Parker Austin, Part One.

He was 17. His name: Parker. Your average kid on the verge of the rest of his life, not sure of where he was headed or what he wanted to do. 5'9" with hair so brown it looked black when he wasn't in the sun. On an average day you could find him reading crappy novels under his desk in class, constantly pushing dark chunks of hair out of his eyes. Gray eyes with hints of blue that no one ever noticed because of the ever-present dark circles under them. It was hard not to notice those circles, his skin being so pale and all. They were a constant souvenir of the long nights he stayed up researching colleges and cult movies on his lap top, all the while catering to his sometimes-vice of smoking cigarettes. And smoking a cigarette in the side yard of his families New England town house was just what he was looking forward to that day as he made a bee-line out of his 7th period class. "Chemistry is such a bitch", he thought to himself as he threw his scarf on and headed toward the city bus stop. It seemed to him what with winter ending and all, the chill in the air seemed a bit out of the ordinary. He climbed onto his bus when it came and headed to the back so he could read without anyone bothering him. He pulled the used paperback out of his black canvas rucksack, at the same time searching for that apple he knew he had packed purposely to eat at that moment. A book (poorly written as it may be) and an apple were the two constants that made up his daily ritual on the bus ride home. Right when he was about to settle in for the ride, two things happened. One, he realized it had started snowing, and two, he noticed there was 10 pages left in his book, give or take a few. "Shit." Parker said under his breath before he decided the only thing to do was to stop on his way home to get a new novel, prolonging the time between then and when he would be reunited with his beloved pack of Camels. Within 10 minutes of climbing on the bus he was clambering back off again, trudging through the fresh snow with his head down and collar flipped up, hitching his backpack further onto one shoulder as he went."Maybe they would have something new for once", he thought sarcastically to himself as he pulled open the door to 'Hanna-Jane's Used Books'.
Hanna-Jane was a saucy older woman who never worked at her own store, but preferred instead to stay home with her yellow legal pads and write what she hoped would someday be prize-winning screen-plays. She often hired people who she felt could be used as unique characters in her movies. On that peculiarly snowy day when Parker pushed the bookstore door open, he was so preoccupied with brushing the snow off his coat that he failed to notice the newest employee behind the register. A girl his age with pale blond straight hair, a nasty smirk on her face and one cocked eyebrow watched him fidget with his coat while lounging behind the till on a tall wooden stool. She held a coffee in one hand and a paperback from the store in the other. He glanced up and then quickly straitened himself. "Umm, Do you have "Replay" in yet?" he said, naming the Ken Grimwood novel he'd been dying to read, yet never had gotten around to on account of all the crappy-novel reading he'd been doing lately. "Yup," Smirk Girl said, "This way." Then she tossed back the last of the coffee in her paper cup and led him through the dust-jungle that was 'Hanna-Jane's Used Books'.