There used to be a Barnes and Noble in Forest Hills that’s since been replaced by a Target, that I think about often. It was the first bookstore I’d ever been to, and it was also the first place that I ever felt like I belonged to. I was fourteen when I first saw the dark green banner waving in the wind, tucked between bricked shops. I hadn’t worked up the nerve to step inside yet, intimidated by the brand name alone. As far as I knew, Barnes & Noble stores were only ever seen in nice areas of the city, and now here it was, not in my neighborhood, but close enough.
I had entertained the idea of going inside on my own, I’d planned it all in my head, I’d pass by after school, a pitstop on my way home. It would be an adventure in a way only people who have a routine know, breaking up a monotonous day is liberating, rebellious even, and I was about to do it.
I got off the bus, walking with purpose, but slowed down the closer I got, nerves settling in. I remember hesitating outside the coffee shop next to the bookstore where I caught a whiff of coffee beans as people exited with their book purchases in one hand and a coffee in the other. Everyone seemed so grown up in comparison to my fourteen-year-old self, dressed in my school uniform. But this was my adventure, I thought to myself, and today I would be brave and try something new. That’s when I realized I had been worried over nothing, inside the bookstore, kids of all ages were browsing shelves, both in friend groups and alone. Some were dressed in their own school uniforms and the other students were easily identified by their bulky book bags.
There were two levels; on the ground floor were magazines, cookbooks, history books, self-help books, a music section—the adult sections. But the next floor up, now that was my section. The young adult section was broken up by genres; science fiction, fantasy, romance, comics, historical fiction, endless possibilities were spread around me. I even gave the study help books a cursory look. I remember my heart beating fast, excited about seeing so many books, as readers everywhere know that once you step into a bookstore, and you spot a book you’ve read, it’s like greeting an old friend.
Here was a place where readers of all ages existed on the same wavelength, we were all here to look at books, to see what new companion would come home with us. I love libraries, I do, but it’s different when a book is yours, one you can hold in your hands, underline lines you love and leave store receipts to bookmark your favorite passages.
I could’ve spent hours browsing the shelves, maybe even forever, I didn’t want to leave, but my adventure had to end soon, or I’d risk worrying my mom by coming home late. I left with the promise to come back soon.
Over the years, throughout high school, I would visit Barnes & Noble with friends, where we’d talk and browse books, even ordering our own cups of coffee next door, our book purchases secured on our other hand. In this store among hundreds of books, I’d found a place of my own, the result of a deviation from my routine and doing something new, even if it scared me at first.
Years later, that store no longer exists. Barnes & Noble retail stores are still around, just not in Queens anymore. Instead, I visit their location on Fifth Avenue, a bold green banner bearing the name of their bookstore flutters overhead as I enter where not much has changed; school kids browse tall brown shelves and tables stacked with books. Other customers mingle on the first floor--and all the other floors where other small adventures await me both inside and outside this store.
Rosa
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