Sarah's Books - Used & Rare

Mondays always seem to be Mondays, no matter what else is happening. I am indoors, paying bills and doing other end-of-month paperwork. But I had a glorious day off yesterday - after hordes (well, small hordes) of tourists last week, I was craving some deep isolation and solitude, so I headed off east to my old hometown, population six hundred, if you count people's family pets. One of my favorite places on earth is a little beach very close to one of the houses painter John Marin lived and worked in for many years. I can go there at the height of the tourist season and there's almost no one around. Nothing's happening - just the way I like it. I got there around ten yesterday morning, and didn't see anyone else until the afternoon, except a woman walking her two dogs on the edge of the surf. Best things I noticed yesterday: the tide was coming in, and as I waded near some ledges I watched the barnacles open and close as each wave came up over them (I thought I was alone, but there were actually hundreds of creatures right next to me); and as I walked back to my car, I saw an osprey fly over, clutching a huge fish in both its talons - it headed out to sea to one of the small islands just offshore, and it was making a ruckus because some people were on the island near its nest, I could see them walking on the shore out there. The osprey circled for a while before landing. I took a Laurie Colwin book (The Lone Pilgrim, fitting for a day by myself) with me, and my journal, and watercolors, but besides doing a few sketches, I took the opportunity to do a whole lot of nothing. After five years of running a shop, and ten more years of retail, I find solitude more and more necessary to my well-being. Thank god I can get it, in this great state.

Meanwhile, back at the bookshop, I have an end-of-month dilemma. A few weeks ago a good (though not long-time) customer called and asked me for a book. I had a copy, but he needed it for a gift the next day, and I was going to be closed, so I left it for him to pick up at the bookshop a few doors down. He said he'd come in and pay me for it later in the week, and I said sure, because he usually comes in at least once a week, and seems honest. So as I'm sorting my sales slips out, I find that he hasn't paid for his book yet, and in fact I haven't seen him or heard from him in three weeks. I hate that. The book was $45.00. Do I have to do something? What? Assume there is a dire family emergency and he hasn't been able to drop in (I am notorious for making allowances past the point of what is the usual leeway...)? Let another week go by and call him? See how long it takes for him to actually come in? Write it off? To be fair, he did say he'd come in, but then I was immdiately closed for several days because of my nephew being born. Who is a plum blossom, by the way. My sister and her husband are already reading books to him, and he's actually interested. We'd better start saving for his Harvard tuition now. But back to my dilemma - I think I will do nothing and ride it out, but I am open to suggestions.