Borrow-A-Bridesmaid Read Free

slipping through the closing doors as I finish refastening my belt.
    The tram starts moving before I have a chance to put my sneakers back on, displaying my mismatched socks for the tram population’s viewing pleasure. As I crook my elbow around a pole for balance, my gaze maneuvers between pieces of floral luggage to the front of the tram, where I’m hoping my favorite driver, Kalil, is at the wheel. When I see salt-and-pepper hair at the front in lieu of Kalil’s dark locks, I sigh and settle into a seat in the back. Kalil and I met a few weeks ago and have been sharing our post-grad woes ever since: He’s a philosophy major who whispers sweet nothings about Sartre as we slip between taxiing planes in the twilight. I only have his torso to judge from, but gazing at him is quite a nice ocular massage. Sexily tousled hair, wide brown eyes, broad shoulders, and surprising artist’s hands that look capable of far greater fine motor skills than those involved in tram driving.
    When I told him I have no idea what I’m doing with my life, he responded with: “The more sand that has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.” I smiled up at him and said, “God, I hope so. I just wish these weren’t the days of our lives.” I gestured to his tram rearview mirror and the grumpy contingent of after-hours travelers reflected in it.
    I peer at today’s passengers through the round tram windows, thinking they’re lucky to be going somewhere, anywhere. Right now, my backpacking friends are likely being finger-fed escargot by Frenchmen with elegant mustaches, or perhaps relaxing at a hostel in the Italian countryside, drinking wine and swapping stories and spit. And I’m wedged between a handlebar-mustached man who is mumbling to himself and a three-year-old in a Spider-Man T-shirt who’s tugging on my pants leg.
    â€œBad,” he says to me.
    â€œEh?”
    He points to my shoeless feet. “Mommy says we can’t take off our shoes.”
    My eyes flick over his shoulder to the “Shirt and Shoes Required” sign. Conceding defeat, I bend down to slip my shoes back on.
    The tyke scrunches up his face, still not satisfied.
    â€œWhat now?”
    â€œPoopie,” he says. “I make poopie.”
    When we arrive at C Terminal, I squeeze past Monsieur Poopie Pants and dash to the Book Nook. A few people are browsing the New York Times bestseller wall, paperback novels tucked under their arms. Two more stand by the magazine section at the front.
    Sal’s talking with one of the five or six customers in line, but he will have noted the exact time of my arrival. The man has an internal clock that never stops ticking. He nods toward a book cart, a silent imperative to begin shelving in my least favorite section: biography. These hefty tomes are arranged by subject matter, not author name, so I have to focus on shelving instead of daydreaming about all the stories I want to write.
    The first of those stories is a romance about a dashing airline pilot who sweeps a bookstore clerk off her feet. She gets to thumb her nose at her evil bookstore boss as she sips cosmopolitans with her pilot at the Red Carpet Club. Before she leaves with him on an extended vacation to Fiji, of course.
    Back to reality: my book-cart chariot awaits. By now, I know no amount of optimistic brainwaves is going to turn Sal into a pumpkin. Or a naked mole rat (the current front-runner in my game of “If reincarnation is true, what sort of unfortunate creature will Sal be in his next life?”).
    I toss my purse under the counter, loop my Book Nook lanyard around my neck, and flip my badge around so my name is facing front—one of Sal’s golden rules of “making ourselves available to the customer”—before pushing the cart over to the biography section. I avoid glancing at the travel section, which never fails to remind me of all