The Printed Letter Bookshop

by Katherine Reay

  They drove home in silence, and as soon as they entered the house Brittany beelined to her room.

  Claire heard Brian’s office door open.

  “Hey, hon . . . I didn’t realize how late it had gotten. Have you been home long? What’s the dinner plan?”

  Claire dropped her bag on the counter and stretched her back. “Give me a few minutes.”

  * * *

  Janet

  Watching Brittany work the register is a revelation. Maybe it’s all that time on their phones, but her generation sure understands technology. When she worked here a few times last year, I gave her a quick tutorial and she caught on like a house afire. I almost ask her why she quit coming—she’s fantastic with the customers and is a wonder at piling on those little extras filling the counter—but I see her lock eyes on her mom across the store and I know the answer.

  I remember those days.

  Nothing I said to Alyssa was right. My very existence chafed. Part of me is pleased to see that my mother-daughter relationship wasn’t the only one battered by the teenage years, and the other part of me wishes it were.

  Poor Claire . . . I doubt she deserves this antipathy. If Brittany is anything like Alyssa, Claire has her hands full. And if Brittany is anything like Alyssa, this isn’t a phase.

  The first several times I called Alyssa after Seth left, she didn’t answer. I left messages and she wouldn’t call me back. Finally she did.

  “You’ve got to stop calling, Mom. If I want you, I know where to find you.”

  “But we haven’t talked. It’s been three months since you moved, and I have no idea how the new job is or what your new apartment is like. Are you near the ocean? I was thinking I could come out next month and help you decorate.”

  “I’m fine, and I’m visiting Dad next month.”

  “You’re coming home?” My voice was so desperate. One part elation, two parts devastation.

  “I’m coming to Winsome, to visit Dad. I’ll stay at his apartment.”

  “He hasn’t got the space. Stay here. You can stay in your room.”

  “I don’t think so, Mom. It doesn’t work like that anymore.” Her voice was all steel without any velvet wrapping.

  “But—”

  “I need to go.” She hung up. No promise to call. No promise to drop by when she came to town.

  I didn’t call again—and she didn’t drop by.

  Things have thawed in two years, but not warmed. Yet I have a granddaughter now and that changes everything. Rosie gives me courage. Claire and Brittany have the store well in hand, with Madeline running around like a frantic chicken, so I slip out the back door into the alley.

  “Shoo. Shoo.” That darn cat is here again. It keeps coming back, though I can’t figure out why. If it had any sense it would hang out behind the coffee shop or the deli—someplace with food.

  It’s too cold out here without a coat, so I return to the office and slip into the storage room with a brilliant idea. I pull my phone from my jeans pocket and tap the information icon next to Alyssa’s beautiful, carefree face. The picture was taken eight years ago, right as she graduated college. She’d swung her arm around me, and Seth had captured her exaltation, my adoration, and the seemingly unbreakable bond between us. I click out the number on the store’s landline.

  She picks up. “Hello?”

  “Alyssa?”

  “Mom?” I imagine she’s pulling the phone from her ear, wondering how she failed to notice my name on the screen. “I didn’t recog— Where are you calling from?”

  “The Printed Letter.” I take a breath and dive in. “Could you please talk to Chase? I want to meet Rosie.”

  “Then call Chase or Laura. Why call me?”

  “He sent me some texts yesterday, but he put me off about visiting. I think . . . I know if you talk to him, he’ll invite me to come. I can’t simply show up. Please. It doesn’t have to be this way.”

  “What way?”

  “Angry all the time. We have to move on.”

  “Really, Mom, that’s what we should do? Move on? Call Chase yourself.”

  The line clicks dead and I am left holding the office phone in one hand and her smiling face, pressed cheek to cheek against mine, in the other.

  I walk back outside. I need cold. I need air. I need this cat to leave.

  “Get out of here. Shoo. You stupid animal!”

  I’m not sure if I’m yelling at the cat, now long gone, or myself.

  Chapter 8

  Madeline

  The New Year began with lunch.

  It was a wonderful opening to a book and to my new year. I’d cracked the spine on the seventh book on Aunt Maddie’s list first thing on January 1 and found this opening line. Since then I’d read books eight and nine too. Each book confirmed my suspicions—Aunt Maddie had a purpose.

  Number seven, A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle, was an older book about a man who quits his corporate job and buys a house in France. Aunt Maddie followed it up with Under the Tuscan Sun as book number eight.

  Part of me scoffed. Real subtle, Aunt Maddie. And another part was insulted by the implication that I needed two books’ worth of “saving” from the life I had chosen. Yet the strongest part of me couldn’t turn the pages of either of them fast enough. There was something so intriguing and compelling about seeing life from a new perspective, one that left me time and space to lift my head and wonder.

  Today the sun was shining into the shop windows, books were selling, and I had slept better, and certainly more each night, in the three weeks since Christmas than I had in the entire past decade.

  A noise caught my attention. Since I started at the store, I had learned a lot about the two full-time employees. Neither was very good at dissembling, especially Janet. Her eyes let you in, whether she wanted you there or not.

  And right now, Janet overflowed. Her laugh drew my gaze to her, and I found her at the front of the store hugging the man from the park, the man from Aunt Maddie’s house, he of the red Patagonia, green eyes, and snowplow.

  Sitting on a stool behind the counter, I ducked my head and feigned deeper interest in my book—such deep interest a customer had to slide a book within my field of vision to get my attention.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No worries.” She glanced behind her toward the door. “You were preoccupied.”

  She was close to my age, and I noted her wedding rings and her small curved smile.

  I rang up her purchases, my face warming. It was true; the guy had entered my thoughts far too often. I blamed this semi–world of fiction I now lived within and the fact that I enjoyed so much free time—after all, a fifty-hour workweek left thirty whole hours I’d never had before for unbidden romantic scenarios.

  I looked up as I handed the customer her purchases and felt my face grow hotter. She noted it too and glanced to the door again.

  He had caught my stare—and worse, Janet caught him catching me. She followed his gaze, widened her eyes, then pulled him across the store toward me, pausing to squeeze the arm of the now grinning woman. “Did you get your new book club book? We got them in last week.”

  “I did, Janet, thank you. I adore a good love story.”

  With that, the woman threw me a last glance and was gone. I felt fifty shades of hot red as Janet, and the man, stood in front of me.

  “Madeline, have you met Chris?”

  “We spoke after Aunt Maddie’s funeral, then again at her house, but not really . . . I’m Madeline.” I stood and reached out my hand.

  His hand was warm. He didn’t let go. “Chris McCullough. It’s nice to officially meet you.”

  “Nice to meet you too,” I mumbled like a high schooler.

  “Whatever you do, don’t call her Maddie.” Janet’s dry delivery and wink returned me to the day we first met. I suspected she still misunderstood my confusion that day. I was working it out myself.

  “I’ll remember that.”

  Janet slid two books to me.
“Will you ring these up for Chris? And use my credit card on file.”

  “You’re not buying me books.” He grabbed for them.

  She pushed them out of his reach. “I am. I’ve asked you to read him; it’s only fair. Besides, you’ll love Powell. He’s very Christie meets Silva. So read the Powell first, then your next Silva.”

  I peeked at the titles, Redemption and House of Spies, and rang the sale.

  Janet continued talking as if I had disappeared. Yet it felt awkward and rude to walk away—and I was on the register—so I pretended to check the stock lists that lay on the counter, while still fully fixed on their conversation.

  “So where have you been? You can’t be too busy these days.”

  Chris chuckled, full of rich, rolling notes. “You’d be surprised at all the planning that goes on during winter. Mario’s got me involved in some of the ordering and design work too. Not to mention the great demand for my mad snowplow skills.”

  He laughed again, at this or at himself, I wasn’t sure.

  He continued. “The other guys plowing this year tore up a few gravel drives, and I’m requested by name now. It seems I have a delicate touch.”

  “Surgeon’s skill being put to good use?” Janet’s voice lifted.

  “Something like that.”

  “Speaking of that, how’s Sonia?”

  I watched Chris out of the corner of my eye. Something about Janet’s tone cued me—this was important.

  “She’s busy. Still no date, but we’re good.” He peered at his watch as I handed him the books. “In fact, I’m meeting her at Bistro North for lunch.”

  “She came to Winsome?”

  “Miracles happen and all that. Thanks for the books.” He kissed Janet’s cheek, murmured a “Thank you and good to meet you, Madeline” to me, and walked out of the store.

  Janet stood watching him. I had so many questions. None of which I gave her the satisfaction of asking.

  “So?” The one syllable tripped and dipped into at least three as she turned on me.

  “So . . . I placed the order for this week. Will you check it and see if I missed something, and watch the counter for a few minutes?” I turned my laptop screen toward her and headed into the office. “Claire, will you look it over after Janet?”

  “Where are you going?” Janet called after me.

  “The deli to grab a sandwich.”

  “Oh . . . I want one. The number sixteen,” Claire chirped from her desk.

  “Me too, but number twelve. Go quick before the line grows.” Janet shoved money at me and pushed me toward the door.

  Three doors down, Chris exited the pharmacy ahead of me. I slowed my steps.

  Janet . . . She guessed at my motivations before I recognized them myself. I stalled and almost turned around, certain my actions looked as high school as they felt.

  “Hello again, Madeline.” Chris’s voice was strong and bright, and I liked how he said my name. It didn’t carry Janet’s occasional curdle or Claire’s formality. It reminded me of one of my best high school friends. He always made my name sound like a song. I’d had a crush on him until we graduated. Now he was happily married with two kids and, according to Facebook, working as an insurance adjuster in Connecticut.

  “Hi. I’m heading to the deli. You’re going to Bistro North, right?”

  “I am, but not for a few minutes. I got a text—my fiancée is running late.”

  “Your fiancée?” I tried, and failed, not to sputter on the words. “When’s the wedding?”

  He fell into step beside me. “Not sure. Almost two years and she hasn’t set a date. Of course, I’ve only been stateside a little less than a year, but I’m beginning to think it’s not a good sign.”

  His eyes told me he wasn’t taking his doubts too seriously.

  I laughed and, while I hoped it sounded light and genuine, I suspected it sounded as flat to his ears as it did to my own. “She probably wants it to be perfect. That takes planning.”

  “True. She is a planner.”

  We turned the corner. I counted three more storefronts before I would be free. I searched for a topic. “So you’re a landscaper?”

  “Yard worker more like. Vittigliano’s hired me on as a favor to my brother, who happens to be the owner’s parish priest. I’m trying to be the hardest-working guy on the payroll so as not to let anybody down. It’s good work. I like helping things grow and, I have to say, there is a definite art to a well-plowed drive . . . And you? I didn’t know you worked in Maddie’s store.”

  “I don’t. I mean I own it now, but it’s not what I do. I’m a lawyer. This is just until it sells and I can get back to the real world.” I expected him to laugh with me.

  He didn’t.

  Instead he stopped and pointed above me to the red-and-green Winsome Deli sign. “Here’s your stop. Have a nice day.”

  As he walked away, I looked up. The sun had vanished.

  Twenty cloudy minutes later, sandwiches in hand, I pushed through the alley door into the office.

  Claire greeted me in a voice laced with fear. “What have you done?”

  She was hovering over my laptop, and I assumed she was checking my order.

  “I figured I’d place the order for the whole quarter. We get a bigger discount for a larger order, so I ordered a sampling of the most recommended titles. Also there’s a 50 percent discount option we weren’t employing.”

  “That’s because you can’t return the books if you use that discount. And we never order that far out, and we never simply order what’s recommended. The business changes, what’s wanted changes, our customers, our store has its own personality. You’ve got titles here that we already have in stock, and we’ll never sell many of these suggestions, and now we can’t return them.”

  “Change the order then.”

  “I tried. You placed this yesterday.”

  “I forgot to tell you.” I leaned over her. “It can’t be too late.”

  “Twenty-four hours. No exceptions. It’s like the airlines. What were you doing earlier? I thought this is what you were doing.”

  “I’d forgotten a few so I added on.”

  “Those we can cancel.” A few clicks, then she pushed back from her desk and faced me. “The 42 percent discount lets us return books. And we do return books.”

  “You told me that, didn’t you?” There was so much new information coming at me I’d forgotten. “I’m sorry.”

  I hated apologizing, and it felt like that’s all I did these days. I had to apologize twice to Janet yesterday for freezing the register and for mis-entering the day’s entire inventory. I had to apologize to Claire for stocking books on the wrong shelves. And I suspected I should apologize to Chris—I’d said something wrong, obviously, but I wasn’t sure what.

  “We can’t cover this, Madeline. I showed you. The store account doesn’t have this kind of cash on hand.” Claire sighed and dropped back into her chair.

  “It will.” I blurted my answer without any idea how to make it true.

  “How?”

  Then the idea came to me. “It just will. Give me a few days.”

  * * *

  Janet

  “Who broke all your crayons?”

  “What?” Madeline snaps at me. She’s slamming books into the shelves. I follow behind her, pulling them out, then tapping them straight and into line.

  “You’ve been growling since you got back from the deli. What gives?”

  “You missed that I screwed up the ordering?”

  I almost smile. Madeline does not like to be wrong—clearly. “You said you could cover it. No harm, no foul.”

  “Why are you being nice to me?” She stops and watches me, a small smile lifting half her mouth.

  We’ve reached an interesting point, the two of us. Neither of us is sure of the other, but we both keep at it. On my side, it actually isn’t because she’s my boss and I want to keep my job, although both of those things are true. I see Maddie in her. />
  From what I gather, she and her aunt weren’t close. To hear Maddie talk about her niece, I thought they were super tight. But Madeline? She’s struggling with something, about her aunt, about her family. When she first entered the shop, I thought it was cut-and-dried. Maddie good. Madeline bad. Now I feel it’s not so simple—and I’m beginning to like her.

  I point to the shelves and she resumes her work more gently. I still follow and straighten what she leaves crooked. “So you’ve met Chris before? When?”

  There’s a hitch in her rhythm—a very telling hitch—and I know I’m right. I stifle a laugh because I know she’ll think I’m laughing at her, and she won’t appreciate it. But I remember those days. Those beautiful, trepidation-filled early days when you like someone. You can’t explain how or why a single encounter ignites something in you, but it’s intoxicating and you’re hooked.

  When I think of Seth now I feel it all over again—the lift, the lightness, the butterflies, the fear and the wonder. It’s a lifetime too late, but I’m right back in those early fluttery moments when he’d grab lunch at the same New York deli I did. And one day he said hi. That’s all it took. Hi.

  “He dropped by Aunt Maddie’s one night while I was there. He plows the drive.”

  Madeline’s explanation cuts across my memories. As much as Maddie teased me that I live present tense with little reflection, some dips into yesteryear are warm enough to drown in. I pull myself back to now. “He and your aunt were tight. In her final weeks, he dropped by her house daily.”

  “Daily?”

  Madeline stills like a tuning fork—contained vibration—and my heart hurts for her. Maddie always said her niece was a treasure, and loyal. And whenever I lambasted the little ingrate for never returning Maddie’s calls or coming to visit, she cryptically remarked that I couldn’t criticize the girl for her best qualities. And right now, Madeline’s response has nothing to do with Chris and everything to do with her aunt.

  “It’s a shame you weren’t able to know her better.”

  She looks at me sharp, then suspicious, then forlorn. But I’m not kicking her this time, I’m commiserating. I nod and grab a stack of books, then head to the front of the shop. The girl needs space.