shadow” or “Queen” or “Dark.” There’s a generic theme Wes isn’t commenting on.
In a back corner of the store is an office. The desk is a cluttered mess, one that only Mrs. Rossi can navigate. He unlocks the safe and grabs the till before exiting. Beside the office is a shoebox-sized bathroom and, thankfully, it doesn’t reek. Wes would hate to spend his first day back scolding Ella over that.
He pauses at another section of the store. Wes’s mecca, his Holy Grail, is the comics corner. It’s common law amongst all employees at Once Upon a Page that this is Wes’s territory. Do not touch. Wes has a system. He’s got a sixth sense if anyone’s messed with it. There might’ve been a mild tantrum—or five epic ones—in the past over people not respecting DC Comics domination.
His left eye twitches when he spots an Incredible Hulk comic overlapping a Green Lantern one. He almost drops the till. “Later, Wes,” he whispers after a deep breath. “Fix it later.”
He gave Nico one job while he was gone. One job.
Behind the front counter are a shelf stereo system and plastic bins filled with old compact discs, all the best stuff from the late ‘80s through the ‘90s. Outside the bookstore, Wes listens to everything on his phone or laptop, but the employees have a strict policy: If it’s not on CD, it’s not being played.
Wes has enough time to grab the Blue Album by Weezer and press play. At promptly nine a.m., he props the front door open to inhale the summer scents. “My Name Is Jonas,” with its acoustic guitar intro, floats from the stereo into the street. Wes kicks his feet up on the front counter while checking his horoscope on his phone:
“There is a potential romantic interest in your life, Capricorn, and today is the day! Sparks are about to fly between you! This encounter could change your life.”
Wes doesn’t believe in horoscopes; he reads them for fun, but… Sparks are about to fly between you! Clearly, the universe is on his side. He smells clean, his hair is at least four-star-level Yelp-worthy, and he’s wearing his lucky Green Lantern T-shirt.
He says to no one, “This is going to be the awesomest of awesome days.”
By noon, Wes’s perception of awesome has decidedly taken a giant belly flop off Reality Cliff.
“How do you not have a copy of that book?”
“Sir,” Wes says through his teeth, “I’m sorry. We don’t carry—”
“But it’s the foremost research book on alien probing!”
Wes’s mouth flattens into a thin line; his eyebrows droop into a frown. Mr. X-Files—it’s what Wes is mentally calling this douchebag—is one of several customers who have royally ruined his morning. The universe, being the ultimate tease, gave Wes one very quiet customer during his first hour. Then the Hellmouth opened and in came the early lunch rush. Everyone needed his attention or a special order or, like Mr. X-Files, considered anyone in retail a personal punching bag.
“Oh, if you loved that series, let me introduce you to this one. Pirates, ships, and enemies-to-lovers-to-possible-enemies-again romance,” gushes Mrs. Rossi as she leads a woman through the aisles.
Mrs. Rossi arrived an hour ago in a blast of lily-scented perfume and charm. She reminds Wes a lot of Frenchy from Grease—the movie version, since Wes has never seen a live musical. Mrs. Rossi is bubbly, a bit spacy, and not-so-accidentally dyes her hair cotton candy pink just like Frenchy. While she entertains customers with jokes and wide-eyed excitement, Wes is stuck dealing with Mr. X-Files, whose breath smells of raw onions and desperation.
“Sir, would you like me to order it—”
“I need it now,” argues Mr. X-Files. “This research is vital.”
“Really?” Wes raises a curious eyebrow at this guy’s ‘It’s all good in the hood’ E.T. T-shirt. He’s not judging; just observing.
Mr. X-Files relents with a grunt. “How long will delivery take?”
“For this book?” Wes clicks around on the store’s semi-ancient desktop computer. “Ten business days.”
“That’s a millennium.”
Wes peeks past Mr. X-Files to his comics corner. A young teen with honey-blond hair, green eyes, and a healthy distribution of freckles across their cheeks looks undecided between a Deadpool graphic novel and a Harley Quinn one. Every inch of Wes wants to scream. That’s where he should be, instead of listening to this onion-breath monster’s ranting.