Welcome In

Two young girls came to the bookstore this evening. They were no older than eight years old and probably sisters, or friends that sub as family. I remember the color of the jackets that they wore to brace against the limp cold outside. One was purple and taller with long brown hair and the other yellow with red polkadots and a shorter bob. I saw them first on the sidewalk, through the glass doors while I sat at the register. They were alone which concerned me, but they looked calm and as if their adults were close so I went back to my reading, paying half attention to their loitering. A few moments later they entered. As with every customer who enters the store I welcomed them in and then went back to reading. They only came as far as the edge of the welcome mat before deciding to turn around and exit. I continued to read. A few moments later they came back, presumably recalling what had driven them to transcend the barrier of the welcome mat in the first place, and I, once again, welcomed them in. I don’t know whose child mind the idea sparked in first, but one of us realized that I’d say “welcome in” again if they left and came back. They soon tested the theory. “Welcome in” I said. They were joyous. I was in fact a wind-up automata made of brass gears and steel springs that repeats this exact phrase every time they pass the threshold. Catching on to their plan, I felt obliged to play along.

They were hesitant at first, testing how far they could go before I’d say the words. They walked slowly and cautious, clutching each other with excitement. I looked at them and smiled and said “welcome in.” They giggled and walked back out. Then they tried walking faster thinking that speed would trip me up. Initially I spoke my recording soon after they passed the entrance, but with repetition the tedium began to bore. I thought to busy myself away from the register. This was when they got bold. They strode in, seeing that the sentry was missing, and seized their opportunity. I was almost beyond the end of the counter when I saw only the tops of their heads bobbing along its perimeter. “Welcome in” I said with side eye, and they spun on their heels and ran back out. Now I was invested. I would do my job and they would try to sneak past. I swept between the stacks just beyond the entrance, one eye on the door the other on the dirt. A glimmer of yellow and then “welcome in”; a dash of purple and then “welcome in”. I restocked the display parallel to the desk, and I felt the wind shift from beyond my periphery, “welcome in” and then a chittering squeal and high frequency footfalls toward the door. I rang out a chatty old man that would not break eye contact. He blathered on kindly, his opinion on Hegel and Marx and Spinoza, and just as his words began to blend into sound alone, I saw a blur, a spectre of warm and cool tones from beyond his frame—“welcome in.” They tried to sneak, scurry, and slink. I watched them plot from beyond the glass on a night-lit sidewalk, whispering in ears and shaking by shoulders, hoping their schemes would outsmart the machine, but I always welcomed them in, and each time they would run, peals of laughter trailing behind them as they went back to the beginning of the game. They did this dozens of times. It amused me too. My coworker had noticed and said “That’s such a kid thing to do.”

I smiled and said “I was thinking the exact same thing.”

Soon enough they were gone, and I continued to work. A homeless man came in, he looked anxious and as if he knew people thought him burdensome. I welcomed him in and turned my back when I saw that he stole a map and thought about taking a sweater.

An attractive woman in a very short, but white, sundress bought a book I can’t remember the title of and seemed uninterested in my comment about said book. Truth be told I can’t remember if it was a book I had read myself or had only heard about other people reading.

Then there was an old woman who wanted to know if we had any of the I Survived series. I said we did in the kid’s section and I rose to show her where, but she said she knew and would find them on her own. She came back some time later with a stack of books and a grandson and said “I found some books I liked, but none of the I Survived stories, are you sure you have them?” I found the books in the kids graphic novels and she said “my eyes must be going, I’m sorry for the trouble.” I held the two available, I Survived the Destruction of Pompeii and I Survived the Bombing of Pearl Harbor. I handed her the books and she said “You know I volunteer at the V.A. and there’s one guy there that asks for these books. He has a hard time reading now his focus is hard to wrangle. I don’t want to get him anything that has to do with war, no guns or killing. He wouldn’t like that. He has PTSD.” I listened, thinking about the qualitative difference between being cooked alive in the superheated air of a volcanic eruption, or by perishing in the smoke and fire and oil of war, blazing on the shallow ocean. “Pompeii will do” she said and with a far away look of concern she handed back Pearl Harbor.

I nodded. “Pompeii will do.”

A little while later I heard a small commotion on the sidewalk, I looked up from my reading. It was the little girl in the yellow jacket with red polkadots, only now her companion was not was not the girl in the purple jacket, she was instead pleading with her mother. With distance, and glass, and the duo’s own attempt to keep private their display, I could make out only a fragment or two: “You get erratic and you can’t control yourself” I heard her mother scold and the little girl withered below. She collapsed her head down into her neck the way that kids do when they hear something that shatters them. But just as quick as she crumbled she sprang back to posture. Her hands gestured like a seasoned cartoon attorney. The dynamic was clear: Mom, lobbed sage advice from atop a looming priory, and Daughter would listen and wait for her turn hoping to persuade. Their discourse didn’t last long, soon the girl in the purple jacket reappeared, sprinting from beyond the unseen sidewalk, careening into the girl with the yellow jacket and red polkadots, and just as quick as they appeared the trio was absorbed into the rest of their group and walked beyond my frame of glass.

I recognized the little girl’s mom, she had come to the counter before the old woman, before the white dress, before the homeless man, before the game itself, to buy a small fidget pet, a jangly little blue chicken made of plastic. After I rang her out she quickly hid the chicken when her daughter appeared from the ether, as children are wont to do. She shot me a look that said “don’t say shit” so I didn’t say shit. The girl was holding a Cozy Kitten Coloring and Craft book above her head like a totem of unimaginable importance.

“No we’re not getting that, put it back” she clutched the hidden blue chicken in her hand.

“But mom please, it’s got cats!”

“I said no, put it back”

“Moooooom please”

“I said no!”

“Would you like a receipt?”

“No that’s fine, thank you.”

They disappeared back into the bookstore.

In the moment I thought the mom’s look, her “don’t say shit” glare, was meant to preserve the surprise of getting the little chicken for her daughter, but I was confused by her sternness about not getting the coloring book, an item her daughter clearly wanted. Why wouldn’t she just get the thing that’s a sure bet, something that she knows will win her child’s attention? Why waste money on a trinket, soon to be forgotten, inevitable to be lost? Now as I look back on this collection of moments, I wonder if I misunderstood. Perhaps the chicken wasn’t for the girl, but for the parent. Maybe that little jangly blue chicken elicited a seldom sought whimsy for her that she wanted to keep private this time. Come to think of it, the way she smiled and gazed at the bauble when she placed the chicken on the counter seemed more personal than altruistic