Work Text:
There’s a bookstore Sam’s been frequenting for the last few years that’s on his way home from school. It’s nothing special to look at, and it doesn’t particularly stand out when one walks by; it’s a simple squat, red-brick building on the corner of Main and Brown with a faded yellow sign above its door that reads Novak’s Used Books in curly blue script, and the inside of the store is just as unassuming. But it’s quiet and organized, the owner is kind, and whenever Sam decides to stop by and take a look around he always feels right at home.
Usually, Sam visits the store the most during the last few weeks of the school year to see if anything catches his eye before summer break, when he’ll actually have the free time to devote to personal reading. But this time when he comes in, it’s Saturday morning in early July and he’s just finished ‘The Widows of Eastwick’ by John Updike. He’d had two other books lined up to read next, but after how much he enjoyed Widows he thinks he actually wants to read something else by the same author if the bookstore happens to have it available.
It’s hot and slightly humid outside even though it’s not yet noon, and Sam approaches the store entrance gratefully, hearing the familiar chime as he lets himself inside. As his eyes adjust from the bright sun to the relative darkness of the store, Sam sees that there’s a new display in the center of the main room on the round table he’s seen so many times before. It’s covered with silk banners of every color, and a few-dozen hardback books are arranged in a mandala-like pattern on the new, colorful accoutrements. It makes a lovely impression, and Sam knows immediately that he likes it. As he admires the display, still cooling off from his brief walk outside, he hears a chiming laugh not far from his ear. Somewhat startled, Sam turns his head to see who thinks his interest is so amusing.
What he sees stops him short, and he feels himself start to blush furiously. He feels like a stereotypical, gawking man at some poor, innocent woman’s place of work, but he also feels almost instantaneously infatuated as he looks down at a petite, red-headed woman wearing a polo with the store’s name emblazoned across the front and an incongruous, ankle-length patchwork skirt. She has dramatic, smoky eye makeup paired with a bright red lip, and there’s something almost knowing in her gaze.
“Like what you see?” she asks.
For a moment Sam is utterly confused and somewhat uncomfortable until he sees her gesture toward the display. He sags with relief and nods, smiling sheepishly.
“Oh, yeah… It’s really cool, actually. Did, uh, you do this?”
The woman nods. “I’m still making this place shine.”
She has an accent, Sam hears, and he feels himself sinking even deeper as he realizes how much he already likes it.
“That’s awesome,” he says, internally kicking himself for how generic the response sounds. “Have you been working here long?”
The woman shakes her head. “Today marks day three. I take it you come here often?”
Sam shrugs, looking down at his feet. “Often enough. I go through a book every few months if I’m lucky.”
“Too busy with work to devote more time to the greats?” the woman asks.
Sam nods. “I teach. So yeah, I guess you could say that.”
“A teacher?” The woman’s face seems to light up at his admission.
“High school math,” Sam clarifies.
“I think I’ve got just the book for you,” she says as she abruptly turns and scurries off to the opposite end of the store, her delicate footsteps fading away.
Sam waits patiently where he’s still standing at the front of the store beside the display.
When the woman returns she’s holding out a book toward Sam as she eagerly strides toward him. Its cover reads ‘Becoming the Math Teacher You Wish You’d Had’.
Sam smiles as he takes it from her, turning it onto its front so he can read the summary on the back. Surprisingly, he actually has a feeling that the book is going to be one he gets a lot of use out of, and as if hearing his thoughts the woman smiles.
“What’s your name?” Sam asks when he’s unable to locate a nametag.
“I’m Rowena. And you?” she asks as she holds out her hand.
“I’m Sam,” he answers, taking her small hand in his.
After that initial encounter Sam finds himself going to the store on an almost weekly basis in an attempt to get a little more time with Rowena as she works. He knows he’s being pathetic and that he’s about a toe’s length away from crossing the line from friendly to creepy, but it’s hard to fight the impulse - there’s something about Rowena that draws him in.
At first, Sam doesn’t catch her every time he goes in, and he soon learns from the shop owner (a friendly, quiet man named Gabriel) that Rowena primarily works weeknights and sometimes picks up a few hours on Saturday or Sunday mornings when she feels so inclined – which has so far proven impossible to predict.
But whenever he does manage to come in when Rowena’s working, she doesn’t seem to mind that Sam is always more interested in her than in the books, and each time she sees him she greets him the same way.
“Hello, Samuel.”
Sam has no idea why she seems to prefer his full name, but he likes that she calls him something none of his friends and family do, not even the overly formal grandfather for whom he’s named. It makes him feel almost like the two of them have something separate from his plain, boring, tan-and-red plaid life.
Rowena always has her eyes lined and her lips stained red or burgundy or deep violet, and she often pins her red hair up with what look like decorative chopsticks if it’s not tumbling down in tousled waves around her small shoulders. She always smells like patchouli or rose and wears a stone or crystal around her neck, and she seems to have an endless supply of long skirts that swish around her delicate ankles as she walks about the store.
The first few times that Sam comes in and begins tentative conversations with her, their talks are somewhat one-sided, with Rowena breezily asking Sam question after question while he struggles to keep up with her brisk pace as she works on the displays, organizes the shelves, wipes down the counters, and sweeps the old, checkerboard floor.
What does Sam do for fun, Rowena wants to know, what kinds of people is he friends with, does he like his job, does he have any family? Rowena rarely asks pedestrian questions like ‘how are you doing?’ It’s always ‘did you have a favorite parent?’ (Yes – Mary by far), ‘do you regret where you went to school?’ (No, Sam doesn’t think he does, though he’s never given it much thought), and ‘do you feel like you make a difference as a teacher?’ (That, Sam has no idea of. He thinks he did, he knows he certainly tries to, at least, but how is he to know if he succeeds?)
With almost every response Sam finds himself having to dig deeper than he’s accustomed to, turning over thoughts in the back of his mind that have been gathering dust forever. One time, he realizes suddenly that he hasn’t gone out with his friends in months, another that he still needs to call Dean back so they can schedule their weekly get-togethers, and still another that that he hasn’t tried a new recipe since 2017. Without so much as a second thought, Rowena asks Sam things that make him reexamine his entire existence, causing him to contemplate his life in a way he hasn’t since he was nineteen and smoking pot in between college classes.
He thinks he might love it.
Learning about Rowena in return, though, Sam quickly discovers, proves far more difficult.
Once or twice in those early visits Sam tries to simply turn the questions back toward Rowena and see what she has to say, but she never makes it that easy; each time Sam tries she either changes the subject or tells Sam that she has to get something from the back room before disappearing for twenty minutes, within which Sam inevitably takes the hint and leaves the store. After almost a month of this Sam decides that it’s time to change tactics, and the next time he comes into the store (which is a week or so into the new school year) he tries something he’s had success with when it comes to his more withdrawn students and asks Rowena not about herself, but about the polished purple crystal hanging from a delicate silver chain around her neck.
Almost instantly Rowena answers him, fondly fingering the pendant as she smiles and says, “This is an amethyst. They’re good for clarity of thought, relief from wanting things you shouldn’t have, and strengthening up any psychic qualities. This was a gift from a friend back home.”
Sam nods. “And home for you is?”
“Glasgow,” Rowena answers as she picks up a cardboard box of new arrivals and moves toward the empty shelf where part of them are going.
It becomes almost a game after that.
Every time Sam comes in after the school day has ended, feeling run-down and bleary-eyed but still ready to browse through the books he’s becoming increasingly familiar with, Rowena is unfailingly wearing a new crystal with a new story behind it.
One week it’s a heart-shaped garnet for energy and confidence that she got when she went to Venice, another week it’s a chunky piece of rose quartz that her mother gave her on her 26th birthday for luck (when she still lived close enough to her childhood home to visit weekly), and still another week it’s a piece of smooth black tourmaline that’s said to ward off negative energy that Rowena picked up at a jewelry show in Taos, New Mexico at the age of 30.
Soon, Sam knows many of the places she’s gone, some of the people who have passed through her life, and why she has such a deep love of crystals and stones. To Rowena, they’re more than ornamentation, they’re living things that augment her very life and assist her when she feels she needs it, which Sam is starting to suspect is far more often than he’d previously imagined.
Sam secretly thinks she’s one of the most enchanting people he’s ever met, and the more often he comes in to say hello, the more clear it becomes that Rowena is aware of his feelings.
When Rowena starts taking her breaks when Sam’s around it’s the first week of September, and they soon make a habit of standing along the side of the squat, red brick building together as Rowena smokes a brown clove cigarette, the fragrant smell wreathing her head and face as if she’s caught aflame.
Outside of the store, there’s something different about Rowena.
Sam feels as though she’s simultaneously trying to draw him closer and keep him at arm’s length, taking him outside the store where she’s no longer just a retail worker, only to cover herself with smoke and observational humor the way she has a habit of doing inside the store.
But all the same, as they begin to spend those little stretches of time together outside the rows of shelves and display tables, Sam starts to understand that Rowena isn’t playing hard to get because she enjoys it, she does so because she’s used to putting up walls.
When October breezes on in Sam’s students began to ask him if he’s in love, his brother Dean accuses him of hiding a girlfriend from the family, and Rowena seems to become infused with a new energy, her makeup becoming more experimental and her clothes even more bohemian and fanciful.
By October fifth Rowena’s decked out the entire store in homemade Halloween decorations cobbled together from the Dollar Tree down the street, the local thrift store, and the 24-hour Walmart across town that make Sam question his own love and devotion to the holiday, and she tells Sam with a wistful smile one evening that she’s already started donning a witch’s hat when she does her weekly reading sessions for the local children.
From what Sam can tell Rowena seems to love children, but she also gives off the impression that she doesn’t want people to know about her feelings, and as quick as she is to ask Sam if he has any funny stories about his students, she’s just as quick to flap a disdainful hand in his direction and poke fun at him for caring as much as he does about their lunches (he brings extra sandwiches every day and keeps them in a mini-refrigerator behind his desk) and their classroom morale (he gives out actual gold star stickers for every correct answer volunteered in class and lets the children redeem them for small rewards on a weekly basis).
(Gabriel, overhearing them once, interjects to ask if Sam has any children Rowena can fatten up and almost gets a heavy book to the face for his trouble)
When Sam comes to the store the day before Halloween, he brings Rowena a purple plastic pumpkin filled to the brim with Almond Joy candy bars and cherry mash candies wrapped in white butcher paper. He’s practically vibrating with nerves, feeling sweat gather between the ends of his hair and the nape of his neck as he tries to hold the pumpkin surreptitiously by his side until he reaches Rowena where she’s currently balanced on the second rung of a step-stool re-shelving. He’s rendered completely speechless with surprise when, as soon as Rowena spots Sam and lets herself down, she presents him with the black tourmaline pendant she’d last worn a month previous.
“I saw you eyeing this,” she says.
When she sees the pumpkin her pale cheeks flush, and Sam hands it over with what he hopes is a reassuring smile.
“I, uh, remembered when you said what your favorite candies were. What other time besides Halloween can you eat a dozen of them without guilt?” he says with a nervous laugh.
Both of them are almost painfully shy for a moment as they stand there together, but when a smile slowly grows on Rowena’s face, Sam considers the risky venture a success.
A few minutes later Rowena asks Sam if he wants to get a cup of coffee at a little café down the street after she gets off work, and Sam says yes, waiting almost three hours until her shift ends sitting in an empty corner of the store reading a book about the life of Aleister Crowley.
Having overheard Sam and Rowena’s conversation about doing something after work, Gabriel waves them both out of the shop at exactly nine o’clock with a smile on his face and an insistence that he can close up the store by himself. Rowena gives him a peck on the cheek before they leave, and the short man blushes furiously as he swipes at the red lipstick imprint on his face and all but pushes them out the door.
In only a few minutes more Sam and Rowena are sitting across from one another in a red velvet-lined booth in the aforementioned Faust-themed café, both of them sipping on fragrant cups of coffee flavored with Bailey’s and sweet amaretto.
Rowena doesn’t take off her witch’s hat as they order a few scones, and Sam doesn’t think to ask her to.
“So,” Jared ventures as he shrugs out of his old, denim jacket.
“So,” Rowena responds over her creamy white mug.
Sam smiles, and when Rowena reaches out and gently touches the back of his hand, it feels as if he can still feel the softness of her skin even as she draws away.
This time when they talk, it isn’t about the store or crystals, it’s about Rowena’s life in Scotland before she moved to the states.
(Sam finds that her accent gets gradually more pronounced as she drinks, and resolves to get her a refill if he can before the night is over)
Rowena tells Sam she used to be a dancer in a world-renowned company and that only a knee injury made her give up the dream, and that then she’d worked as a travel agent for a few years, using her own resources and discounts to go on her many trips. She tells him that she came back to the US because she’d already been a few times before and felt it calling her again, and that she’s planning on staying for the near future.
“I’m comfortable here at the moment,” she says with another sip of her coffee.
When she asks, Sam tells Rowena that he’s only ever taught aside from a few part-time food service jobs he held while he was in college. For his part, he graduated college with his degree in education and his certification in K through 12 mathematics and has taught various high school grades over the last few years. At the moment, he’s at an inner-city public middle school, and he’s been there going on four years.
It feels strangely like being naked, being so far away from the store and surrounded by people who have no idea who they are and what their relationship is, and Sam wonders if Rowena feels the same way. He can’t tell; even without clove smoke and piles of books Rowena is still difficult to read.
But at the end of the night when they both stand up to leave, Rowena asks Sam if he wants to see her the following evening on Halloween.
Again, Sam says yes, and when he asks her for her number Rowena tells him she doesn’t have a cell phone, only the old landline that came with her flat. If she was anyone else Sam is almost one hundred percent sure he would have assumed she was shitting him, but it makes sense that she doesn’t have a cell phone when he gives it a moment of thought.
That would probably feel too accessible for Rowena.
“Let’s meet at the shop at six tomorrow, Samuel,” Rowena says briskly as she gathers her bag.
“I’ll see you then,” he says.
And that’s that.
The next night, as planned, the two of them meet outside of the bookstore, and after a brief greeting Sam follows Rowena as she leads the way to her apartment, which as it turns out is only a few blocks away from the store. The walk is quick, the night chill and windy but not cold.
When Sam reaches for Rowena‘s hand as they walk, she lets him hold it until they reach the building. More than once, he finds himself looking down between them just to see the way her small, pale hand completely disappears into his own.
“I’m glad you like the necklace,” Rowena says quietly as they reach the door and she gently lets go of him, her eyes on the gift Sam’s wearing around his neck as she rummages in her bag for the key.
“Thanks,” Sam says with a small smile.
When she unlocks the door and lets them into her apartment, Sam quickly sees that it’s almost exactly as he’s imagined it would be when he’s wondered what Rowena does every night after work. It’s a somewhat messy space, with most of the furniture Sam can see in the living room obviously aged and faded. Everything is a half-note away from vintage and a few comfortable inches into plain and simple old, with sun-bleached teal sofa cushions piled in an armchair and timeworn crocheted couch coverings draped over places where they normally wouldn’t be. There are vases of somewhat withered flowers on the windowsills and kitchen counter and a large, conspicuous pair of windchimes hanging from one of the vents in the ceiling.
“Do you get a lot of trick-or-treaters?” Sam asks as he spots a large bowl of candy on Rowena’s coffee table that looks as if it’s already been dipped into a few times.
She laughs. “A few. There are a couple of young families in my building.”
From the almost wistful fondness in her voice, Sam can tell Rowena is probably more acquainted with those families than she would ever let on.
As they shrug their coats off and hang them on the rather strange, bronze coat rack with a lion-shaped base beside the door, Sam spots a small, low table bedecked with black and orange tea lights, a large circular mirror, and several framed photographs near the back of the room.
It looks oddly solemn, as if there’s an invisible barrier that separates it from the rest of the room, and Sam finds himself staring at it, his eyes drawn as if by some magnetic property.
Seeing the direction of Sam’s gaze, Rowena wordlessly crosses the room and retrieves an ornate silver matchbook from beneath one of the sofa cushions, kneeling down before the low table and starting to light the candles one by one.
After a minute or so passes and she doesn’t turn to look back at him, Sam follows in Rowena’s footsteps and joins her beside the table, carefully sinking to his knees and folding them close to his body in an attempt to avoid disturbing the table. He watches silently as Rowena finishes lighting the candles and the photographs start to come to life, looking as if they’re dancing as the soft yellow light hits their polished glass coverings.
Sam recognizes the table for what it is, then: an altar honoring her ancestors.
It makes perfect sense.
“Who are they?” He asks softly.
Rowena starts to tell him.
A few days later in November, Sam and Rowena go on another late-night coffee date, this time without any hats to be seen.
Before they part ways for the night, both of them standing near the door together, Rowena stands on her tiptoes and wraps her arms around Sam’s broad shoulders, cupping a small hand to his cheek and drawing him down for a kiss.
As he draws her close and breathes her in, bending his tall, awkward body around her small, delicate one and tasting sugar and alcohol and smoke and coffee, Sam feels Rowena for the first time. Not the front she so often puts up or the smokescreen of her clove cigarettes, but Rowena herself.
After, she gives Sam her home phone number before she leaves to go home, and Sam promises that he’ll call.
Two hours later, Sam finds himself sitting on his kitchen floor with his cellphone cradled between his chin and his shoulder, laughing at Rowena as he listens to her clatter around the apartment getting ready for bed, narrating everything with the accented voice he realizes he’s come to love.
He knows he’s going to have a hard time going to bed without this tomorrow.
Mid-November, while Sam and Dean are having a beer together on a Friday night, Dean asks if Sam is going to invite his girlfriend over for Thanksgiving so the family can meet her.
Sam thoughtfully nurses his beer as he absently tugs at the piece of black tourmaline he’s taken to perpetually wearing around his neck, wondering if Rowena would say yes if he were to ask her.
He decides to give it a shot.
A few days later, when Sam’s on the phone with Rowena around eleven at night, he ventures the question.
“I’ve been thinking… Do you want to come to Thanksgiving dinner with me? My family would be there, so if you’re not interested I’d understand. But…the offer’s there, if you want it.”
As he speaks, Sam realizes that the question is about more than the upcoming holiday; it’s about the wall of smoke and jokes and bookshelves that he still sometimes feels between them. It’s about moving forward and making something real.
He waits patiently for Rowena’s response.
When she last says, “Yes, Samuel. If you’ll have me, I’ll come with you,” Sam knows that she’s heard the unspoken words, too.
Sam smiles, and somehow knows that Rowena is smiling, too.
The End