Chapter 9

            I woke up feeling completely energized and awake. Don’t know why, but it just felt f*****g great. The jet lag did mess me up and screwed things around a bit, do maybe this was the calm after the storm.

            The first thing I felt like doing was taking a walk with Rolly. After calling up Tom (who always managed to awake before me) on the phone, he came in, and at my request brought in the sweet three-year-old Dalmatian who followed behind him. “Hello you!” I said to Rolly as she ran and jumped onto my bed. “Ready to go today, are you?”

            “The first day feeling energized you want to walk the dog?” Tom inquired curiously.

            “That is the case, my good man,” I brightly said to him. “I want the lead on Rolly and for her to be ready at the back door by the time I am ready in twenty minutes. Let her on her green�"no, violet lead. Adds color to the already vast amounts of greenery.”

            “Of course then,” Tom agreed. “How about some breakfast though? You can’t just take a stroll about on an empty stomach!”
            “Oh, a breakfast isn’t really anything, Tom. I’d like to think that Rolly will sniff out the grounds and find the two of us some wild berries or the sort.”

            Tom shook his head slightly and said good-naturedly, “God, Sir, I still don’t understand you after all these years of business with you.”

            So it was a good forty-five minutes Rolly and I were messing about in the little wood just outside the green of Pewesbury, when I decided that what the two of us really needed was a walk into town. Andover wasn’t London, but it was better off than the other villages that surrounded my home, and it was the closest civilization to me. God, the walk was rejuvenating and dear Rolly loved it, making out way out of the oaks into the clearing of green mounds that wounded down to the near road and up that toward the town. We got to High Street soon enough, and just walking down the busy road and dodging all the cars I settled into Waterstone books just off on Chantry Way. They were one of the few corporate places that let pets inside the shop disregarding seeing-eye dogs.

            As Rolly sniffed around and I browsed the “new release” shelf at the front, I was recognized by Nancy, a bright funny girl in her fifties who always wore some sort of hideous print, and today it was bold paisley. “Well if it isn’t Sir Geoffrey!” she greeted, gently patting Rolly. “If this isn’t the start of a lovely day then I don’t know what to make of the world! I mean, the first was this beautiful clear day, but your coming is not half as nice!”
            “Aha, why thank you m’am,” I replied cooly, and kept thumbing through the books. “You got anything else new? I’m afraid the selection’s not changed at all since I came through Waterstone nearly two weeks ago.”

            “Well, there’s not much I can do about that, Sir,” she said, looking up at her forehead to do her best at thinking. I sighed but smiled politely. “There’s been an expected delay on the company’s behalf. Some sort of backorder gone fudged up! Imagine, could businesses be any more duller or horrid than that, Sir Geoffrey.” It got me wondering then about how George conducted his shipments to his bookshop.

            But then dear old Nancy began, “I can have you look at the catalogue for the next week, Sir, if you’d like. It’s the itinerary of what this store will expect soon enough!”
            “Would you really let me?” I said too enthusiastically. I wasn’t too interested in books at the moment, only stopping through Waterstone with Rolly out of boredom, but this woman was so moved by my simple presence in the shop that I couldn’t be rude and refuse anything.

            God, the back shop was a shithole of boxes, papers, receipts, and stacks of books�"new books�"but boring nonsense like nonfictions and biographies. She found something that resembled an Email printout about three pages. She was too busy fumbling with the list looking for a title I would prefer, but my eyes caught on to a heap of paper Rolly brought up to me in her mouth. “No fetch here, girl!” I scolded her, taking the papers away and folding them out neatly on a nearby box. “God, these look spectacular, Nancy,” I then gasped. The smudged and wrinkled poster-size trash Rolly had given me were actual advertisement posters, not dated and had caricatures of what I assumed were famous writers, reading their own books with a carelessly-tossed paper shopping bag in the corner of each picture that was labeled Waterstone in a brighter, bolder version of the store’s logo. “For the store, eh?”

            She turned and instantly chattered away again about the signs. “Oh those are something, aren’t they, Sir? A local lad, rest in peace, created those and originally posted them on some art blog he had on the internet. Turns out one of Waterstone’s agents here found them and make replicas so that we could hang them in the windows of Waterstone, but there was a huge legal issue over whether we stole the images. Then again, the man was consenting to use of his work by publishing it online, and all this other nonsense; he’s been dead two years now, but the family threatens the company with more lawsuits if we ever attempt using these pieces. It’s a shame, but they are something to look at. Sure would bring in more attention to Waterstone.”
            “It certainly would, m’am,” I agreed.

            That’s when it hit me. What I was to do. What my new attack of commitment would result in.