Starved for Attention

by Jen Carter

  Something Shakespeare? Jules said.

  What, you can’t remember? Elita said. I’ll tell you if you promise to make your boyfriend hire my favorite guy at Entonces.

  Sheesh. Really?

  Okay, I replied to her.

  I’d play along.

  A second later, she wrote back. It’s on a barrel in your tasting room. Last one, bottom row. The gross one about rotting flowers. Now help me get my guy hired!

  Wow.

  I scrolled up and down through the list of responses. I guess I did seize the opportunity to proclaim my love for poetry when I had the opportunity.

  But then again, these were my friends. It wasn’t that surprising that they’d know. They all probably heard the story about me begging Aldo to use the sonnet in the tasting room, even though it was sort of a downer. Maybe a better test would be to ask random people like the Council of Elders or the high schoolers at play practice.

  Today had gotten off to an unexpected start. First tai chi kicked my butt, and now I had the feeling that Sonnet 94 was kicking my butt. I wasn’t exactly sure how, but it was.

  FIFTEEN

  When I walked into Amy’s coffee shop at ten o’clock, my sisters, Jules, and Livy were already there. I hadn’t asked Elita if she wanted to meet up. I really didn’t want her two cents. And I hadn’t texted Amy, either, but I figured she’d be there. Scanning the coffee shop, I realized she wasn’t.

  “Hey,” I said, pulling up a chair to the table. “Where’s Amy? In there?” I pointed to the adjoining bookstore.

  “I didn’t see her when I walked in,” Jules said. “She must be in the back.”

  “Then I’ll get some coffee while we wait for her to appear,” I said. I walked to the counter and ordered a mocha from Bianca, the part-time barista. As she made my drink, some blonde, curly hair caught the corner of my eye. That hair could only belong to one person. I turned to wave to Amy and saw her walking with Dr. Stevens through the archway between the bookstore and the coffee shop. I jerked back to the counter without waving.

  My goodness, Lucy Argyle had said that I would be seeing Dr. Stevens more here, but this was nuts. He was everywhere. Why was Amy walking with him? Sure, she probably had been helping him find a book, but he could find the door on his own. She didn’t need to walk him out.

  I turned to examine the display of pastries, hoping that Dr. Stevens hadn’t seen me and that he wouldn’t recognize me from behind. When Bianca handed over my drink, I continued standing there. I’d give it at least another twenty seconds. By then, he’d probably be gone. I hoped.

  “He left, Jill,” Holly called from across the coffee shop. “You can join us again.”

  My sister was so subtle.

  I walked back to our table and gave Holly a that-wasn’t-necessary look. She replied with a you’re-being-a-baby look.

  “Sorry about that,” Amy said. “I didn’t realize we were meeting here.” She glanced at me with an awkward smile. Well, maybe it wasn’t awkward. Maybe I was imagining the awkwardness because I was so sensitive about Dr. Stevens.

  I pushed my sensitivity aside and updated them on the morning’s events. I told them about Lucy ambushing me with her note and about finding my own note shoved between play scripts. Then I told them about Fleming’s likely cause of death and Fitts’ preliminary handwriting assessment of the messages left for the high schoolers, Livy, and Esther.

  When I was done, Jules was the first to speak.

  “I’ve been thinking, especially about this Victor guy who left the girls after finding Fleming,” she said. “What’s this kid’s last name? He sounds a lot like someone I knew in high school.”

  Everyone looked at Livy. She was the only one of us who might know Victor’s last name.

  “Victor Zapata?” she said slowly, sounding unsure.

  “I’ll be right back.” Jules made a beeline for the exit.

  The rest of us watched her hang a left just outside the door and march past the coffee shop’s front windows.

  “Is it me, or has Jules been acting a little strangely lately?” Stella asked. She looked over her shoulder toward the door. “I’m worried that something’s wrong.”

  I thought back to finding Jules in Aldo’s house yesterday and the backpack she had handed him this morning.

  “Just the last couple days,” I said. “But I can’t put my finger on it.”

  Amy and Holly shrugged. Their heads were typically in the clouds more than the average person’s, so I wasn’t surprised that they hadn’t noticed any odd behavior. Livy turned her cup of coffee in circles on the table, eyes down. Her head spent far less time in the clouds, but clearly she didn’t want to comment on the topic.

  “So how’s the book coming along, Holly?” Livy asked, changing the subject.

  “It’s coming along beautifully, thanks for asking,” Holly said. “I’ve written at least one hundred words this week that I’ll definitely keep. The other twenty-nine hundred are questionable. But that first one hundred are pure gold.”

  “I love seeing this positive change in you, Hol,” Stella said. “You’re getting up before nine every morning, and you’re working so hard on this book. Is there anything I can do to help? Need me to organize anything? Want me to buy folders for you?”

  “I do not,” Holly said, “but thank you.”

  Before Stella could insist, Jules came rushing back into the coffee shop, this time holding two big books. Yearbooks.

  That was fast. She lived above her bakery, which was only two doors down, but she must have run there and back. She couldn’t have been gone more than two minutes.

  She dropped the yearbooks on the table and, still standing, flipped through the top one.

  “There was a kid at my school—I think he was two years younger than me—and he was obsessed with two things. Drama and the Old Everly Place. I’m almost positive his last name was Zapata.”

  I looked at Livy across the table. Hadn’t the girls said Victor’s older brother was the one who told them about the Old Everly Place’s secret cellar?

  I slid the second yearbook out from under the one Jules was flipping through. Opening it, I said, “What year is this one? Which grade were you in?”

  Jules glanced over. “I was in twelfth. Look in the tenth grade section for him.”

  I found the picture of Xavier Zapata just seconds after Jules found his picture in hers. We turned the two yearbooks on the table so that everyone else had a view of at least one picture.

  He did look like Victor. They both had a slightly-disinterested smile, and they both had narrow faces with high cheekbones.

  “Were you friends with him?” Livy asked.

  “No,” Jules said. “But the one time I went to the Old Everly Place with a group of friends, he was there with his own friends. We didn’t really hang out that night, but Xavier was on the loud side, and I remember thinking he was way too excited about that creepy old house.”

  “So the Old Everly Place and drama?” I asked. “Those were his two things?”

  Jules nodded at the yearbook. “At the time, I was in my own little sports bubble and didn’t know a lot of people at school—it’s a huge school—but a friend of mine was in drama with him, and I remember her saying that he was amazing. I didn’t see a lot of school plays, but I’m sure my friend knew what she was talking about. Supposedly he was a star.”

  “I wonder if Detective Fitts knows that Victor said his brother told him the underground cellar,” Livy said.

  That was a good question. I’d guess that Fitts did know, but I made a mental note to ask him when he stopped by for the Sonnet 94 note.

  “I better get back to work,” Jules said. She gathered her yearbooks and held them to her chest. “If something else comes up, let me know.”

  Everyone else at the table muttered variations of the same request while standing up and gathering their phones and purses. I’m not sure if they were speaking directly to me, but I got the feeling I might have been the info
rmal, unspoken lead.

  As I turned toward the door, Amy spoke.

  “Jill, before you go, can we talk for a minute?”

  I turned back. Amy was running a finger over a dark spot on the tabletop as though she could somehow remove its natural coloring. I got the feeling that she was avoiding eye contact.

  “Sure,” I said. “Everything okay?”

  “Yes, everything’s fine. Let’s go this way.”

  She inclined her head toward the bookstore and then meandered off in that direction—so slowly that she had to be stalling. I watched her for a moment and then looked at Holly, the last person to leave. I was about to give my sister a what’s-going-on? look, but then she did a weird thing with her eyebrows, which I was pretty sure meant either you’re not going to believe what’s coming your way, or help, I’ve lost control of my eyebrows.

  I followed Amy.

  In the bookstore, there were two people browsing the section of new releases and another person browsing mysteries. Three people sat in armchairs reading and drinking coffee. Amy led me to the far corner of the store and dropped her voice.

  “I didn’t know if I was going to have to say anything about this, but I can’t stand the thought of hiding it,” she said.

  What?

  Hiding?

  “Are you sure everything is okay?” I asked for the second time.

  “It is, I promise,” she said. “But I think there’s something you need to know. I don’t want you to be caught by surprise because this might end up being an ongoing thing.”

  “You’re kind of scaring me,” I said.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to. And I hate saying this, but I have to ask you to keep quiet what I’m about to show you. You can tell Nico. But please don’t tell anyone else.”

  I was terrible about keeping secrets, and Amy knew that. If she was going to risk telling me something that had to be kept a secret, it must have been a pretty big deal. I’d better do my best to keep that secret.

  I nodded. “Of course. I’ll keep it to myself.”

  She turned toward a door in the far corner of the store that I hadn’t noticed before and unlocked it with a key from her pocket. I followed her through the door and stared at a low-lit, narrow staircase lined from top to bottom with framed pictures of famous writers. Amy locked the door behind us.

  Where was she taking me?

  SIXTEEN

  “Will and I live over the coffee shop,” she said as I followed her up the stairs. “Over the bookshop, though, we sort of have another bookshop.”

  She stopped at the top of the staircase, in front of another closed door.

  “Let’s have a seat while I tell you the story.” She sat on the top step, and I sat two below, which put me pretty close to a framed photograph of Ernest Hemingway. I was already feeling a little apprehensive about whatever was happening, and having Hemingway’s intense eyes on me didn’t help with that apprehension.

  “Years before we came to Otto Viti,” Amy began, “I found out about a long-lost grandmother who had lived a somewhat-reckless life. Her recklessness was why I never knew about her, but once I found out, I wanted to know everything. I’ll tell you the whole story one day, but right now, the short version is all we need.”

  I nodded. I’d take whatever version she wanted to give. I just wanted to know what was going on.

  “In the process of uncovering my grandmother’s past,” Amy continued, “I came in contact with a man who greatly impacted her life. For better or worse, I couldn’t say. When I first met him, he was old, extremely rich, extremely rude, and alone. So alone. I didn’t think he liked me much. He definitely liked Will more than me. But he loved my grandmother, and he helped me find out who she really was. I was one of the last connections he had to her after she died. A couple years after he helped me, he passed away. And with no loved ones to leave his fortune to, he left a lot of it to me.”

  Whoa. A grumpy rich guy left his fortune to Amy. I hadn’t expected that. I’m sure the look on my face conveyed my surprise.

  “I didn’t know what to do with most of his stuff, but that’s also a story for another time,” she said. “What matters here is that he left me a ton of rare books. He was a collector—practically a hoarder—and in his will, he said he didn’t care if I kept them, sold them, or gave them away. So I decided to do a little bit of it all. There are some that Will and I kept, some that we’ve given away, and then some that we’ve decided to sell.” She stood and pulled another key from her pocket. As she twisted it in the lock, she said, “And so in here is our little shop of rare books.”

  She pushed open the door, revealing a large room with low light and shelves along all the walls. Across the dark hardwood floor were podium-like display cases like what I’d seen in museums and fancy jewelry shops.

  “Wow,” I breathed, following her into the room and immediately noticing a drop in air temperature.

  “And this is a secret?” I asked.

  “When it comes to people in Otto Viti, sort of,” Amy said. “It’s not really supposed to be a secret, but it’s on a need-to-know basis. Chris knows since he and Will are best friends. And he’s always been in the loop with my grandmother’s story. Aldo knows. He owns the building, so getting his approval mattered.”

  Aldo knew? I had always thought Aldo wasn’t good at keeping secrets because he was so open and honest. But when I thought about it, he had managed to keep some secrets over the years. The secret of our other grandparents probably would have gone with him to his grave if my sisters and I hadn’t uncovered pieces of it when we were in Italy. So I shouldn’t have been surprised that Aldo could keep Amy’s secret, and yet, it still sort of surprised me.

  “Once we got all the logistics worked out, proved everything was legit, and took care of the legal matters, collectors started finding us pretty quickly,” Amy said. “We get most of our business through word of mouth. Sandie Oakes knows. She’s a collector and was sent to me by someone else. Small world, right? Now she sends people to me if she thinks they’re serious. And worthy.”

  “But no one else in OV knows?”

  Amy’s eyes swept across the room. Her eyebrows rose, and she smiled, just barely. “Chris slipped and told Holly, but I know that he hasn’t told anyone else.”

  Ah, Holly. So the rare bookshop was what Holly meant when she said Amy was up to something.

  “He never told Elita?” I asked.

  Amy shook her head. “Last year when Elita was going around calling Chris her boyfriend, she was definitely blowing the relationship out of proportion. They only went out a couple times before he called it off. They were barely more than acquaintances. Plus, she spent so much time talking about herself that he rarely got a word in edgewise.”

  That wasn’t surprising. Even if Chris was prone to slip, he didn’t have much opportunity with Elita always talking.

  I looked around the room. I wanted to peruse the books along the shelves and in the glass cases, but I had more pressing questions to ask.

  “Why don’t you want other people to know?” I said.

  “I don’t want to hoard these books like the man who gave them to me, but I also want to make sure they end up in the right hands. That’s why I’ve given some away to museums and why I’ve sold some to collectors. I don’t want this place to turn into a circus with people traipsing through just to see what I’ve got. These books are history, and I want them to be appreciated. They’re precious to me.”

  I started to see where this was going.

  “And Dr. Stevens?”

  Amy forced a smile. “Sandie put him in touch with me a couple days ago. He’s a collector of mid-nineteenth century American literature. Not a super-big collector, but serious enough for Sandie to send him my way. The thing is, he’s indecisive. He’s been here three times already trying to decide which of two books he wants now. Eventually, I bet he’ll buy both, but he’s trying to choose just one. I had to tell you because I think this could take awhile. I
’ve seen buyers like him before. One guy took six months to decide on a book to buy his wife for Christmas, and Dr. Stevens seems to fit that type.”

  I nodded. “So I should expect to see him coming out of your bookshop often?”

  Amy made an apologetic face. “Yes. And then after he makes this decision, he might be back again making another tough decision down the road. You try so hard to avoid him, and I feel badly that he’s been here a lot and catching you off guard.”

  I smiled. I did try hard to avoid him. It was completely childish, and I needed to stop. Especially if he was going to be around more. I’d just have to suck it up and be friendly. It really didn’t have to be so difficult.

  “Thank you,” I said. “I appreciate you being honest with me, and I promise I’ll keep this to myself.” I looked around the room again. “Do you mind if I check it out? I won’t touch anything.”

  “Look around all you want. If you do want to touch anything, I have special gloves you can use.”

  Special gloves. I was impressed.

  I walked toward the closest wall of books. “So what do you like doing best?” I asked. “Dealing rare books, running the bookshop downstairs, or making coffee? And how do you manage to do it all?”

  “I have a lot of help downstairs. And Will helps me a lot up here. I like doing everything, but for different reasons. I’m not very business minded, and really, I have no idea what made me want to be a business owner. I’m terrible at it. I guess I just fell in love with OV and never let go of my childhood dream of living in a bookstore. So here we are. Downstairs, I probably give away too much coffee and never quite order enough of the right books, but this rare book business—I think this is what I was really meant to do.”

  As I walked around the shelves lining the room, I didn’t recognize as many titles as I thought I would have. Of course I didn’t know every great book ever written, but as an English teacher who spent most of college with my nose in a book, I was extra-impressed by how many names I didn’t recognize. These must have been really, really rare.