by Erin Duffy
“I could use some help at my store,” Lissy said.
“Really?” I asked. Lissy’s store didn’t seem very busy at all, so I had a hard time understanding how she could be in need of other employees.
“How did you end up owning a stationery store?” Antonia asked. “I think that sounds like so much fun.”
“It’s kind of a long story. My mother bought it three years ago. It was her dream.”
“To own a stationer?” I asked.
“Sort of. She was a fine arts teacher. She loved to do calligraphy. She taught me, too. Check this out.” Lissy reached into her bag and pulled out a notebook. She flipped through the pages, and Antonia and I inched closer to get a better look at the gorgeous letters scrolled all over every square inch of paper.
“Oh my God,” I said, completely awestruck that a person was able to produce something so perfect. “You did that?”
“Yeah. It’s kind of a hobby, I guess,” Lissy said modestly, which was completely crazy. It was some of the most outrageously flawless handwriting I’d ever seen in my life.
“It’s absolutely beautiful,” Antonia agreed. Neither one of us touched the ink, too afraid that we’d accidentally smudge it, despite the fact that they were just the doodles of a bored, yet fantastically talented girl.
“Your mom taught you well. How long have you guys worked there?”
“Actually, it’s just me. My mom died about a month after she bought it. It was her dream that we run the store together, you know, a mother-daughter kind of thing.”
“I don’t know what to say,” I admitted. It was true. I didn’t know Lissy well. I was surprised that we were both willing to share such personal information so quickly. “Was it sudden?”
“She had a heart attack.”
“I’m so sorry. I had no idea,” I added.
“Well, we just met!” Lissy joked, and Antonia smiled at Lissy’s brave attempt to ease the tension in the room. “It’s okay. I don’t talk about it much.” Lissy stared at the hardwoods, and I knew her mind was wandering into dark corners, and I didn’t want her to go there. I didn’t want anyone in this house to feel sad for another minute. I was tired of it.
“I don’t blame you.”
“She left me the store, but I haven’t really done anything with it. I dropped out of college after it happened because design school didn’t really seem all that important to me anymore. I wanted to just come home and live in our house and go from there. I was only planning on being home for a few months, and then I was going to go back. But, I started reading to the kids to cheer myself up, and I really liked it, and I started going over to the store and imagining all the things I could do with it, and I liked that, too. School fell off my radar. So, that’s how I ended up wearing black and reading to kids in the library, and working in a stationery store that has a terrible name that I can’t figure out how to fix.”
“I think that’s really sweet,” I said. “What do you want to do with the place that you haven’t been able to do?”
“Everything. We were going to renovate it, and make it something really special, but she was the one who had the vision. I don’t know how to bring her concept to life. So, I’ve just left it alone, which hasn’t been the best idea, sadly. From a business standpoint it’s not doing well, and I know it could be so much more than it is if I just put my mind to it. It’s hard, though. I’ve never been all that great with making decisions. I used to bounce everything off of her, and without her I’m just kind of lost.”
“It’s hard adjusting to a new life on your own when you’d always imagined someone else being with you,” I said.
“Totally,” Antonia agreed. “It also sounds like you need to make all of the decisions she would’ve made, and that’s a tough spot to be in. I don’t know what I would do if I were you.”
“Yeah. It’s totally fine the way it is now, I guess. It’s a cute little store, but it’s nothing special. I wonder sometimes if this is really what I want to do with my life, or if I’m just doing it out of some kind of obligation, but I really think that this is what I want to do.”
“Then you should do it,” Antonia said. “I can’t think of a single reason in the world why you shouldn’t.”
“I know, but it’s not that easy. I’ll never sell it, but the truth is, I don’t really know how to operate a business. My mother was going to be the one in charge of everything, and I was going to do the calligraphy and the merchandising. I don’t know how to take over for her.”
“How can I help you?” I asked. “I’ll do absolutely anything you want me to do. I’m sure I can help you get the place in order. I’m really good at organizing, usually. I recognize that it probably doesn’t seem that way, but I swear, I am.”
“That’s true,” Antonia agreed. “Don’t let the scatterbrain here fool you. When she had her life together she was highly organized. This whole forgetting wallets and dropping planners in the library is kind of a new thing.”
“And lucky for me it happened, or I’d never have known Owen was cheating on me, and you would never have moved here to help me, and I’d never have met Lissy, and we wouldn’t all be hanging out together right now. See how well that worked out for everyone?” I teased.
“Good points. Very good points,” Antonia agreed.
“I’d love to have some help. Not to mention the fact that I’m a little lonely there, and I’d like the company. I can’t afford to pay you. At least not right away.”
“I’ll totally do it pro bono,” I said. “Owen is paying me alimony. I don’t need the money.”
“That must be nice,” Antonia said.
“Did you just say that with a straight face?” I asked. “I used to earn a paycheck and now I earn alimony. It’s not exactly how I dreamed my life would be.”
“Sorry,” she answered. “I forgot for a minute.”
“I’m serious,” Lissy said. “You can start whenever you want.”
“I think that sounds like a great idea. How about I make lasagna for dinner?” Antonia asked. “We can talk about the specifics. I think better on a full stomach.”
“The lasagna you refuse to teach me how to make? That one?” I replied.
“That’s the one. And I’m still not sorry.”
“What are you talking about?” Lissy asked.
“Here we go,” Antonia said with an eye roll.
“When I got married, Antonia very sweetly gave me a recipe box.”
“It was more than just a recipe box. It was a recipe box with my family’s recipe for pork chops and vinegar peppers—which she made to impress Owen on a regular basis—and Italian wedding soup, because it was her wedding.”
“A lot of good that one did me. Do you have an Italian divorce soup recipe? Because that should really be in the box now.”
“Sorry. Can’t help you there. Anyway, she’s botching this story. I gave her the recipe for wedding soup, and I said that I’d give her a new recipe every year on her anniversary, and eventually she’d have an entire box of Ricci family recipes and a long, happily married life.”
“Now it seems I just have a box of blank index cards,” I said.
“Well, you weren’t the only one who didn’t see your divorce coming,” Antonia said.
“Just when you think things can’t get worse, now I lost the opportunity to have some of Antonia’s secret recipes. The hits keep coming.”
“I’m sorry, bella. My family lasagna recipe is sacred. I can’t just hand it out to anyone.”
“I’ve been your best friend for thirty years.”
“Ask me again after another thirty,” she replied quickly.
“Fine. Then I guess that’s yet another reason to be happy you moved in with me. You can make me lasagna whenever I want.”
“Exactly. And tonight I’m making it because we’re celebrating you getting an internship at Lissy’s store, and Lissy getting some help with her dream, and me getting you out of the house for part of the day so that I can
get more work done. Everybody wins.”
“Unpaid internship,” Lissy reminded her.
“It doesn’t matter!” I squealed. “It’s something for me to do! Do you have any idea how good it feels to actually choose something for myself? I haven’t been this excited about anything since I got a blender with a smoothie button. I don’t admit that to a lot of people.”
“Good idea,” Lissy said.
“I hope you can stay for dinner, Lissy,” Antonia said. “You’re the first person to get Claire to be legitimately excited about anything in months. Besides, when was the last time someone made you dinner?”
“Other than the chef at a restaurant? I can’t remember,” Lissy admitted, which made me a tiny bit sad. Losing someone you love was the worst feeling in the world. I didn’t want her to endure that loss alone for another minute.
“It’s settled then. You’re staying,” I ordered.
Antonia stood up from the table and pulled canned tomatoes out of my cabinet and placed them on the counter next to the stove, making herself right at home in my kitchen, which I loved. Four hours and what seemed like sixteen different cooking vessels later, we sat down to dinner. Lissy and I had set the table with my white everyday china, clear water glasses, and a glass of red wine for each of us. I quickly sent my mom a text, letting her know that Antonia was cooking lasagna for me and a new friend, and that she should be jealous, because she really should be jealous, and also because I wanted her to know that I had my appetite back. I pulled Bo’s highchair over to the table, and was surprised to find that I was actually enjoying the smell of garlic, and the rhythm of another voice in the house, and that I didn’t feel like something, or someone, was absent. “Okay, let’s eat!” Antonia said. She carried the huge tray of pasta from the oven, and set it down on a trivet in the middle of the table, family style.
Chapter 6
I PUSHED MY stroller into the far corner of The Stationer a week later, sneezing and coughing because I apparently was allergic to something other than Owen, and whatever it was was driving me crazy. I took a quick peek at Bo, still tucked under his gauze monkey blanket. He’d fallen asleep in the car on the way over here, as I knew he would, and if the baby gods were friendly, that meant that I probably had about two hours until he woke up and started screaming for his lunch. Satisfied that he was comfortable, I turned to examine the store. The space itself was a small, perfect square, but still charming. The floors were covered in a red-and-pink-striped carpet, more reminiscent of Santa’s workshop than a Goth’s store, but it was cheerful, and unique, and clean, which was nice. Gleaming white bookcases with deep shelves held boxes of preprinted cards with palm trees, or insects, or fruit etched into the paper. I made my way to the narrow spiral staircase and climbed up to the small landing that served as the business headquarters of the store. A small white desk and a cane back chair sat in front of a lone curtained window that looked out over Main Street and appeared to get nice light during the day. There was a restroom with a teal-framed mirror and a pedestal sink, and a file cabinet that I’d be too afraid to open. I headed back downstairs and walked behind the long glass counter in the middle of the room that held the register, and a bucket of pens with furry tops. The remaining three walls were lined with floor-to-ceiling shelves, all of them containing boxes of cards and blank papers that didn’t seem to relate to each other at all. She had a section devoted to all things wedding, which made sense, but it was in the back of the store, buried behind countless other invitations, which did not make any sense at all. More than anything, Lissy needed help organizing. I was good at organizing. At least, I used to be.
“This place could be really special. It just needs a format that makes sense. People don’t want to search for things. They need to be able to find what they’re looking for easily. Right now, it’s a little overwhelming. Do you even know where everything is?”
“Not really. I’m still figuring all of that out.”
“You should move the wedding section up front,” I offered, as I continued doing a slow, controlled lap around the store. “If someone comes in here looking for engagement announcements, you want them to also see the invitations for engagement parties, and rehearsals and showers and luncheons. They all go together, and women these days are busy. They don’t have a lot of time to shop for things, and they appreciate convenience. If everything they need is right there in front of them, you have a good chance of them buying everything at once.”
“One-stop shopping for all of your wedding needs,” Lissy said.
“Exactly. You should put your thank-you notes right next to the wedding stationery, because you can’t buy one without the other, right?”
“You can’t?”
“Well, you can, but you’d have to have pretty poor manners to do that.”
“Good point.”
“I hope you don’t think I’m rude suggesting you move everything around. I just think it will make all the difference in the world.”
“It’s not rude at all, but won’t that make it look like I only have wedding stuff? I carry stationery for everything, not just for weddings.”
“But weddings are where you’ll make your money. That’s where the large orders will come from. Plus, weddings will roll into everything else—baby showers, birth announcements, moving announcements, and so forth. If someone comes here for their wedding stationery and has a nice experience, you’ll have a client for life.”
“That makes sense.”
“Are you on social media?” I asked, even though I knew without question that she wasn’t. Lissy didn’t seem much like the selfie-snapping type. It was hard for some people to self-promote, and I had a feeling that Lissy was of the “people will find me on their own” type of mentality. I get it. Unfortunately, that mentality died with Facebook.
“No. I don’t like it,” she said.
“Do you like making money? You need to get on Instagram, and Twitter, and Snapchat pronto.”
“Why? I have a web page. I’m good.”
“Congratulations. If it was 1997 that would be fantastic. It’s not. You need to at least get on Instagram. It was made for this type of place. You can take pictures of all of your merchandise and blast it out for the whole world to see. You have to let your potential clients know that this place is fun, and modern, and hip, and it’s right in the middle of town, and they don’t even know about it. Once word gets out, you’ll draw shoppers from all over the area, not just from here. We will set up a schedule. You need to post something every day, five days a week, between the hours of eight and nine A.M., and between twelve and one.”
“Huh?” Lissy asked. “Why? Why can’t I just post when I want to post?”
“Because posting between the hours of nine and noon is the black hole of marketing. You need the moms who are going to be checking their phones while they’re waiting in line to drop off their kids in the morning at school, and then again when they’re waiting to pick them up, or waiting for a friend to have lunch. In between, the women who are going to shop here are running errands, hitting the gym, showering, and slamming a million other errands into a small period of time. No one is on Instagram. Your posts will get lost in a sea of other nonsense. If you want it to have impact, you need to have it out there at the top of their feeds the moment they look at them.”
“Wow. You’re good at this stuff, huh?”
“Yeah. I used to be.” I sighed.
“But the web is why the stationery industry has taken such a hit. Everyone orders stuff online now. I don’t want to cater to the medium that is basically responsible for putting me out of business, you know?”
“I get it, but trust me, there are some things that people will still want to do in person. I bet a lot of the girls who are ordering online are doing so because they don’t know you’re here. They don’t know they have the option of doing it any other way.”
I had an idea.
“You should host a luncheon, or have a launch party, or something.
Open the store and let people come in and sip mimosas, and look through all of the books you have. You don’t have samples of your calligraphy out anywhere. That’s crazy! You should have calligraphy samples prominently displayed in the front window, so that people stop to stare at them when they pass by, and they will stop and stare, because they’re that good.”
“What do you mean, a launch party? I’m already here. I’m launched,” Lissy said, ignoring my compliment.
“Only technically. I think if you rename the place, redecorate it, reorganize it, and take advantage of social media to advertise all of the great changes, it will be as if it’s brand-new. Close the store while we work on it, and then reopen it with a big party in the fall, right after Labor Day weekend, so that people can become familiar with the store before the holiday season kicks into full swing. Once we have a new name I’ll set up social media accounts for you. You need a brand, but that should be fairly easy for you because you’re your own brand already. No one would confuse you for anyone else, you know?”
“Yeah, that’s true.”
“While the store is closed, we can advertise all over the place that you’re having a big reopening, and get people talking. You should leave little cute cards inviting people to come at the library. The women who come to story hour are your target audience. Once you get one of them, they’ll all come running.”
“I thought you don’t like them. Those girls made you run out of there so fast you dropped your day planner, remember?”
“This isn’t about me. This is about you building a customer base, and whether or not I like them, those are the women who are going to throw tree-trimming and housewarming and Kentucky Derby and Mardi Gras parties, and will come here looking for special invitations. You don’t want them to have to search through the bar mitzvah invitations or the moving announcements to find them, trust me. Then you’ll be off and running.”
“Oh, that’s all!” Lissy said with a laugh. “You make it sound like it’s nothing.”
“I’m not saying it won’t take a good amount of work, but we can totally do it. I’d love to help you, and when we’re done you’ll have the store you’ve always wanted. Won’t that make it worth the effort?”