4Author's Note: Stationery is noticed, and it shows the recipient that you took some time and care in sending your correspondence. –Gentlemen's Gazette
Disclaimer: This is borrowed magic, owned by those more fortunate than I.
Crane & Co. Stationers occupied the first two floors of the Ryland Building, a stone's throw from Jarrod's San Francisco office.
Heath had never been inside such a place. Wall to wall, ceiling to floor, the shop was filled entirely with paper, most of it completely blank.
Gorgeous leather bindings covered the blank pages of journals and ledgers, waiting for some clerk or accountant to fill them with Spencerian flourishes and columns of figures.
The familiar scent of leather was combined with the unfamiliar sight of gold leaf and colored bindings. It seemed all the paper needed by all the people in the world were here in this one shop.
Heath wandered around, while Mother talked to the clerk, marveling at the fine, marbled endpapers of a massive journal the size of a saddle blanket. Who would use such a huge book, and for what?
Finally, as he returned to where Mother stood at the counter, something caught his eye: the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. Two gold bars soared up towards the top of the page, angled at their tops, with a narrow golden crossbar joining them. Creamy linen paper, like… like the lilies in church on Easter. So fine to the touch. He traced the embossed letter with a gentle finger, awestruck.
"Heath," Mother interrupted his reverie. "Are you ready to go?" She'd completed her purchases.
"Yes," her son said. "We can go."
He looked again at the golden letter, tall and proud as two California grizzlies holding hands.
Mother noticed his interest. "Would you like some stationery? That's very fine." She came over and sorted through the box. "One usually buys them with the initial of the surname." She pulled out a packet with a B at the top and handed it to him. "How about this one? Your first stationery as a Barkley."
His first stationery as anything. Usually, if he needed a piece of paper, he tore a sheet out of the back of his tally book. He looked at the B on the creamy linen background, the upper and lower bowls of the capital big bellied with the gold they held. It was pretty, but…. He shook his head. "What would I do with that?"
"What anyone does with stationery," Victoria responded reasonably. "Write letters."
Heath shook his head again. "I don't need it," he said. He laid the little packet of paper and envelopes back in the box.
"Heath, it's not a question of need…" Seeing the troubled look in his eyes, she changed her mind about what she was going to say. "Suit yourself." She gathered her purchases and handed them to him to carry.
Heath looked back at the packet he'd seen first. And if he had needed such fancy paper, he'd want the one with the H on it.
He kept thinking about it. That towering gold H.
He wanted it.
H for Heath.
He had absolutely no use for such a thing.
Jarrod brought him back to the store, to pick up a box of letterhead for his office.
It was still there.
The Heath paper and envelopes.
That is—
The paper with the beautiful gold H on it.
Heath picked it up and smiled at it, bit his lip and put it down.
"Why don't you buy it?" Jarrod asked.
"I don't need it."
"A gentlemen should have some fine paper in case he wants to write to a lovely lady."
Heath frowned. "Mother said I should get the one with the B on it."
"Brother Heath, Mother is woman. A gentleman chooses his own stationery."
Heath smiled, happy as a child given a much desired treat. "Thanks, Jarrod." He laid the packet of H paper on the counter. "I'll take this one, please."
