The Printed Letter Bookshop

by Katherine Reay

  Claire materialized with a broom and brought me back to the present. “You okay?”

  “No.” I grabbed a tissue and blew my nose. “Put anything that can still be read over here, and we’ll give it all to Greg Frankel.”

  Claire helped with the stacking, then used the broom to start pushing loose papers, smashed crystals, and debris into a far corner. We both cast nervous glances at the center beams.

  I was still sorting books when she emerged from the back office wearing rubber gloves and a stern expression.

  “I’ll tackle World Travel,” I said. “You shouldn’t have to do that.” I straightened and put out a hand for the gloves.

  “I don’t mind, and I need it done. The smell is disgusting.” She started in Zimbabwe and stood and stretched her back when she reached Scotland. “Where’s Janet?”

  “It’s only eleven—she has at least another hour before she’ll call herself officially late.” As I dropped my wrist, I caught sight of a wine bottle. “I thought you said no one entered the office.”

  “No one did that I can tell.”

  I held up the bottle. “But isn’t this what we bought for the Lillian Vance signing?”

  Claire bit her lip. I could tell both our minds traveled the same direction—and to the same person.

  Who, at that moment, pushed open the front door.

  “What happened?” Janet threw her arms wide. “Are we redecorating?”

  “Hardly.” I held up the bottle. “Do you know anything about this?”

  My question was answered without any words. Her eyes widened in confusion, then narrowed in memory. She looked around the shop and her face greened, which made her blond highlights look harsh against her skin and the shop’s floodlights. The softer light emitted by the chandelier was gone.

  “You did this?” Claire’s voice was barely a whisper.

  “No. No! How could you think that? I didn’t do any of this. I left the store exactly as we left it to go to Mirabella’s last night.” She pushed the door shut behind her and leaned against it. “When we got back, I did come in and . . . I did drink the wine, but . . .” She stopped, then started up in a rush. “But I left the shop exactly as I found it. In perfect shape.”

  I narrowed my eyes.

  “Don’t look at me like that. How can you not believe me? I’d never do this.” She shifted her gaze between us, too fast, too frantic. “Why would you think the worst of me? What do you expect? That seeing Seth on a date would send me into a drunken destructive frenzy? Nice . . . You set me up on a date . . . I’m moving on. He is too . . . It was bound to happen.”

  “It was a hard night,” Claire offered.

  “Please.” Janet sneered. “If that’s your logic, you could’ve done this. Your husband’s never home and your kids use you like live-in help. How is your life any better than what I’ve got?” She turned back to me before Claire could reply. Not that she would, or could. Her lips dropped open and didn’t shut.

  Janet stepped toward me. “And you’re no better. How dare you accuse me.” Glass ground beneath her foot. “You want out. What better way to break even than file a massive insurance claim?” She stepped through the debris and stood near one of the center beams. Her gaze trailed up it. “This was a nice touch. If that last one had been smashed you could’ve brought the whole ceiling in.”

  “Get out.”

  “What? You accused me. A little turnabout is only fair play.”

  “We’re just confused.” Claire stepped forward to keep the peace. “You were the last one here, and the police said there was no forced entry.”

  “How is that possible? The alley door locks automatically.” She stepped over a pile and almost slipped on the shifting paper. Her eyes shot to the ceiling. “The chandelier. The letters.” Her bravado faltered. Maybe she, too, understood what those letters meant to Uncle Pete, to Aunt Maddie, even to me.

  “The vandals came through the front door.”

  In that moment, Janet aged. Not as if time took a toll, but as if she took her own measure and exacted a toll on herself. All her bravado evaporated. Her eyes moved back and forth as if watching a movie only she could see.

  “I walked out the front door. I saw Seth. At least I thought I did, and I followed him around to the back. It wasn’t him . . . I must have left the door open when I ran out.”

  “You did what?” Claire’s voice inched up a few notches.

  “I didn’t mean to. I ran out the front and . . .” Janet’s eyes filled with tears. She waved her hand back and forth, possibly in hopes that quick movement would reveal another scenario, another movie that let her off the hook. “I came back in through the alley. I had my keys in my coat pocket, so I grabbed my bag and went home.”

  “You drove home like that? Drunk?” Claire was yelling now.

  “I—I— No . . . I must have. But I didn’t do the damage. I left the door open, that’s all. I’m not responsible for this. I—” Janet covered her mouth with her hand as if trying to stop the words from spilling out. She lowered it. “This is bad. How can we fix it?”

  “Stop.” Claire opened her mouth again, but I cut her off with an outstretched hand, fingers splayed. “There is no insurance, Janet. We can’t fix this. Collect your stuff and get out.”

  * * *

  Janet

  “No . . . I can fix this.” I shake my head back and forth. It’s useless, but it feels like if I shake hard enough a new picture will emerge. I’ll be different and I won’t have destroyed the one happy thing I had left.

  She sees me. In that moment, when I realize what I did, Madeline sees all of me. The awareness hits her eyes so fast I can’t breathe. She understands what a shell, what a fake I am.

  I feel it too . . . All the warmth falls from my face, and the color—you can feel color drain. It starts with the oranges and yellows, the warm colors full of hope. Then the greens, the kind I’d once seen in Seth’s eyes, and other shades brightened and made strong by the sun. The bridge colors fall next—those connecting colors that smooth the way from light to dark. I once used them to portray dawn and dusk. Now I slide right past them into darkness, and puce. Puce is the color when you’ve got nothing left to throw up, but you keep at it, clinging to that toilet seat or that thread of hope, praying it won’t snap. That’s the color Madeline sees. And by witnessing it, she ushers in a new one. A green-black I’ve never felt before—the color of certainty, finality, complete aloneness.

  Yet it’s not as harsh and rigid as some might think. Rather, it’s a negative space that leaves you very cold.

  Claire stands there staring at me as Madeline issues the order to get out, drops her broom, and bolts to the office.

  “I can’t believe this happened.”

  Claire doesn’t reply.

  “Someone came in and did all this? They walked through the front door?”

  “Not hard to do when it’s wide open.” Claire has one hand on a hip.

  I stare at her. For such innocuous words they’re choreographed to pack a punch. “I didn’t mean to do it.”

  “And yet . . . it happened.”

  “Stop already. I get it. I’m a horrible person. But I didn’t do this, and it’s a bookshop.” My voice pitches high. “Who does this to a bookshop? People love bookshops. We—”

  “We lost our jobs, and the Printed Letter. You understand that, right? Whatever this meant to you, it’s gone—and for me too.”

  Her statement stops all motion, then releases a surge of fight. The kind I haven’t felt in years. But it’s always there. It was there the night Seth left and it’s back now. When pushed into a corner—I fight.

  “What do you mean? The shop is doing better. We’ve worked our butts off here and she knows it.” I point after Madeline, who, I gather by the slamming of the alley door, is now gone. “She loves it here. This won’t change anything. It’s a hiccup. She’s completely forgotten about selling.”

  “She also forgot about the insurance, and without it there
’s no money to restock or rebuild. Including structural stuff, she could be looking at sixty to seventy thousand dollars here. There’s no way to keep the doors open, Janet.”

  “There’s no insurance? . . . But she’s got money. She paid us in full last month.”

  “She’s been emptying her apartment to pay for all this and to satisfy the bank’s request for a cash balance in our accounts. Haven’t you been paying attention? Maddie left the store in debt, double mortgaged it and her house. She struggled since Pete died, and Madeline can’t cover it.”

  “Madeline made a fortune. Believe me, I know what those firms charge and what they pay.”

  “She didn’t save. She says she invested it in furniture. It doesn’t matter. She’s thirty-three. Who cares what she did with it? She didn’t expect her salary to dry up, and she didn’t ask for all this. That girl’s been breaking herself in two trying to keep this afloat.”

  “To sell it for a profit,” I counter.

  “At first, yes, and then because she had to, but . . .” Claire lifts her hand toward the office. “I get the feeling she doesn’t want to anymore. At least she didn’t.”

  “I didn’t know.” I see something hard in Claire’s eyes.

  “It wasn’t hard to see.”

  We stand facing each other. It feels like that day at Maddie’s funeral. Our eyes clash but we aren’t arguing. I’ve cost us another lifeline, and it’s my last.

  “What can I do?”

  “Help me clean.”

  “She fired me.”

  “You owe her more than leaving now. You owe Maddie more than that too.”

  She’s right. I owe Maddie much more and, truth be told, I owe her niece more too.

  Claire works the whole afternoon in silence. I do the same, but I keep looking at her, wanting to talk. She’s not ready and I can’t blame her. I love this place and, as much as I dismiss Claire’s attachment, I know she loves it too. The woman I see out and about in town is not the woman I see in here.

  Outside the Printed Letter, Claire is contained, silent, worried she’ll say the wrong thing, wear the wrong thing, do the wrong thing. Everything about her is fashioned not to be noticed—her makeup just right, not too much to be beautiful and striking, only enough to create a blank palette. Her hair is the same, brown bob, with flyaways normally tamed by a little hair spray. If you don’t notice something or someone, you can’t reject it—or her.

  But inside these walls Claire keeps the books, handles the ordering, arranges the events . . . In here, she’s the most capable woman I’ve ever met, with all her right angles and spreadsheets. And I’ve taken this from her. I’ve taken it from us all.

  I didn’t think it possible, but for five and a half hours, Claire says nothing and avoids all eye contact. I’ve been cut off—again.

  Madeline never returns. Part of me won’t be surprised if I show up tomorrow morning to find the locks changed and the windows covered in For Sale signs. Part of me won’t blame her. But I will show up.

  We keep the door locked all day. A few customers knock, we open, they ask, and we tell them the story—only it’s a break-in now. Claire leaves out my involvement. I want to hug her for that, especially when she tells the story to nosy Harriet Smoot from my block.

  I call a contractor friend of Seth’s, who, to my surprise, arrives after lunch and sets up three temporary supports next to the smashed beams. He says no problem and the supports are ample to keep things safe. He also says he’ll put together a proposal for the repairs and bill us later for the beams. I smile and thank him. Maybe by then we’ll have some way to pay him.

  I spend the afternoon with Mr. Clean Magic Eraser sponges scrubbing Sharpie from all the shelving. The marks are faint now, but everything should be repainted. If there’s time . . . I’ll repaint it all myself.

  I almost make the offer to Claire, but she’s still cleaning the floor. Her head is down and she looks broken. Clean shelving isn’t going to help.

  The sun sets, the store is dark and clean, and we’re still not talking. My hands are chapped and raw and the pain feels right. I climb off the stool and head to the storage closet to put it away. It’s only five thirty. A half hour until closing and, even though we never opened, neither of us will leave early. Claire won’t on principle. And I can’t—what if the door locks do change? What if this really is the end?

  I slip out the back door, hoping Claire won’t notice, and return with two decaf lattes from the Daily Brew.

  I raise a cup toward her. “I splurged and put vanilla syrup in yours. Figured you deserved the treat.”

  She accepts the offering.

  We sit side by side on the stools behind the counter.

  “I screwed up, Claire. The one thing I didn’t want to happen has, again.”

  She sighs. I suspect boosting me up is the last thing she wants to do, but that’s exactly what I’ve requested.

  “You have to stop thinking that way. Doesn’t it become a self-fulfilling prophecy? Isn’t that kind of the definition of self-sabotage?” Her voice is so tired. Worn away. Beyond what cleaning a shop should do to a soul.

  “I shouldn’t have said what I did today. It was cruel and I didn’t mean it.” I rub her back. “Are you okay?”

  “No.” She takes a long sip and looks straight ahead. “I loved it here. It’s the one place I felt like I was contributing.”

  “What about your home? You’ve got Brian and two great kids. I was a jerk this morning. You should never listen to me.”

  “What did you say that wasn’t true? I’m irrelevant there. Matt only needs to be fed. Brittany wants nothing to do with me. And Brian’s gone so much . . . he doesn’t notice. So I guess I know something about self-sabotage, because I probably did that to myself too.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m exactly where I asked to be.” She pushes off the stool. “But I did love this place. Even Madeline. Hasn’t it been fun? Some of it? All of it?”

  “Stop . . . Stop . . .”

  She worries me. For once someone else is worrying me more than myself. I stand and grip her by both shoulders. “I see you, Claire. You’re relevant to me, and I’m going to fix this.”

  I have no idea how, but I will.

  Chapter 15

  Madeline

  I hadn’t seen Chris in two weeks, not since the horrible day-after-Valentine’s when I fired Janet and walked out of the trashed bookshop. I’d stumbled into the Daily Brew and chosen a small table in the corner, actively avoiding eye contact with the few people I recognized.

  “May I join you?”

  “No.” I recognized his voice and answered without looking up.

  There was no equivocating with my no. It was beyond firm. Then I glanced up. First he looked surprised, then hurt.

  I almost backed down, but something stopped me. Anger? Fear? I have no idea. But I added nothing to soften my single word.

  “Sorry I bothered you.”

  I nodded. He left.

  But now here he was downtown in Chicago, in my neighborhood, sitting near the table the hostess was indicating for Drew and me. He sat with a woman, Sonia I assumed.

  She wasn’t conventionally pretty. She had wide-set eyes and a broad mouth. Her jaw was perfectly square and offset by long dark hair that cut in below her chin and fell straight beyond her shoulders. She appeared serious in the moment we made eye contact, but I suspected she knew how to laugh.

  Chris needed someone who could laugh. He seemed disposed to it, though I sensed it had been a long time since he’d laughed well.

  And that was my problem. I hadn’t seen Chris in two weeks, but I’d been thinking, and was still thinking, far too much about him.

  Drew pulled out my chair right as Chris’s eyes followed Sonia’s and hit us.

  “Madeline?”

  “Hi . . . How are you here? Volare is kind of a neighborhood spot.” I wanted to add My neighborhood spot, but stopped just in time.

  He unnerved me. I
t was apparent he didn’t like me, and that bothered me. Most people liked me. Sure, I could be uptight—Janet used to point that out daily—but I also knew how to have fun, as Kayla and a bunch of friends would attest to. But Chris . . . He tolerated me. That was the best I could say for his attitude.

  I still hadn’t told him why I’d been such a horrible niece—in his eyes, a horrible human—and that bothered me every moment my thoughts drifted his direction. It bothered me all the time.

  “I live a few blocks east of here, in the Sienna Building,” the woman offered.

  “Me too.” I waved my hand in the general direction of our buildings. “Not in the Sienna, but I’m practically across the street at 420 East.”

  She smiled, and I was right. She had an amazing smile. It spread across her face and up into her eyes.

  “How do you two know each other?” she asked Chris.

  He did not smile. “Winsome.”

  The woman rolled her eyes. She was making fun of him, and that bothered me too. I turned away, ready to be done with the whole confusing meet-and-greet.

  She called after us. “Come. Come join us. We’re bored with our conversation.”

  “No, we—” I moved to sit.

  “Sure.” Drew stepped toward them. “You live in the Sienna? I toured that when I first graduated law school.”

  He pulled up next to her—he didn’t even know her name—and I dropped into the only seat left, next to Chris.

  “Sorry about this,” I murmured.

  “No biggie . . . Sonia,” he interrupted them, “this is Madeline Cullen. She took over the Printed Letter in Winsome.”

  “That little store you always talk about? The one that closed down?”

  “It didn’t close down. We had to close for a week for some cleanup and repairs, but—” I pressed my lips shut. I had no idea why I was defending my “little store,” especially as she didn’t care. She had already turned back to Drew.

  Chris continued. “Sonia works at Fidelity.”

  Drew handled his own introduction, to Sonia alone. “Drew Setaro. I’m not up in Winsome either. I’m a partner at Duncan, Schwartz and Baring.”