Rosetown Summer

by Cynthia Rylant

  To Judy Rule in Huntington, West Virginia… for all the years helping a library grow

  1

  Rosetown Paper and Press sat on Main Street in Rosetown, Indiana, and it was one of Flora Smallwood’s favorite places to be. The shop belonged to Flora’s mother and father, and all of its beautiful cards and calendars and journals had been printed on an old-fashioned letterpress in the back room. It was comforting to be among all of the lovely messages: A garden of wishes for you. You are my cup of tea. To my very dearest dear. And to trace a finger over the little birds, the garlands of ivy, the blue forget-me-nots and other pretty decorations on the papers.

  The shop was new—it had been open only for a month—but as one might say of a special friend, it seemed to Flora that she had known it forever.

  August in Indiana always had a stillness that Flora appreciated, as she was herself a mostly still person. She was sure this was why her cat, Serenity, loved her so much. Cats enjoy quiet people. And Serenity had been a stray cat when Flora and her friend Yury had found her. Serenity had been through enough challenges in her kitty life and now wanted nothing more than to be with a gentle person who did not fidget. Flora fit this description perfectly.

  When the school year had ended in June, Flora and her friends Nessy and Yury had all launched immediately into their summer projects, and those projects were continuing with great success.

  Yury and his dog, Friday, were now in the Beginner class at the Good Manners for Good Dogs dog school, having passed puppy class to great applause (Flora’s). After dog school on Saturday mornings, Yury and Flora still sat on the bench outside the Peaceable Buns Bakery, sharing muffins and talking, as Friday chewed on leftover crusts provided by the friendly bakers. Beginner class was more rigorous than puppy school, and Yury always had much to say about the morning’s class. (“Friday sat fine, but Skippy behind us kept rolling over.”)

  Nessy, who at nine was a year younger than Flora, was continuing the piano lessons she and Flora had started many months before. Nessy was a natural musician (unlike Flora, who was happy to play old folk songs forever while Nessy dove into Mozart), and with the windows of her home wide open for the summer, Nessy’s playing was enjoyed by her neighbors, all of whom agreed she had “a remarkable talent.” Nessy didn’t care about talent, though. She just wanted to play piano while her little canary, Sunny, sang along. And when Nessy wasn’t practicing the piano, she was practicing riding a pink bicycle with white streamers and a bell and a basket, in which she always carried her doll Happy Girl. Nessy was cautious about this new bicycle—it had taken much encouragement from Flora for Nessy to even think about riding a bicycle—but with the help of Happy Girl, Nessy was doing fine.

  And Flora was still assisting her parents at the paper shop, though not nearly as energetically as in June and July. In June they had received the keys to the empty storefront on Main Street, and for the first week they cleaned, the second week they painted, the third week they carried in furniture and equipment (Flora’s job that week had been to bring lunch), and the final week her parents finally printed their first products to sell to the public. The letterpress was louder than Flora had expected, so she stayed at home with Serenity and read during the hours of printing. But in the late afternoon, after the noise had stopped, she took Serenity to the upper floor of the shop so they could sit on the wicker daybed by the window and watch the pigeons.

  July had been something of a whirlwind, with the shop open part-time and her parents adjusting their schedules. (Flora’s father was still a full-time photographer for the Rosetown Chronicle.) Flora was especially busy with errands that month, and she’d made quite a few trips to the Peaceable Buns Bakery on everyone’s behalf.

  These had been hectic months, so they passed quickly, but—besides the new paper shop—there hadn’t been much real change in Rosetown.

  But now, with only a month to go before school would start, there was talk of another change, the subject of which Flora found deeply concerning. It involved her dearest place, the special destination she had shared with her friend Yury so many school-day afternoons: Wings and a Chair Used Books. It was at this shop that Flora and Yury’s friendship had planted its roots and where a purple velveteen chair in the front window always beckoned them in.

  The bookshop’s owner, Miss Meriwether, had been invited by a friend to come live together on a farm in Montana in the Bitterroot Valley. And she was considering it. This was all that Flora knew.

  And she wondered: If Wings and a Chair changed, what else might?

  2

  Flora had received her first journal in June as soon as the pages came off the letterpress and were stitched together and finished with a beautiful cover: an owl. Her father had handed her the journal and said, “You finished fourth grade and you rescued a nice cat. This is to celebrate both.”

  Flora had shyly accepted the very first journal made at Rosetown Paper and Press.

  “Yury says I should write stories,” Flora said. “But I’d rather read them.”

  Her father nodded. “I’d rather look at photographs than take them,” he said.

  “Really?” asked Flora.

  “But I guess if all photographers felt that way,” answered her father, “we wouldn’t have any photographs to look at.”

  Flora was silent a moment. She would have to think about that idea later when she had time to separate the words. Some ideas were so complicated that she had to pick the words apart later like a handful of flowers.

  “I love the owl,” she said.

  In that moment Flora could not have imagined that, when she was finally ready to write in her journal, the first thing she would tell it was that Miss Meriwether might be leaving.

  Flora was sensitive about anyone or anything leaving. She was sensitive about change. That was why she wanted to stay forever in Rosetown, which had hardly changed in a hundred years. It was an old town, a historic town, just the town she needed.

  And change had been painful for her, not so long ago. She would never forget their dear old dog, Laurence, passing away last summer. Sometimes she thought of him and felt almost as sad as she had when he left.

  Then soon after Laurence was gone, her parents—Forster and Emma Jean—had decided to live in separate houses. Flora spent all of fourth grade walking back and forth between them, carrying Serenity in her kitty travel box. That change had also been a terrible change, at first. But just as she had become adjusted to living in both a white house and a yellow house, and had felt it would be all right, her parents decided not only to live together in just one house again—the white one—but to open a shop together, Rosetown Paper and Press.

  Everything had worked out even better than Flora had imagined it could, but inside her was still that tender memory of the first day her family lived in separate houses, that tender, sensitive memory of pain.

  Flora’s mother still worked three afternoons each week at Wings and a Chair, and both Flora and her mother loved Miss Meriwether and her exuberant free spirit. Miss Meriwether had come back to Rosetown after living an unusual life in many exotic places. She had decided to become a more settled person and open a shop.

  From their first meeting on the first day of fourth grade, Flora’s and Yury’s favorite place to be together had been the Young People’s Nook in Miss Meriwether’s shop. They had spent many afternoons reading vintage books, and now they often, quite out of the blue, would launch into conversation about an especially exciting turn in the plot of something they had read months earlier: “Remember when Bert Walton was thrown off his horse and chased by a grizzly?”

  And for Yury, who had emigrated from the Ukraine, every adventure book, mystery—even the books about chickens and crickets—helped him build a histor
y, his own history, in America.

  The bookshop had, in many ways, become their story, Flora and Yury’s. Every story needs a setting and a beginning, and Wings and a Chair had given them both.

  The shop had been a kind of resting place for them as they had made their way through fourth grade. Flora did not have to adjust herself to being there, as she had in her father’s separate house and his separate kitchen. As she had in her separate bedroom filled with clothes and books carried over from the other house. And Yury did not have to adjust to being the new boy in a classroom, a new boy from the Ukraine who was learning the rules of the playground and learning who among the students was smartest or strongest or least trustworthy.

  Wings and a Chair had been respite and relief, at first, for them both. How simple and easy to walk there together, find a book, and start a story.

  Now, after nearly a year had passed, both Flora and Yury had found their footing: their families were more settled, fourth grade had been conquered. And the bookshop was now less sanctuary and more habit, like a familiar road one travels each day or a television show one never misses. It was a steady companion, as they were now to each other.

  Flora wanted Miss Meriwether to stay.

  3

  Flora met her best friend Nessy at the Rosetown Free Library when they were five and four, respectively. They were members—at their mothers’ urging and confidence—of the Summer Reading Club that summer. The theme of the club that year was Fly to Adventure, and their group—the youngest—was called the Honeybees. During craft time they made paper sets of wings to wear and paper garlands of flowers for the library windows, and they enjoyed little cups of lemonade they pretended was nectar. And, of course, they listened to stories and left for home with at least one borrowed book to read and return.

  Even now, when Flora saw a honeybee, she often thought of the library.

  Flora had enjoyed being part of the library’s Summer Reading Club every summer since then. She had been a Caterpillar, a Porpoise, a Prairie Dog, and an Alpaca. As had Nessy.

  This summer, though, the girls had not joined the reading club. Nessy’s piano lessons and summer travels with her parents to visit family near and far had kept her quite busy and more than a little disorganized. And Flora’s part in helping with the opening of Rosetown Paper and Press had distracted her thoroughly. Flora was easily overloaded by too much activity. Her mother had recently explained to her, in fact, what an “introvert” was and asked her if she thought she might be one.

  “Yes,” Flora had answered. “And I am pretty sure Serenity is one too.”

  But Flora did so appreciate the library. The theme this year for summer reading was Great Migrations, and had she joined the club, she would have been a Blue Whale. She had encouraged Yury to join, but Yury wasn’t interested, primarily because his Saturdays were taken up with dog school and family time. Yury’s father was a doctor and always busy at his office on Main Street all week. So on Saturdays, Yury’s family enjoyed seeing a movie together or bowling at Rosetown Lanes. One of the good things about Rosetown was that it was really quite a pleasant place to be on a Saturday.

  “I’ve hardly been to the library this summer,” Flora said to her mother one day as they walked past it toward the Windy Day Diner for lunch. Flora’s mother was on her way to the paper shop to design cards for the fall season ahead. Flora had suggested some crow cards, and her mother thought that was a good idea. Fall seemed to be a crow’s favorite time of year.

  “Your father and I have kept you so busy,” said Flora’s mother. “Mr. Anderson probably misses you in Summer Reading. You always earned so many stickers.”

  Mr. Anderson was the children’s librarian. Like Miss Meriwether at the bookshop, Mr. Anderson loved being around people and books. He was a big person with a big smile, and even the shyest children warmed to him right away. He kept a hedgehog in the Children’s Room, and every year there was a contest to name it. The hedgehog would have the name for a year. Then a new person would win the contest, and the hedgehog would become somebody else. Its current name was Miss Sissy. Its previous name had been Frank Smith. The name contest was quite popular.

  “I like the library so much that I would work there for free,” said Flora.

  “Well, maybe you could do that now,” said Emma Jean as they entered the diner.

  “What do you mean?” asked Flora. “I’m only ten.”

  They slid into an empty booth and pulled out menus from behind the condiments rack.

  Flora’s mother smiled. “I know how old you are,” she said. “Let’s decide what we’d like.”

  Flora knew what she wanted, as she always ordered the same thing: a grilled cheese sandwich and a root beer float.

  Her mother never knew what she wanted, so Flora had to wait. When finally the young waitress had taken their orders—after commenting “Love your paper shop!”—they picked up their conversation again.

  “Well, the shop is up and running, so your father and I don’t need as much help,” said Flora’s mother. “You have more free time. Maybe you could volunteer in the Children’s Room? I’m sure Mr. Anderson is very busy now.”

  “But I’m ten,” said Flora.

  “Yes, you are,” said her mother, smiling again. “And what I know about small children is that they love bigger children. And are usually very good when a big child is watching over and helping them.”

  Flora thought on this for a few moments.

  “I followed cousin Kate around everywhere when we visited Aunt Jane,” she said.

  “Yes,” answered her mother. “You were three and Kate was nine.”

  “Nine?” repeated Flora. “She seemed so much older.”

  “I guess nine seems old when someone is three,” said Emma Jean, reaching for a tea bag and the mug of hot water just set down in front of her.

  “You mean I could maybe help with the little children?” asked Flora. “At the library?”

  “Perhaps you could ask Mr. Anderson if he needs an assistant at Toddler Story Time,” said Flora’s mother. “Maybe you could help with the crafts. Toddlers are pretty unpredictable when paper and glue are involved.”

  The waitress set a grilled cheese sandwich and a float in front of Flora.

  “Thank you,” Flora said.

  She looked at her mother. “Have you been thinking about this for a while?” Flora asked.

  “I sometimes have inspirations,” said her mother.

  Flora nodded. “It’s because you have a good imagination,” she told her mother. “There’s a line in The Mystery Horse about imagination: Imagination is a wonderful thing, Elizabeth. But you will have to control it.”

  “That’s probably just the sort of thing someone with no imagination would say,” Flora added.

  The subject of books and imagination brought Flora back to the worry that seemed always on her mind in recent days.

  “Is Miss Meriwether going to move away?” she asked her mother. Flora wasn’t sure she really wanted to know the answer. When a question is so big inside one’s mind, sometimes a person does not really want to know its answer.

  Her mother sighed. She looked away a moment, then looked back at Flora.

  “She seems torn,” Flora’s mother said. “Miss Meriwether is at one of life’s crossroads: to stay or to go. This is a problem many people face.”

  Flora shook her head. “Not me,” she said. “I would always choose to stay.”

  Her mother smiled. “But if you aren’t at a crossroads yet, dear,” she said, “how can you know? Sometimes a person really must choose between two good things.”

  Two good things, thought Flora.

  “I would choose the thing that involved a cat,” she said.

  Her mother laughed.

  They both were quiet a moment.

  “If the bookshop closed, I would miss the books in the window,” Flora said. “And the purple chair. And most of all, Yury.”

  Her mother looked with concern at Flora’s seri
ous face.

  “Yury will be your friend whether Miss Meriwether stays or goes,” she said to Flora.

  Flora was quiet. Her mother did not press her to respond.

  Flora looked out the window of the diner and watched the people walking by on their way somewhere. She thought of the months spent walking between the white house and the yellow house. And how it is to be suspended between two things, waiting for someone to make a choice, waiting to know what there is to hold on to and what there is to let go.

  4

  “Be prepared” were the first words Yury said when he met Flora at the corner of State and Main to walk to Miss Meriwether’s bookshop the next day.

  “Okay,” said Flora.

  Flora and Yury shared an interest in survival tactics—Yury’s interest was much stronger than hers, as he wanted to live the survival tactics, whereas she mainly just wanted to talk about them—so being prepared was not an uncommon topic between them.

  “No, it’s the Scout motto,” explained Yury as they headed down Main. “Be prepared.”

  “Boy Scouts?” asked Flora.

  Yury nodded.

  “And…,” Flora said encouragingly.

  “I don’t know why I never thought of it before,” said Yury. “Becoming a Scout.”

  “Don’t they just go camping?” asked Flora. “Didn’t you say camping is boring?”

  “It’s boring with my father and his friend Donald,” said Yury. “A doctor and dentist camping, all they want to talk about are the tools. I want to search for edible plants, but they just want to sit in camp chairs and compare Swiss Army knives.”

  “I’d have gone with you to look for edible plants,” said Flora.

  “I know,” said Yury.

  “Do you remember that book from the shop,” Yury continued, “Tom Slade, Boy Scout?”

  “I think I was reading all the Meg books then,” said Flora.

  “Well, Tom Slade is no Walton boy, I can tell you that,” Yury said. “But there was one line in it that stayed with me.”