Adventures in Bibliomania

Stepping out of the store into the blazing Florida heat, she knows what she must do. Or, rather, what she wants to do. It's burning a hole in her pocket, and that combined with the unnaturally warm spring temperatures, forces the fever to set in. She strides across the parking lot, hops into her mother's Ford Windstar, and fumbles to turn on the air conditioning before she dies in this oven called a car.

Vents directed at her face don't help. The fever is still there. The little flame of excitement is keeping her from focusing on the radio, which is playing a great song that normally would be ramped up and blasted out open windows, off-key singing barely heard over the bass line.

She shouldn't. She knows it. But if not now, when? If not now, ever?

She puts the car in gear and finds herself in the McDonald's drive-thru, buying a small mocha frappe for $2.12, hoping this will help more than the air conditioning.

It doesn't.

She heads home, the radio still quiet, almost mute, and tries to think of other things. Her mind swims through a historical account of an Angel named Lucas, a Demon named Teagan, and a grandmother named Marion. This doesn't help. She only wonders how likely they would end up bleeding from her mind to her laptop, from her laptop to a manuscript, and eventually into a published boooo...

Don't say it. Don't think it. Don't finish the thought.

The fever is so high that she knows it won't go away on its own, won't fizzle out like a cold or a headache. It needs medication. It needs a fix. She is the addict with the connections to the dealer. That connection, a piece of paper so unobtrusive you would think it made her happy, was tucked away in her purse. But it was calling, whining, begging her. Just do it. Go for it. What else would you do with it?

Her first paycheck, measly in relation to her needs, is asking to be spent on something frivilous.

But she knows better -- doesn't she? She pulls into her driveway, puts the van in park, and unwittingly finds herself doing mental calculations. If she set this amount aside, and then was frugal with all her other purchases and plans, maybe... Just maybe...

No. Not happening. She snatches up her things and goes inside, climbing the stairs to her room, but realizing too late that this is the worst place for someone jonesing to go.

She has two bookshelves in her room, but they aren't the only place she keeps the paper dope. Books are piled on her bed, in her chair, on her desk and dresser, and one even sits on the floor, cracked open to a favorite scene, the smell of libraries wafting up and out of the seam like an oversized joint.

She scrambles to pick up all the offending material, shoves them onto the shelves, tries blocking the shelf from view with a box fan, but nothing works. Her eyes are drawn to them, knowing that she has the power to enlarge her collection, even if only by a few additions...

She has to leave the room. Has to get away from the books. But at the computer five minutes later, she's finding out if they have the titles she wants at the nearest book store.

The fever consumes. It's too late. She texts her best friend, knowing she at least needs someone to regulate the habit... Or maybe make it worse.

"Wanna tag along to BAM?" she asks. Books-A-Million. Her favorite book store. The one that smells so gloriously like coffee and ink, binding and paper, the one that is just as quiet as any library but ten times more current.

Her friend says yes. They go. Three hours later, a third of her paycheck is gone, but its worth it.

Books. She slides into her chair at home and cracks open the latest in a series she is obsessed with. Diving in is lighting up, and she knows its silly...

But she sticks her nose in the binding anyway, inhaling.

Goodbye fever, hello plot line.