Emily sat down on a low sofa while Robert disappeared into the back. Idly she leafed through the book of paper samples in front of her. There was no real need for her to stop by; she didn't need any stationery, and even if she had, she had only to call the shop and Robert would see to it. But she had an empty half hour on her hands between a breakfast meeting and a lunch date, and she had always loved this store. It was so quiet and calm, and full of beautiful things that were only beautiful if you knew to look closely, like the intricate marbling of the pages of the Florentine journal Robert was looking for, like the deep dull sheen of the sheet of ivory paper in the sample book she held. Some people might think these things simple pleasures, but Emily knew that no true pleasure was ever simple. In her own desk at home she kept a sheaf of dove gray stationery, and when she was angry or frustrated, sometimes Emily found herself running her fingers over her initials, engraved at the top. It was a pleasure, the cool gray surface, the slight indentations curving beneath her fingertips, and it wasn't simple at all.