I walked the several blocks, going over what I might say and how I should say it. Then I stopped outside the store, and all thoughts fled my brain. The window decorations were different from last night’s party—and they were mesmerizing. Christmas was bold and glaring then, a celebration. Now the decorations exuded a softer, more inviting feel. In one window there was a Nativity scene and books highlighting multiple faiths and traditions. The covers in the background arrangement held tones of deeper reds, browns, and yellows—it gave me the feeling of sitting in front of a fire, enjoying the glow. The other window still boasted a winter wonderland complete with a real train trolling gifts through the book mountains, but new books had been added to the foreground.
I stepped inside, and both women stared at me.
Claire stayed behind the register. Janet continued straightening a table. It was decoratively crammed with what Aunt Maddie called her “bijoux”—little gifts like stationery, water bottles, notepads, readers, conversation cards, literary coasters . . .
I slowly made my way to the register at the back of the store, working my way around customers and taking in all the details with each step, and willing my stomach to settle.
“Hi.”
“I wondered when you’d come back. We didn’t expect you today.” Claire’s hand drifted to her neck.
“I thought it best to begin right away. I stayed up practically all night going through the store’s accounts. And I have something for each of you.”
“Something for us?” Janet crossed the store.
“These letters have your names on them.” I handed each a thick ivory envelope.
There’d been one addressed to me as well, and I assumed, because their envelopes appeared identical, their missives might hold the same: a short note, a long list of books, and a quotation from the book of Proverbs in the Bible. I didn’t understand why Aunt Maddie had included that last, but it was lovely. It began with a mother’s advice to her son, and then it morphed into a description of a woman. At first I thought it described a good wife, and it chafed that Aunt Maddie thought I needed such advice. Everyone wanted to marry off the single woman. But it wasn’t about a wife per se; it was about an industrious woman, a smart and savvy woman, a good woman. And that made me wonder more about the book list. So much so that I’d already downloaded the first three titles onto my phone.
“These are books.” Claire had opened hers and was scanning down the page. “We sell some of them, but not all. I’ve only read one of them.”
“I haven’t read any on my list.” Janet ran her finger across a title. “A Christmas Carol? Are we to order these to sell? By Christmas?”
“I don’t think so . . . That one’s not on my list,” Claire said. “What else is on yours?” She stepped toward Janet, who pulled her letter close. “It’s okay. I understand.” Claire smiled and stepped back.
Janet tapped the letter against her chest. “If it’s for me and not the shop . . . I’ll share someday. Right now I want to sit with it.”
I smiled too. “I remember Aunt Maddie saying you could lose yourself in a book and, paradoxically, find yourself as well.”
I expected Janet to scoff, knowing how close she was to my aunt and sensing how much she disliked me, but she didn’t. She examined her list, regarded me, then returned to the list. “She did say that . . . Thank you.”
We had nothing more to say. I offered my next gesture. “My aunt left other lists. Tons of them actually. There are lots of notes and random thoughts in this file. I can leave it . . .” I waved my hand toward the office. I didn’t want to trespass, but I hoped for an invitation.
“Come on.” Claire led the way as Janet returned to the front and the customers. “I cleared out Maddie’s things this morning. This will be your desk.” She tapped the edge of a box sitting on the nearby bookshelf. “I left all the office stuff in the drawers, but there are some personal things in here you might want.”
“Thank you.” The desk was neatly laid out with pens, Post-it notes, and small dishes for paper clips and staples, all at ninety-degree angles. I also noticed a row of boxes on the floor with Greg Frankel written in bold letters. “What are those?”
“Maddie used to give her friend boxes of books for shelters, juvenile detention centers, and other groups he works with. I expected him to have picked these up by now, but . . . I should have asked you. It’s your shop now.”
I laughed. “No worries. I’ve met Greg . . . He can have all the books he wants.” There was no way I was going to refuse Darth Vader anything.
“May I offer a suggestion?” Janet stepped into the office doorway. “It’s three days before Christmas, and I think we should run a sale. Everyone loved last night and the sales were extraordinary. Can we offer 20 percent off for the next two days?”
She looked to Claire for an answer.
Claire looked to me.
I shrugged. “Can we?”
“January is slow on the floor, and a lot of the inventory won’t move then. A sale right now will drive last-minute year-end traffic,” Claire offered.
“That sounds good, right?” I nodded to Janet, and she dropped to her chair. Without speaking, Claire moved into the store to work. It was like watching a synchronized swimming team—each movement of one complemented the other.
I dropped into my new desk chair and absorbed it all.
The office wasn’t a large room. Probably only fifteen by fifteen feet square, it held three desks, a worktable, and stacks of boxes along the walls—the two not covered by bookshelves. Janet’s and Claire’s desks fit what I’d seen of them so far. Both simple desks, but Claire’s was precise. A stack of books. A wire file holder filled with multicolored files neatly tabbed. Two picture frames with smiling children and a handsome gray-haired man. A mug with Let Other Pens Dwell on Misery filled with black pens. Everything sat in the same precise order that graced my desk.
Janet’s desk was a cacophony of color. Books, papers, markers, scissors, and glue . . . Elmer’s glue? . . . lay scattered across the surface. A stack of books had swelled into a precarious leaning tower at the right edge. As she banged at her keyboard and the printer whirled next to her, I was sure it would topple.
I looked past all the activity into a small side room. It was filled with boxes and one high table in the center. It reminded me of an old drafting table, large, sturdy, and wooden, with big metal cylinders on one side to tilt it.
“What do you use that for?”
Janet followed my gaze’s trail into the room. “Nothing since Pete died, but . . .” She hesitated, eyes fixed on it. “There’s a skylight in there and the light is wonderful.”
I stepped into the little room. She was right. Even on this gray day, the small skylight flooded the room with light. More bookshelves caught my eye, and I stepped to another tiny room beyond. Not bookshelves. Wallpaper. The bathroom was covered in wallpaper mimicking bookshelves, and someone had handwritten book titles over most of the book spines. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; A Wrinkle in Time; The Catcher in the Rye; Anne of Green Gables; Gone Girl; 1984; Fahrenheit 451; Pride and Prejudice; Inkheart; Cinder; Slaughterhouse-Five . . . The writing went on and on.
“Maddie was sick in here a lot.”
I spun to find Janet standing within the small space behind me.
“We thought she kept getting the flu, and then her doctor said it was ulcers. We used to write book titles on the spines to crack each other up, but when she started getting sick more and spending more time in here, I came in after work to add titles to make her smile. A Wrinkle in Time, the Lewis books as well as Becoming Mrs. Lewis, Tolkien, and so many others. You can see them all on these walls. She loved Agatha Christie, and all sixty-six of her mysteries cover the top of this wall. I first listed all her favorites. Then mine. That’s how you get Hemingway and Vonnegut down here. And when she’d noted all those, I started putting up funny titles, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and all the Magic Tree Houses. That was a trial. There are fifty-four of them. I part
icularly like number eighteen, Buffalo Before Breakfast.”
“I loved those books. You wrote out all the titles in the series?”
She bent to the bottom row. “Along here . . . That was right before she quit coming to the store.”
“I had no idea.”
“Well—”
I turned to her, as I preferred to face an adversary head-on, and her voice told me I was about to get an earful. But she stopped. Her expression changed completely. It softened, and she wilted, as if worn out and lost—exactly how I felt.
“No one knew, not until it couldn’t be hidden. She wanted it that way. For all her tremendous giving, she wasn’t great at receiving. Maybe no one does that well.” Janet backed out into the storage room. “I think this could be an amazing space.”
“For what?”
She strode into the office and I got the feeling I’d be chasing her a lot. Rather than answer, she handed me a color printout announcing the Printed Letter’s sale. It was charming.
“If that’s good with you, I’ll post some on the message board at the Daily Brew and put a couple in the window. Claire will send out an email.”
I scanned it again. “Excellent. Put it on the store’s social media sites too.”
Another copy dangled from Janet’s hand. “We don’t have any.”
“Nothing? The store’s not on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest . . . Nowhere?”
“Should it be?”
“If you want to sell stuff.”
Janet’s eyes hardened. My tone was more incredulous than condemning, but it was deemed unacceptable regardless. How could a store not be on social media? How did anything survive without social media?
“Then you’ve got your first job. Take care of that and I’ll go post these. The old-fashioned way.” She grabbed a few more copies off the printer and left.
I walked to Aunt Maddie’s desk—my desk—and sat down. As I pulled my laptop from my bag, Claire raced into the office. She pointed to a long row of boxes.
“About twenty of those arrive every day. They need to be unpacked, scanned, and put out on the floor. After you finish whatever you’re doing, could you start that? I’ll show you.” She stopped herself. “I’m not trying to tell you what to do, simply what needs to be done. And we’re crowded out here today, which is a good thing, and I want to get this email out real quick.”
With that she headed to the front and I got busy.
* * *
Claire
The store was packed. A tight, loyal community, Winsome had quieted toward the bookshop in the past months, as if a collective pact had been made to give Maddie the peace and quiet she needed. But that time was over, and the store needed loyalty—storm-down-the-door-and-buy-the-books kind of loyalty—and Claire thought that Janet’s graphic was the perfect call to action, a delightful mix of traditional Christmas charm and mercenary commercial flair. It invited the town to rally and celebrate the Printed Letter at a 20 percent discount on all purchases. Madeline also opened accounts across several social media platforms and followed every business in town. Reciprocity would be slow in coming, but the posts looked wonderful.
Tight, loyal community. The thought chased through Claire’s head as she observed Janet ducking behind the calendars and adult coloring books. Aha. Lisa Generis was back. Claire shook her head. Janet avoided more friends than Claire had made in the year and a half she’d lived in town.
That was the downside of a tight, loyal community. Few people needed new friends. And some had so many they could afford to dispose of a few, apparently.
“Good morning.”
Lisa smiled and pushed two books across the counter. “I’d like to purchase these.” She slid Magnolia Table and Eat to Live Cookbook across the counter. “I heard you say last night that you liked this one. And I’ve heard good things about this.” She tapped Eat to Live.
“They’re both very popular right now. I’ve tried a few recipes from Magnolia Table, but not from the other.”
“My aunt suffers from Crohn’s disease, and I thought she might find the recipes helpful and the title bolstering. I . . .” Lisa stalled as if realizing she stood in Maddie’s former shop. “But we don’t really have final control, do we?”
“But we also can’t deny that good food helps.” Claire swept the book up as Lisa looked around. “Can I help you find something else?”
“That’s the Harrisons’ train in the window, right? I remember it from their annual Christmas parties. Is Janet here today?”
Claire focused on the sale. “She’s somewhere. Would you like me to find her for you?”
“Not at all. I . . . It’s nothing.”
“Thank you for coming in today.” Claire handed her the two books in a bag and moved on to another customer.
Several customers later, Claire noted certain sections near the front of the shop looking sparse. She signaled to Madeline to rearrange and restock as she could. And, contrary to Janet’s diatribe against Millennials, Madeline got straight to work and didn’t complain once. The young woman ran back and forth all day, hauling books and straightening shelves. Not to mention, she sneaked out at four o’clock to fetch coffees for the three of them. She helped in every way possible and was beginning—sort of—to laugh at her many mistakes.
Janet’s voice carried across the shop. “Betty, this is perfect for Don. And, Carla, so good to see you again. How’s Buddy? Is he still thinking of majoring in political science? . . . Come see what we’ve got for him.”
The comment sent Claire double-time to the office. She needed to find those former-president memoirs and a copy of that NBA bestseller, fast. She knew that’s where Janet was headed. Despite avoiding a friend here and there, Janet had a deep well of history and acquaintances in town. She remembered their interests and always had a book suggestion ready.
Trying not to feel jealous, and invisible, Claire grabbed several copies of the books she sought.
Madeline careening into her didn’t help. “Sorry. I didn’t see you there.”
Claire set the books on the table just in time for Janet to pick up three and hand them to Carla Murchison.
Claire spun away and returned to the register, where a customer stood with his back to her, tapping his foot. “I’m sorry. We’re so busy— Brian?”
“I came to see if you wanted to do a little shopping.”
Claire looked from her husband to the full shop. “We’re a little overwhelmed here.”
“I brought you a replacement.” He grinned and pointed to the magazine section. Their daughter was slumped against the wall leafing through Harper’s Bazaar.
“She won’t—”
Brian cut her off. “Brittany . . . Brittany, come on over.”
The girl scowled, but obeyed.
“You can work the register, right?”
Brittany crossed her arms. “I worked here before she did.”
“Excellent. I’d like to show your mom a coat I found. You can cover for her for a few minutes and do everything Mrs. Harrison says.”
Father and daughter squared off.
“Will I get paid?”
“Depends on your attitude.”
Brittany sighed, and Brian reached out for Claire’s hand. “Excellent. We’re off.”
“But . . .” The words died as Janet smiled and waved good-bye.
They hit the sidewalk.
“This way.”
Claire pointed the opposite direction. “Most of the stores the kids like are that way.”
“You always say I’m impossible to shop for and I found an idea for me.” He pulled her into a men’s store and pointed to a deep-brown sports coat. “Mine’s gone out of style and this is a slimmer cut, and I like this gold thread through here, don’t you? What do you think?”
“I like it very much.”
“Excellent. Then you can mark me off your list. And I picked up a few gifts for Matt this morning too.” He turned to the salesman. “We’ll take it.”
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As they waited for the coat to be put in a hanging bag, Claire pulled out her phone. “I have some ideas for Brittany on here.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t have a ton of time.” He checked his watch. “What’s on the list?”
“Do you have work? It’s Saturday.”
“Honey, I always have work. I’ve got a call in an hour. I really only wanted you to see the coat. I’ll show you what I got Matt tonight.”
“I should get back to the store anyway.”
He kissed her as they hit the sidewalk once more. “Keep Brittany as long as you need help. The work will do her good.”
And he was gone.
Claire walked back to the Printed Letter to find Brittany behind the register ringing sales, chatting with customers, bagging books—all with a smile Claire hadn’t seen in months. Janet moved behind her and said something that made her laugh.
Then Claire stepped into her daughter’s line of sight and the laughter stopped.
“Can I go now?” Brittany stepped away from the register as Claire circled the counter.
“There’s only a couple hours until we close; why don’t you stay?”
“This is not how I planned to spend my Saturday.”
“We could use the help.”
“Fine.” She dragged the word so long it was clearly not fine. Brittany stepped away from the counter and followed Janet onto the floor.
Soon, it appeared to Claire, she forgot her anger. Brittany demonstrated finger puppets for a pair of five-year-olds, found The Apothecary for a middle schooler, and helped Mrs. Hale find books for all her sons.
Brittany startled when Janet tapped her on the shoulder with a “Well done today” as she was straightening the kids’ section. She seemed shocked to find the store empty and already closed.
Claire was shutting down the register as Brittany shrugged on her coat.
“What’s for dinner tonight?”
“Ugh . . . It was supposed to be chicken, but I forgot to take it out of the freezer this morning. What about . . . Salmon steaks will only take a few minutes to defrost.”
“I. Hate. Fish.”
“I don’t want to go to the store. Let’s head home and I’ll figure something out. We can have pasta.”
The Printed Letter Bookshop Page 11