The absurdly bright colours and undecipherable lettering burned into Bernard's bleary, 'unholy-hour-of –the-morning' eyes. He blinked several times to bring the strange magazine he'd found amongst the heap of books adorning the table into a proper focus. The acidic colours were the first things that hit him, followed by the realisation it was all in Japanese. The last thing he noticed was the picture itself, as he had been swimming far too deeply in the confusion of it all to actually recognise the one familiar thing that was emblazoned across the front of the magazine.
That beard. That awful, scratty little beard. The one he wanted shaved off, then put through a shredder multiple ways, then thrown into an incinerator, then the ashes scattered into a strong westerly wind, and hopefully they'd hit someone standing on the Statue of Liberty squarely in the face. Now, it was on the front of a magazine, glossy and immortal, preserved in the formaldehyde of photography. The beard would never die now. Bernard shook his head, trying to shake the image out of his brain. He moved a curl of dark hair away from his eyes and looked back at the picture, now seeing the whole thing. At this point, he cursed Fran for making him tidy up his ever-increasing mound of books, as discoveries like this were best left un-discovered in his opinion. Things like this should be laid to rest and buried six feet under. That was Manny. Manny dressed up. Manny dressed up as Bo Peep. An involuntary shudder ran up Bernard's spine as he slumped back in his chair, holding the magazine at arm's length, as if it was poisoned.
After several minutes of staring at the magazine in absolute disbelief, unable to take his eyes off the offending item, he threw it on the desk in revulsion and reached for a glass of wine which he'd left there the night before and downed it in one. He swallowed hard, trying to ignore the vinegary taste coating his tongue and tried to set his head back straight, cleanse his mind of that horrific, pink, sugary image of his newest employee. He decided on pretending he'd never seen it and set about finding somewhere to hide the lurid colours and disturbing images. He shoved it in a drawer of his desk, along with half of Manny's yo-yo and his not so state-of-the-art cordless phone, but he could sense the images burning through the wood, or cheap MDF, he mused, through his pupils, past his retina and right into his brain. He couldn't stand it after an hour, and much to the shock of a nearby customer, he yanked the drawer open, tipped the contents onto the floor and picked up the magazine. He stood up, threw the customer a casual glare and pondered what to do with it now. He couldn't rip it up, there could be blackmail material, and he wasn't about to destroy it. He wandered over to a secluded bookshelf, pulled a couple of Welsh dictionaries he didn't remember buying off and crammed the flamingo pink image behind them. He breathed a sigh of relief to have hidden the magazine once and for all and returned to his bottle of wine and copy of Little Women.
Just as he'd got himself comfortable in his chair, won the epic battle with a cork and flicked open his book, a group of Japanese tourists burst through the door. He pretended not to notice them and hoped they'd go away. Where was Manny when you needed him? Oh yes, behind the Welsh dictionaries. He cursed the summer for bringing so many people into the shop, when all he wanted was to be left alone for a few hours to wine and read. Why did people keep coming in and wanting to buy things? They were obviously shopoholics or something. Bernard looked up and sighed when a tall Japanese man with glasses approached his desk.
"Excuse me."
"What?" He frowned and looked back to his book for a second whilst he listened.
The man spoke more softly and slightly conspiratorially, in impeccable English, "I forgot a magazine yesterday. I was wondering if you found it." A shade of pink creeped up to his ears whilst he waited for Bernard's reply.
Bernard spent a good minute pretending to read his book, whilst debating what to tell the man. He desperately wanted to keep hold of his blackmail material. "Magazine? Sorry, haven't seen any of them. This is a bookshop." He raised an eyebrow and the man slinked off, clearly embarrassed.
All was going well, as far as keeping the blackmail material to hand. Until Manny arrived. Naturally, when Manny announced himself on the scene by stumbling through the door, all of Bernard's carefully planned, but badly thought out, plans were going to go to pot. He nearly knocked his wine flying across the room, but managed to stop it falling with a display of agility he'd only reserve for wine. He looked up from halfway off his chair, bottle in hand and attempted his best neutral expression.
"Where've you been?" Even though the depths of his mind he imagined the Manny before him not in t-shirt and jeans, but having spent his day off with Japanese men in a shepardess' costume. He shook his head, trying to rid it of this image.
"Strangely enough, Wales. I brought you some cheese on toast."
"How the…?"
"Ok, I didn't. I brought you a little sheep." Manny smiled obliviously and plonked a model sheep on his desk, to which Bernard backed away in shock, haunted by the image he knew was hiding behind the books.
"Why the hell were you in Wales, of all places?"
Manny took a deep breath in and looked around the ceiling, "Well…I went down to the newsagents to get a new pen and a copy of Heat," Bernard rolled his eyes, but waved his hand for him to continue, "and I ran into this man, apparently selling a trip down a mine. Now, I've never been one for dark, enclosed spaces,"
"And there was me thinking you were some kind of troglodyte mole."
Manny sighed resignedly and continued, rather than arguing, "But he also promised cake. I can't turn down cake."
"So let me get this straight. You went to buy a pen and a crap magazine, but were offered a trip for cake and coal by some Welshman, and you accepted?"
"Pretty much, yes." He shrugged as if it was nothing important, and went over to the bookcase. "But there was this sign in Welsh," He squatted down right next to the dictionaries, much to Bernard's horror, who scrambled up from his position half on the floor, but before he could stop proceedings, Manny pulled one out. "And I was planning on seeing what it meant…" He went a bright red as his eyes fell on the carefully concealed magazine. "Bernard..?"
"Give me that!" He grabbed for it and the two ended up fighting over the magazine like little children. Just as Manny was going to poke Bernard in the ribs to retaliate for having his hair pulled, the door opened and both froze in their tracks.
Fran stuck her head around the corner, raised an eyebrow and shrugged. "Bernard, I'm opening another bottle."