The Bookshop Hotel

by A. K. Klemm

  Table of Contents

  Part One

  Granddaddy Jack

  Nancy Harrigan

  Sam Finney

  Matthew Atkins

  Abigail Lacey

  The Bookshop Hotel

  Part Two

  Matthew

  Ivy

  Matthew

  Ben

  Sidney

  Kevin

  Abigail

  Ivy

  AJ

  Part Three

  Abigail

  Matthew

  Sam

  Nancy

  Granddaddy Jack

  Acknowledgements

  Support Indie Authors and Small Press

  About the Author

  Recommended Reading

  Grey Gecko Press

  The Bookshop Hotel

  A. K. Klemm

  This book is dedicated to Matty Salias, for all those times we said we’d write a book together and became friends instead. Wish you were here to see it.

  Part One

  Sam’s Deli Menu

  Monday Special: Corned Beef Supreme

  Corned Beef, Cabbage, and Carrots dished lavishly on your choice of either Sam’s Homemade Toasted Rye Bread or Mrs. Finney’s Potato Bread with a drizzle of Au Jus Sauce. Served with Deep-Fried Corn on the Cob, a dollop of Sour Cream, and a tall glass of Iced Tea. (Diced Ham and Dill Casserole may be added for $1.99 extra)

  Granddaddy Jack

  Abigail meticulously lined raspberry tarts and cream cheese Danish rolls in the glass case closest to the window facing Main Street and the Aspen Court cul-de-sac. Over the last few days, Abigail had been watching from the bakery as Jack’s great granddaughter, AJ, worked on restoring the old hotel. AJ had been making her way around the grounds, making notes and bringing in construction workers while Abigail kneaded dough and mixed fillings.

  Abigail wiped the flour off her leathered skin and went to the sink to wash up. A lock of silver hair fell in her eyes, and she scooped it back and started washing her hands all over again. The hot water felt good on her knotted knuckles. When she finished, she went back to the window to take a peek at AJ’s progress.

  Abigail had been a frequent visitor in Jack’s home for decades, and she had watched AJ grow up. She remembered one day twenty years ago or so, when AJ was just learning to read and write, AJ had sat down with Jack at his writing desk in his bungalow, scribbling down notes for their dream project. Most little girls grow up doodling pictures of their dream house or of their wedding dress. Instead, AJ sat with Jack and planned out a bookshop.

  Abigail remembered the little girl holding tight to Jack’s pen while he helped her form letters over a sketch he’d made of the building in their shared notebook. Abigail loved that Jack paid no heed to the fact that the little girl was making a mess of the manuscript he’d been working on earlier that morning. For the first time in his life, Jack was running late on a deadline for a novel, and the publishers were hounding him. “It’s just another book,” he’d said. “This is my family.”

  That day was so vivid in Abigail’s mind. It wasn’t for any reason in particular that she recalled that day above all others. It was just a day that had stuck with her, a true testament to the man he had been: a broad smile and the glow of joy in the simplest of moments. There it was, Jack’s smile. That’s what this memory was about. Abigail had lingered in the doorway, watching Jack and AJ hard at work. “Maude says lunch is ready,” Abigail had told him.

  “But we’re making a bookshop!” the five-year-old AJ had cried. “See, Ms. Abby?”

  Jack had turned his face to the door, all wrinkles and smile lines and with a twinkle in his eye. That big, broad smile was why this memory was important. The whole town adored that man and his smile. Granddaddy Jack, everyone called him. He was known for many things, but above all, he was known for being AJ’s great grandfather. To Abigail, he would always be her oldest and dearest friend.

  Now, Abigail rubbed her aching knuckles. She got another glimpse of AJ, no longer the little girl of her memories, but a twenty-six-year-old woman hard at work on the building across the street. Watching her made Abigail feel her age. She was older than she’d ever imagined being, and her hands hurt. It wasn’t good to be a baker with arthritis. It wasn’t fair, but she supposed many things weren’t fair.

  It wasn’t fair that Jack was gone. It wasn’t fair that AJ was over there tromping around the property on Aspen Court alone. It wasn’t fair, but maybe it was for the best, she thought as she watched the girl hard at work on the oldest piece of existing architecture in Lily Hollow.

  AJ had inherited the old hotel on Aspen Court from Jack. Maude had been irked by the statement in the will that the old building would be passed to one Anna Jane Rhys, but when it came down to it, she didn’t want the responsibility of restoration and resale. Jack had known that only AJ would see the old hotel his way, as something more than a property to fix up and sell to make a quick profit. His little AJ would make a project of it and open their dream.

  The old hotel was four stories high with ten rooms per floor, except on the first, of course. Although the building didn’t look extravagant or fancy from the outside, the first floor had an open lobby, a garden atrium, a restaurant-style dining room capable of seating a hundred, a kitchen to support said dining room, and a gift shop on the side.

  There was a grand stairway to the first of the upstairs floors with a gorgeous red carpet on the stairs to protect the hardwood underneath. It was massive enough to see from every point of the ground floor except the garden atrium that led to the backyard, patio, and gardens. AJ remembered her grandfather telling her stories about the grand weddings that were held there by the “bluebloods” in the old days.

  Chandeliers and art glamorous enough for the Victorian mansion-turned-hotel adorned all four floors. AJ would need an antiquarian art restoration company to take a look at them during the cleanup process of the old place before the grand opening of her bookstore. What she and Granddad Jack had planned before he died would be a thing of beauty.

  The building had been boarded up and covered in dust for all of AJ’s twenty-six years and most of her parents’ lives as well. Granddad Jack had shown pictures and told stories of the hotel’s glory days, how the governor of the state and his family had their reunion there every year and how all the rich and famous had thought of the place as proof of their status if an opening became available to them.

  Rooms and weekends were bid on vigorously at charity events, and wealthy men paid for their sons to bring their new brides there for their honeymoons as though it were a fabulous resort. “It was busy but quiet,” Granddad Jack had said. “That’s why the rich liked it so much. It was quiet.”

  Now it was a ghost of what it had been, and it was AJ’s personal mission to turn it into something new—a bookstore with optional employee housing. So convenient for the boss, she had thought, a lovely little employee perk, and finally, the rooms would be lived in again. This old hotel would reach back to all its past lives. It would service the community, make money, and be a home.

  Each suite had a full bathroom with claw-foot porcelain tubs, and showers had been installed in the mid-sixties. The kitchen would be available for use downstairs and would also serve coffee and baked goods to the store’s patrons. The business plan AJ had worked on all through college was nearly perfect and addressed every detail down to the letter.

  AJ looked around at the dusty space and didn’t see the dirt and grime. She saw pure potential. In all the beat-up and broken furniture, she saw the blessing in so many café-style tables that she could opt only keep the two tops and put the larger ones upstairs for the time being. Instead of lamenting how many rooms there were to clean up, she saw t
he beauty in having so many rooms so that there would be plenty of storage space.

  She walked the old hotel with a pen and notepad in hand. On the notepad, she had made a list of workers she would need to hire—a cleaning crew, a foundation engineer, and a plumber. She knew some people around town who would be more than happy to work for store credit.

  She’d need a lot of carpentry done with the bookshelves and all the doors that were to be removed from the first upstairs floor. Customers would need to see that those ten rooms held additional merchandise from the lobby floor. She’d have shelves that lined the hallway to make it more obvious and artsy painted signs attached to the banister across from the door to each room with the room number:

  1A Business, Psychology, Self-Help

  1B Sociology and Anthropology, Science, Math

  1C Ancient History

  1D Military History

  1E Political Science, Current Non-fiction

  1F Religion

  1G Metaphysics, Health, Nutrition

  1H Home Arts, Antiques, Collecting

  1I Home Arts, Antiques, Collecting

  1J Romance Novels, Children’s Books, Clearance

  She followed the plan in the notebook down to the letter. AJ remembered when Granddaddy Jack had decided to arrange things this way. He’d counted out all the reasons while she wrote them down in their book. First, there had to be reasons to force people into the quiet upper levels, so she’d chosen the most popular subjects (history and religion) and items (romance novels and clearance) with the highest cost of goods (antiquities) upstairs.

  Everyone loves their New York Times bestselling fiction titles, but unless it was the latest and the greatest, they were the hardest books to move and the titles she would have most readily available. The store wasn’t designed to be small children friendly, so she’d allotted the children’s books the least amount of space.

  Titles above a seventh-grade reading level she would mix in with the adult sections. “Age twelve, if you’re shopping in a store like this on your own, is a good time to be a grownup,” Granddaddy Jack had said. The home arts and collectible room took up two suites, as some rooms were joined by a door and shared a bathroom. Back in the days when wealthy families had stayed in the hotel, children could be in the room next to their parents.

  AJ had planned to remove the door connecting those two rooms so people could walk with ease between the two. She had chosen that room to be connected to allow space for antiquities and arts-and-crafts vendors to keep a table on consignment in the space that was once the bathroom. These items would correspond well with the books in that section.

  Tourists would buy a quilting book of their choice signed by the woman who sewed a quilt also available for purchase. There were plenty of women who would enjoy utilizing the bookshop for sewing-circle parties and book club meetings if the town were what it was when she was younger. She would remind them.

  With the adjoining rooms in mind, she chose 2H & 2I to be her master suite when she moved in. It would be the first to be renovated, along with the lobby downstairs. She wanted to be out of her childhood home as quickly as possible. Down the hall, 2B & 2C would be available for whoever she hired on as assistant manager at the store. She had just posted an ad online and in the surrounding towns’ newspapers earlier that morning announcing the position. She hoped she wasn’t getting ahead of herself.

  Would she be able to get all of this ready in three months? That’s when Nancy Harrigan’s book club meetings were scheduled to begin in the garden atrium. Well, Nancy didn’t know that. She didn’t even have a book club yet, but AJ would make sure that happened. Granddad Jack would be proud of her if she pulled this off. More importantly, maybe Kevin would be proud, too. Thinking of her husband, AJ toyed with her wedding band and then quickly pushed him from her mind.

  The gardens, she reminded herself and scribbled a note in the book in her hand. Hire a landscaping crew for the gardens.

  Sam’s Deli Menu

  Tuesday Special: The Extreme PB&J

  Enjoy Homemade Honeyed Peanut Butter and your choice of Strawberry Jelly (Strawberries freshly picked from Sam’s Home Garden) or Arnetta Gregor’s Famous Grape Jam served on Almond-Flecked Wheat Bread. Comes with Lemonade or Iced Tea and your choice of Caramelized Apple Slices or a Banana.

  Nancy Harrigan

  “This town is old and tired, Ms. Harrigan.” AJ shifted her weight to relieve her aching leg. “Don’t you want to bring it back to life? Use those pink suits and your position on the council to do something.”

  “Like what?” Nancy half-snarled. “I’m the event coordinator for the mayor.”

  “No, you’re the event coordinator for the town,” AJ corrected. “Spice up the events. The annual pumpkin roll isn’t going to last forever if people get out of the habit of gathering. I went to a football game last night, and no one else was there.”

  “But where would I start?”

  “First off, get that monthly council meeting moved someplace friendly. A place with food, like Sam’s. Second, start a book club.”

  “A book club?”

  AJ smiled and shrugged. “Why not a book club?” Then she left.

  Nancy fidgeted with her pale pink fingernails after AJ left her standing in front of Abigail’s Bakery alone. She’d been coming into Abigail’s every Friday morning to meet Ann and Sue for breakfast tarts for years. When their boys were in football together, it was to celebrate the game day and gather treats to sell for the booster club.

  They’d sort out who’d be brewing the iced tea and then pray. Then the boys graduated and married, and over time, it became what the town called the Old Widow’s Club, although Sue remarried.

  Nancy opened the door to Abigail’s, feeling lonely for better times, for those days when Mr. Harrigan was still around, when the town was alive and well. AJ was right. This town used to have such pep. When there wasn’t a football game, there were dances—not just high-school dances, but whole-town dances at the hotel when she was really young.

  In addition to the Pumpkin Roll, there had been monthly rummage sales, something that had now dwindled to a half-hearted annual event. Once upon a time, there were even horseshoe tournaments on the courthouse lawn every Thursday after bingo.

  These were the things that kept the town alive and the tourists flowing in on holidays. These were the things that were ultimately everyone’s bread and butter. What happened to all those things? What happened to bingo? She was the mayor’s event coordinator. No, she was the town’s event coordinator! How had she let these things slip away?

  “What is that AJ up to these days?” Sue asked when Nancy finally went inside.

  “Rebuilding the hotel.”

  “Mmmm.” The ladies nodded their heads and ate their tarts.

  “You know, I’ve been thinking,” Nancy said to the girls. “We should start a book club.”

  “We don’t know the first thing about book clubs,” Ann said. Such a naysayer. Always had been.

  “We’ll figure it out. It could be fun. You invite the daughters-in-law, and they could bring the girls. It could be great bonding.”

  “What would we read first?” Sue was adventurous and always ready for something new.

  “I’ll pick something to start. Oprah has a book club. Maybe we could start with something on her list.”

  “I don’t like Oprah,” the naysayer said.

  Who doesn’t like Oprah? Nancy wondered, but she bit her tongue. “Well, we’ll pick something.”

  The following month, Nancy, Kat, Sue, Chloe, and Ann sat down to tarts at Abigail’s and talked about The Time Traveler’s Wife.

  “Too much foul language,” Ann said.

  Kat rolled her eyes, and Nancy smiled a bit at her daughter-in-law before Chloe spoke up. “Oh, but Henry DeTamble is so romantic!” Chloe was Sue’s daughter, and she and Kat had both known Ann their entire lives due to the friendship the three older women had always shared. They knew that Ann seemed bitter about e
verything and was annoying as hell, but when it came down to it, she had a good heart.

  AJ popped into Abigail’s to buy Danish rolls for her morning construction crew and to spy on her handiwork. She nodded to the ladies, and she smiled to herself. Nancy seemed to be holding the group together quite well. She kept them on task with reading-group questions provided in the back of the book and seemed fairly excited to be having a discussion with purpose. Soon, AJ would be able to drop a hint about the atrium and the garden.

  Nancy was none too casual about peeking in on AJ as well. Later that day, she made her way into the old hotel and saw how much AJ had accomplished in just a few weeks of work as well as how much there was left to do.

  “The hotel used to have such lovely gardens,” Nancy said as the two women stood in the lobby area. The building was sound, and the men were working on lining the first upstairs floor with bookshelves.

  “They’ll be lovely again,” AJ said. “I think it’s important to go back to the building’s roots, even though it’ll have a much different function.”

  “What good will it do if no one will see it?”

  “I’ll see it. And besides, a garden is a great place for readers to enjoy.”

  “And discuss their purchases.” Nancy seemed to be thinking aloud.

  “Yes,” AJ said. She looked at Nancy Harrigan with a little more than a sparkle in her eye, watching the seed she’d planted grow into a thought.

  The very next day, Nancy Harrigan marched into the lobby, which was still peppered with unfinished shelves. Max Harkins was busy restoring the clerk’s desk to its former glory, and a newly delivered antique cash register was waiting to be unloaded onto its new resting place.