Today was a salad of exaltation and hurt feelings, dear diary.
I think I previously mentioned my mercurial nature; it unfortunately confirms for many men the bias about women they've carried their whole lives. Ironic, considering the sudden violence of which they are capable!
Anyway, I have learned to live with myself, as one must if one wishes to go on living. I bring it up only to explain why today's events were both a blessing and a curse. All because my "dear friend" Sally - which is NOT her real name! She was a stocky, almost bovine woman called Deirdre in life! - sowed the unwelcome seeds of doubt in my mind… and it is fertile soil indeed.
I shall start with the good news at first. Before I do, however, I feel it is only fair to lay our scene in the antique store. Though most of the Colony falls under my purview, its inhabitants are invited to treat me, for all intents and purposes, as any other person.
In the store, however, I run a tight ship. Everything is organized just so, with items separated by type. From left of the entrance to the right, it goes: small furniture, paintings, then clocks, large furniture, books, pottery and glass, and back to small furniture. In the display cabinet in the center, we keep oddments and vintage collectibles, meaning they are newer. Most of them are things I want myself: I am rather a magpie, drawn to gems, lustrous metal accents and colored glass.
It was 11 in the morning when Sally and I argued over a Deco clock one of our boys fetched. It had a coat of teal paint (from the previous owner no doubt), but I knew by touch that the casing was actually walnut, and could be beautiful with restoration.
"It goes in the cabinet," I said.
"It should go with the other clocks," Sally insisted, "If people want a clock, that's where they'll look!"
"No, the period is wrong. It's only vintage." And then just barely!
"You think a buyer will walk out if he sees Art Deco in with the Victorian?"
"He might indeed!"
She was about to say something else when the doorbell tinkled, and we looked over to the customer. Do I even need to say his name? My heart grew wings! He was actually here! Today he had on a light jacket with the sleeves rolled halfway up the arm, and my heart-wings began to flutter… oh, goodness!
"Hallo!" he called. "Looks like I found the place!"
Sally gave me a pointed look, which meant she recognized him. The look I gave her could have slipped beneath a closed door, dear diary — it warned her that this one was mine, and she'd better not interfere. Then I joined Alastor near the entrance.
"You have!" I told him. "What brings you here, the hardbacks?"
"Yes, and I might look around, if you don't mind."
"Oh. Certainly! I shall be at the desk if you need assistance," I said amiably, and withdrew.
Most prospective buyers like to wander in peace, and the idea is to let them talk themselves into a purchase. Almost none of my items have price tags, only colored labels to which Sally and I refer. Hence, the buyer has nothing to go on but his own attraction to the item in question. I wouldn't have it any other way. Do you love the item on sight? Well, that's all that matters! It doesn't do, to let the cost prejudice people against owning beautiful things.
I pretended to consult a binder as Alastor strolled around the store. Once more, I was assured of his good breeding. Yes, he touched things, but with a feather-light trail of the fingers. Care. Respect. Fear of paying for broken wares, perhaps, but the point remains. (Some customers will fling my goods around like discus-throwers! and I am not afraid to squash them for it.)
There's also something captivating about the way he walks, dear diary. If I was forced to give the general impression to a blind man, this is how I would do it. Alastor's skeleton is self-assured, almost dancing wherever he goes. When he feels shrewd, his movements are precise... snappy! His flesh, which rests upon that skeleton, seems to be an afterthought, like a shirt on a wire hanger. I wonder what he thinks of it… does he know his own beauty, bien-aimé?
When he approached the cabinet of collectibles, Sally happened to move past him. For a moment, I was fearful. We are quite different in terms of looks, and I'm afraid she comes closer to the currently-favored bodily standard (seemingly invented by a council of gentlemen who refer only to their own etchings). Anyway, Sally is buxom, and I less so. When men talk to her, I see them longing to kill the conversation and plunge their noses down the front of her blouse.
But Alastor ignored her. He was more interested in the cabinet, so I made my way over.
"Ah! You've found my little miscellany," I said. "Of course they aren't antiques—"
"I was going to say!"
"—but they are so lovely — look at this one!" I showed him a hand-blown perfume bottle with a twisted glass stopper.
"Oh yes," he said. "What is it, Egyptian?"
"Correct," I beamed. As he examined the bottle, I fantasized about festooning Alastor with his own colored tag and placing him in the shop. If only I could keep him here with the other treasures… oh, but he would have to go next to the cabinet; he would never fit inside it!
Eventually he asked for the books, and I brought them out. Mostly Trollope, some Flaubert (although he goes by a different name down here… I have never been lucky enough to meet him!) and a few other titles. I plucked out the most notable outlier, The Adventures of Pinocchio.
"Now, this one is for children," I said, speaking fast before I could lose him, "but it's in excellent condition, and signed by the illustrator. Could be a great investment…"
"But for the fact that we're in Hell, and sinners can't bear children!" he said. "Thank God!" He gave me an odd smile: ever so slightly cruel, as if he had confirmed my idiocy. I tell you, it almost put a weight on my pendulum. But I laughed it off instead.
"Well! A purely nostalgic piece, then…. If you've ever read it?"
"Someone read it to me," he said, stroking his chin. "Ha! Remember when Pinocc kills the giant snake?"
"No?"
"His clumsy self-injury makes the snake laugh so hard, it bursts a blood vessel in its heart. Hilarious stuff!"
So he was partial to dark humor.
"How about this, then?" I asked, bringing out the big guns: a second-edition copy of Robinson Crusoe. This one I'd gone to some pains to find, in hopes Alastor would visit; that is to say, it was not a part of my collection before we discussed literature. "Again, excellent condition-"
I had no need to go on. His eyes had changed already, lighting up, and he covered his involuntary excited chirp with a clearing of the throat. "Ah! Yes!" he said. "May I?" He seized it - carefully. "I have this… The progenitor of an entire genre! Did you know the first edition credited Crusoe himself as the author?"
"Really? A shame that this isn't… that!"
Alastor flipped through, looking at the illustrations. There was a little fading which I could only hide with illusion (and I didn't want to deceive him in this case), but otherwise he appreciated the quality. "How much?" he finally asked.
Nothing! A gift… here, allow me to wrap it beautifully for you!
"I can't do much under forty-five hellars," I told him. "It's worth more than that."
"How about forty?"
I wondered why he was bargaining, dear diary. He ought to have had a raise in salary, as arranged with Darcy. Perhaps Alastor simply had a panache for negotiation; or perhaps Darcy had kept the money, in which case he deserved to be hounded again. I looked at Alastor, and something playful flashed between us. There was a chance here - I had to take it!
"Have it your way," I said. "You can have it for forty, if you promise to see me next Saturday evening. There's a dance planned at Medusa's, and I want to go with someone I can trust." He hesitated, so I added: "It's more our kind of music… less of that rock and roll stuff! When did you die again, darling?"
Alastor squinted. "'35."
"There we go! Johnny Evil and his band are playing; there'll be more brass than you can shake a stick at. So… forty?"
My heart had fluttered and flown and lodged itself in my throat, dear diary. Beneath my clothes, I trembled so hard I was afraid of his own photograph slipping through! But he gave only another moment's hesitation, then shook my hand. "Forty!" he said, and took the book.
By the time he'd gone, my heart had soared straight from my head. It was a date! I ran and hugged Sally- and THAT, dear diary, is when the seed of doubt was sown.
"Oh dear," she said.
I looked at her with sweetly smiling ignorance. "What, darling?"
"Rosie, I think he may be one of those men, you know."
"What?"
"You know," she pointedly repeated.
I grabbed her by the shoulders. "Oh, but-! Really now, what makes you so sure? He agreed to come dancing with me!"
"Yes," said she, sidling over to the cabinet to put my trinkets back in order, "I'm sure he's friends with many women."
"Don't say it like that!" I snapped.
"And such an interesting carriage he has, did you notice? It doesn't come across in the photographs, but in person…!" She affected his walk, with a lilting effeminacy. "When he walked by me?" Sally continued, "I felt no interest at all. He didn't even look. Men always look. That's not to say I think highly of myself-"
"Oh yes you do!" Now my temper was at a new pitch. The recently-liberated vascular organ was shot from the air, like a pigeon, and I felt it plummet and die right there on the floor.
"Rosie, please. Now I don't like to be the bearer of bad news, but it's better you know now than get your hopes up!"
If she only knew! I want to decry her theory altogether. Poor Sally, so frequently sought-after… of course she would assume that any man who doesn't harass the living shit out of her must be homosexual! Of course she would want to bring me down, hateful bitch! But I cannot get this thought out of my head… what if she assumes correct? What if my love has blinded me to the clear signals which denote an interest in the other?
Tonight I stalked the streets and cornered Darcy outside his home. He tried to run, but with a quick gesture, I threw him back down the street, then into the alleyway. That little bastard-! I forgot why I was even hounding him again, but I went far beyond the routine tendencies of the exchange. Normally it's graceful enough, as the eagle was to Prometheus. Tonight I went at him like the child of some unholy marriage betwixt basking shark and paper-shredder. I had to direct my fury at someone - anyone - and his screams were delicious.
My heart… my poor heart!
You will know by the 20th if I have met Alastor at the dance… Otherwise, I may never write another thing. Oh diary, please don't let my Alastor be a disappointment. I cannot bear this again!