Ted

Dana has made Rian remember Ted the Book Binder.

Ted was Trouble disguised as Philosophy. A thin, curly haired creature in his mid twenties, Ted worked at the counter in Rian's bookstore during the week whilst spending his weekends learning the craft of Book Binding.

He was one of those souls who was highly intellectual and yet had very little to show for it. He could quote Nietzsche and Wodehouse, knew Mozart and Holiday. Wore scuffed shoes and a loose belt and always rolled his shirt sleeves to the elbows. He wrote poetry in the breakroom and ate biscotti for lunch.

Ted loved to make fun of pop-culture customers. The day Newt Gingrich purchased a volume on the military precision of ants, Ted nearly got into fisticuffs with the man and yet came out of the clash smelling sweet as a rose.

The women employees adored the Book Binder's Apprentice. One left her emotionally cold husband in the hopes that Ted would save her.

He wrote her a poem or two, fed her biscotti and christened the break room couch, but apparently 'commitment' is not in the young intellectual's dictionary.

Ted wanted only his books and a chance to bind them.