The Bookshop Hotel

by A. K. Klemm

  When Kevin died, Sidney stayed in Moscow. She was busy seeing the sights with a man named Sergei. She regretted it now, standing there in Lily Hollow. The first time you see your daughter since her wedding shouldn’t be after she’s already become a widow, but not being there for the funeral is even more unacceptable. She wondered if Jude had gone to the funeral or done anything. Probably not. He had a real family now, a wife and two little girls in elementary school in Seattle.

  “Where’s my girl?” Sidney asked. She was boisterous and overexcited, trying to mask her uneasiness.

  “Excuse me?” The handsome one arched his eyebrows. He looked welcoming, and Sidney sauntered over to the café and ordered a coffee.

  “AJ. Where’s AJ?” Sidney repeated. “Mmmm. The coffee here smells good, almost as good as Italy.”

  AJ came out of the employee stairwell behind the kitchen and stood beside Matthew at the bar when Sidney launched into a story about a bistro she’d visited in the early nineties.

  “Sidney?”

  “Hi, baby. I heard about this shop, and I just had to come see for myself.”

  “How nice of you.” AJ’s tone was flat. Matthew had never heard her to be rude, not like that. His hand went to hers in an offer of support, lingering near hers but not touching.

  “Matthew, this is my mother.”

  “Hi, Mrs.—”

  “Nope, just Miss. I never married. Good thing, too. The luck isn’t with our stock. Look at Maude. She’s a widow, and AJ here is a widow. Love my girl all you want, but don’t marry her!” Sidney let out a laugh.

  “That’s enough, Sidney. You’re not funny.”

  “Who’s Maude?” Matthew asked.

  “My grandmother, her mother.”

  “Doesn’t anyone say Mom in your family?”

  “There’s no one in our family worth calling Mom. Why are you here?” AJ redirected.

  “I told you, I wanted to see this place.”

  “No, you came to gawk. Did you finally hear about the accident from wherever you were? Did you come to see this?” AJ pulled up her sleeve. Her arm had burn marks and a few scars from glass that had lodged into her flesh. There was a dimple where a pin could be found if you x-rayed her. “Or this?” She pulled up her jeans, exposing the bad leg from knee to ankle. It seemed it was in a chronic state of purplish bruising. “There. You see I was broken. I’m not anymore. Now go. You’re not welcome here.”

  “AJ,” Sidney said, her eyes sappy like a puppy’s. Matthew waited for the woman to apologize. She was tiny like AJ, but a bit taller. Her hair was dark in comparison, with more than a hint of red. In the face, they were similar, but the coloring was off. AJ was so pale next to Sidney. Sidney had the sunny color of a woman who traveled and skin that was far more olive than Matthew would have guessed one of AJ’s parents would be.

  Her father must have been pasty. Where AJ’s skin was smooth and clear, despite the broken cheek bone she’d suffered in the car accident, Sidney had fifteen years’ worth of smile lines and smoke damage. “AJ, I need a place to stay. I haven’t really been welcome at Maude’s since you got married.”

  “Go find a hotel.”

  Sidney made a big gesture with her arms and spun in a circle.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.” AJ rubbed her temple. “Matthew, please get her a room ready. I can’t deal with this woman.”

  Matthew walked Sidney upstairs. He showed her to 2E, next to Ivy.

  “Aw, I can’t just stay in your room?” She moved to slip her arm around his waist, and he stepped aside.

  “I think it’s best you stay here.” Matthew was a little appalled at the woman as she laughed at him.

  “I’m just picking on you, kid. What’s my daughter told you about me?” Sidney flipped on the light and tossed her purse on the nearest table. “Swanky suite! So what do you know?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing? Not even how horrible I am? Nothing? I might be a bad mom, but I’m not nothing.”

  “AJ doesn’t talk a lot.”

  “My AJ doesn’t talk? Huh.” Sidney pranced around the room, peering through the curtains and checking out the furniture. “You don’t talk much either, do you?”

  “No ma’am, not much.”

  “Mmm.” Sidney nodded her head. “Well, I gotta get the airport smell off my skin. I’ll be down for some of that coffee of yours in the morning.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  When Sam Finney saw Sidney pull in, he let out a deep sigh. He’d had the biggest crush on her when he was in elementary school. She was spunky, gorgeous, and half his size as a ninth grader. He was an enormous kid—five-foot-six at age nine—and not done growing. He was a bit shy, and he thought she ruled the world.

  The next morning when he opened up the deli, she was there on the cul-de-sac of Aspen Court, smoking a cigarette. She caught his gaze from the distance and gave him an exaggerated wink to be sure he’d see it, placing her finger over her lips. Then and there, she was fourteen again and he nine, saying “Shhh, Sammy,” as she tucked a stolen pack of gum in his pocket at the Grocer’s. Some babysitter she turned out to be. Sam was pretty sure the night Jude Carson knocked her up was the night she’d left Sam home alone watching Star Wars.

  Sam remembered his mother tut-tutting over Sidney’s pregnancy. She wasn’t allowed to babysit him anymore, something Sam hadn’t understood at the time. What was the big deal? She was a fellow mom. Shouldn’t that make her an even better babysitter? Now, Sam just shook his head at the woman.

  Sidney disappeared back into the building, and Sam went back to work, prepping for the day. Ah, Sid, what are you doing? He wanted to ask. That girl is doing better without you. Everyone is. All Sid ever did was wreak havoc. Granddaddy Jack had done a good thing paying for her to live abroad all those years. Then it dawned on him—Sidney was out of money now that he was dead. As far as Sam knew, Jack had left everything to AJ. Oh Lord.

  “Good morning.” Sidney sauntered to the café counter where Matthew was pouring coffee into mugs for AJ and Ivy.

  “Morning, AJ’s mom.” Ivy took her mug to the cash register as she called over her shoulder. Sidney liked Ivy instantly. You travel the world enough, you become capable of immediately spotting yourself among strangers, and Sid loved finding herself in others. She thought it ironic that her daughter was so little like her—hated her to boot—and still seemed to surround herself with people who were just like her.

  AJ disappeared into her office, leaving Sidney alone with Matthew again.

  “She keeps leaving us two together. Think she’s trying to tell us something?”

  “That’s doubtful.”

  Sidney waggled her eyebrows. “Just kidding, tiger.”

  Sam came in the door carrying a tray of goodies. “I’ll be out for lunch today, so I thought I’d stock you up now.”

  “Awesome, thanks.” Matthew gestured to the kitchen so Sam could help himself to stocking the fridge.

  “Hey, Sammy-Finns.” Sidney rapped the counter with her fingernails.

  “Hey, Sidney.”

  “You know, Matthew,” Sid said in between sips of coffee, “little Sammy here was the cutest kid you ever saw. Tall as a tree, too, even as a kid. I might have run off with him if he hadn’t been in elementary school.” She winked at Sam.

  “You know, I would have run off with you, too, if you hadn’t been over here getting knocked up.”

  “You got a mouth on you, Sam.”

  “Got it from my babysitter.”

  “Ha ha. Very funny.”

  Sam came back out of the kitchen and performed a Sidney-like saunter over to the woman. He leaned into her shoulder and spoke low. “AJ’s doing good, but if you want anything, you come to me. She’s screwed up enough without having her egg donor lurking around and moochin’. Do what you’re good at and leave.” Matthew heard Sam in snippets, but he saw Sidney’s back go erect as she sat up taller in anger. “You got me, Sid?”

  “I got you, Sam.�
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  Sam left, and Sidney waved her hand in a good riddance gesture. “My oh my, people get their panties in a wad over my kid. I see she’s got your boxers in a bunch as well.”

  Matthew ignored her and left the café to get started on the books that needed shelving in fiction. AJ spied him from her office and joined him.

  Sidney watched the two work—silent partners. She’d never had that with anyone, been so fluid and united, had a joint purpose. He was a good kid, that Matthew. He responded to AJ’s every gesture, every hint of a mood. He reminded her of a bartender she’d known once in Florida, a guy who would listen politely for days and was good natured and kind, but he didn’t let anybody get away with anything. That bartender had kicked her out of his bar a time or two for being rowdy, but she respected him for it.

  He reminded her of what she imagined Jude was like now that he was off with his new family, being a good person for them. Looking back, Sidney realized that when she’d run away from her babysitting job and into this old hotel with Jude that night, she was looking for him to be the better person, and that night, he just wasn’t.

  Matthew looked up at Sid, noticing everything, noticing being noticed. Sid dropped her gaze. He was protective of her daughter and didn’t like AJ being spied on. Good. She wanted to ask him if he was sleeping with her. No, of course not, not AJ. AJ had been the good child Jack had been looking to have for so long. AJ had been a good girl, and at her wedding, Sid had overheard the groomsmen talking after the reception. AJ and Kevin had waited. That was a long time to wait, but she was proud of her little girl. For once in her life, she felt motherly. Good for you, AJ. Good for you.

  Sidney swirled more creamer into her coffee until it turned a milky color. There it was, Jude’s hair color. It was Jude who’d had milky blond hair. No one in Lily Hollow had hair like that except a Carson and AJ when she was really little. She’d outgrown it—too much of Sid came out in the end—but at first, there was no mistaking whose kid she was.

  Maude had suspicions, but Sid had never confirmed them while she was pregnant. She would just shrug her shoulders when people asked. All of Lily Hollow thought Sidney was the biggest slut on earth, acting like she didn’t know who her baby’s daddy was. Truth was, Jude Carson was the only boy from Lily Hollow that had ever laid a hand on her, and she’d imagined herself madly in love with him.

  To her knowledge, Jude hadn’t laid a hand on anyone else in town either, so why wouldn’t he be in love with her, too? But the Carsons came from a long line of mayors and preachers, and there are two kinds of people you don’t have premarital affairs with, according to the philosophy of Maude, and those were mayors and preachers.

  “What would Pastor Carson say?” Maude asked when she started to take in AJ’s features. Jude’s grandfather was the preacher at the First Baptist Church of Lily Hollow, and Maude remembered Sidney’s diligence in church attendance before the pregnancy.

  “Who cares? What’s Mayor Carson going to say, ma?” Jude’s father was the mayor of Lily Hollow then and had been very strict with his boys about the importance of reputation.

  Maude slapped her across the face, and Sidney was Sidney, so she just laughed. It was Pastor Carson, in a good-faith effort to right his grandson’s wrongs, who insisted that the name Carson be put on AJ’s birth certificate when she was a toddler. Rumors in a small town couldn’t be denied no matter how much Sidney tried to hide the truth, and before long, the Carson family was providing a bit of money to Maude each month for AJ’s care.

  But most people had already become accustomed to avoiding the subject of her last name. Even at her wedding to Kevin, the reverend had simply asked if Anna Jane would take Kevin Rhys, and no one in Lily Hollow had thought anything of it.

  “You ok?” Matthew sneaked into AJ’s room, dreading what Sidney would think if she saw them in the middle of a late-night chat in AJ’s suite. There wasn’t an innocent thought in Sidney’s brain, and that saddened him when AJ was seemingly oblivious to scandal.

  “No.” AJ shook her head and laughed a bit. “No one gets under my skin like my mother, not even Kevin, and he could be maddening. She has all this energy, and she expects everyone around her to want to move at her pace.”

  “Really? She seems tired to me.”

  “Really?”

  “And sad.”

  “That’s the thing. She has no right to be sad, Matthew. She’s been free as a bird her whole life. No rules, no boundaries, no guilt, and no responsibilities.”

  “But is that a happy way to live?”

  “I guess not. I just wrote her off a long time ago. Forgiveness is hard.”

  AJ thought back to Kevin. Forgiveness was hard, but if she could forgive Kevin for driving that car off the cliff with the two of them in it, then why couldn’t she forgive Sidney? Because, broken up in the hospital and angry at her dead husband, she realized all she’d wanted was her mommy.

  “Hey, hey.” Matthew put his arm around her.

  “What?”

  “You’re crying.”

  “That’s weird.” She rubbed her eyes.

  Matthew laughed a little, “AJ, you can cry a little. Your husband died, the only parent you really had died, and your mom is certifiably crazy. You can cry a little.”

  “I know it doesn’t seem like it, Matthew, but I’m feeling so much better. I really love this place. Rebuilding this hotel, it’s kind of rebuilding me. And then she comes. And… I just wasn’t ready.”

  “I guess we’re not the ones that decide what we’re ready for.”

  “No, we really aren’t.”

  Sidney was gone the next day. She left a note for AJ. “I won’t bother you, but if you need me, I’ll be here.” And for the first time in her life, AJ had a phone number she could use to reach her mother.

  It was a false moment of intimacy, Matthew thought later. She was stressed because her mother was here, so she leaned on him both literally and figuratively. As soon as Sidney was gone, it was like going back to square one with AJ. She buried herself in plans, basically hid from him, or sent him on pointless errands.

  Nancy Harrigan’s book club berated him endlessly about plans for a Christmas celebration they wanted to have for the members and anyone who wanted to look into joining for the New Year. Sue and Ann usually came in trailing behind her. Ann was far less surly than usual, and Sue took every opportunity to point that out to Matthew.

  “This place has really opened her up,” Sue commented as she nodded to Ann. Matthew smiled and let her help him sort books on his cart. She was a practical woman who enjoyed having something to do. Ann, used to staring people down with cynical glares, was perched on her favorite chair in the café while Nancy laid out elegant invitations for AJ to approve. Ann wasn’t exactly smiling, but she had a contented expression that would have shocked an onlooker if they had known the woman for long.

  The town of Lily Hollow was becoming a family again. Every family has a fixture—a center—they revolve around and are guided by, a person or place they flock to in times of stress and joy. The bookshop had quickly become that fixture just as it had been when it was the hotel. Everyone was welcome except Sidney, and that didn’t sit well with Matthew. It made him miss his own parents, his original family.

  Matthew’s parents were nothing like AJ’s. They were kind, thoughtful people. His mom was a dutiful housewife who ran an interior decorating company from their home. She was a little artistic and a lot compromising, which was why it had come to a shock to Matthew when she had sided with his Dad in the argument about college.

  Matthew’s Dad was a hard-working electrical engineer. He wore suits, made a lot of money, bought his wife a large house, taught men’s Sunday school classes at their church, and had been pretty stubborn about Matthew finishing college with a degree he deemed worthy. In hindsight, Matthew realized that his father’s request wouldn’t have been too difficult to honor.

  After all, Joseph Atkins was generally a reasonable man in most other things.
But when his son had chosen to serve coffee for a living after he had cut him off financially, they had stopped speaking. Joseph Atkins had expected that withholding money would force Matthew’s hand, not send him running.

  Matthew found out the hard way that if his father wasn’t speaking to someone, neither was his mother. Barbara Atkins’s husband coming first was the one thing on which she did not compromise, and come hell or high water, Matthew had to make up with his father if he ever wanted a chat with her again.

  After seeing the way Sidney and AJ’s relationship had just festered all these years, Matthew had to fix it. He had to see his parents and make things right. He wanted children one day, and children needed grandparents. He couldn’t trust that AJ’s parents would be there, and he couldn’t trust that his plan would work.

  I did it again, he thought. He had just imagined himself in a life with AJ—again. AJ wouldn’t even let him in half the time. How was he going to marry her? It didn’t matter. Setting things right with Sidney was in the best interest of the shop, and it was in the best interest of Lily Hollow. Forgiveness begets forgiveness.

  He needed to get away to make any of it possible.

  Matthew took in the smell of the books, the coffee, the old building, and the autumn leaves blowing in the back door from the garden.

  “It’s one thing to build the house you’ve already contracted in your head, the one you’ve calculated will be right for you; it’s another to move into what was once someone else’s dream and try to reshape it to match a vague template in your heart.”

  — James Morgan, If These Walls Had Ears

  “Wine?” Matthew asked.

  AJ took a sip and shook her head, “Cran-grape juice. I’m being good.”

  “Ah. What’s that?”

  AJ closed the book. “The Secret of Lost Things, Sheridan Hay. I like it so far.”

  “Mmmm.”

  She sat awkwardly, holding both glass and book, trying to figure out what it was that Matthew wanted from her. “Look. I’m tired, Matthew. What is it now?”