The rest of the afternoon is too busy to wonder about Madeline. Customers fly in and out, and again and again I’m asked for suggestions. I find myself beginning, as Maddie did, with some questions. What’s your favorite movie? What’s the last great book you read? And her standby favorite: What was your favorite book when you were sixteen?
That last question surprises people the first time they’re asked. Then their faces light and their eyes glance up as they drift back in time to that golden age and that one book that defined not only the adult they were becoming but the hidden expression of their inner world.
Then I reach for Gone Girl—because it’s still super popular, though slightly disturbing as an expression of one’s inner world—or The Paris Architect or The Joy Luck Club, a perennially great read, or a host of others that always hit the spot.
I am briefly stymied when a customer names Little Dorrit as her last great book and the one she read at age sixteen.
“Have you read anything more recent that excited you?”
Head shake.
My mind casts to Maddie’s list for me and I feel a softness grow. I noticed it from the start. With every glance at the list, with every book read, words like wait, rest, and ponder come to mind. Foreign words. Intriguing words.
Claire, Madeline, and I haven’t talked about those lists since the day we received them. I never saw their lists and mine sits on my dresser at home. Madeline saw me reading it once and I felt so vulnerable, as if my diary, and my heart, were open for anyone to dissect. So I took it home and there it stays.
But it wouldn’t have exposed me. After all, it’s merely a list of books. Yet I can’t deny it feels personal, intimate, precious. I started reading them, but I get the books from the library. To pull them from the shelves here would capture Claire’s attention. But I remember one now and offer it to the customer . . .
“Have you read A Man Called Ove? He’s a well-drawn curmudgeon. Dickens had a few of those too. I think you might like dear Ove.” I hand her a paperback copy. “Please try it and come back and tell me what you think.”
Maddie always ended her suggestions with that line. Not because she wanted the customer to come buy again, though of course she did. She sincerely wanted to know what the customer thought, how she felt, and what might touch that deep place inside her next. That’s what books do, Maddie used to say; they are a conversation, and introduce us to ourselves and to others.
Words flow from my lips easily today and, as that customer leaves, I find that I want to know what a young mom at the back of the shop thinks and needs. With her baby tucked close and with her limited reading time, rushed and scattered, I wonder what will reach her best. We talk and I sense I know her.
“Dana?”
“I wasn’t sure you recognized me.” She shifts her baby high on her shoulder.
“I didn’t for a moment. You were blonder in high school.”
She laughs and touches her long hair. She grimaces as if wondering when she last washed it. “We all were, but it got expensive and felt dated to me.”
I hand her Nine Women, One Dress. “Try this. A little black dress is never dated, and it’s written in vignettes. You can take your time with it.”
She thanks me and walks to the counter. I smile. We women understand the transformative nature of “the little black dress” and dream of it, especially when a baby keeps us up all night and spits on our shoulders all day.
Late into the afternoon, customers disperse. Talk of snow quiets the town outside, and Claire and Madeline manage those remaining in the shop while I change the windows to over-the-top pink and red explosions for Valentine’s Day. It’s a month away and a stupid holiday if ever there was one, but it has to be done.
Again, this new feeling checks me . . . No, Valentine’s Day is not all saccharine-sweet predatory consumerism. Seth bought me roses, two dozen red ones, every February 14, and they made me feel beautiful and cherished. Then there was always champagne. Always a bubble bath. And always a very good night.
With that thought, I staple pink crepe paper to my thumb.
Serves me right.
I shove my thumb into my mouth and roll from my crouch into a criss-cross-applesauce position in the bay window. That’s when I notice the world outside growing white. “Hey . . . This is getting bad, everyone.”
My announcement clears the shop and earns me a glare from Madeline. “You should head home then.”
“Thanks, Boss. Don’t mind if I do.” I say it with sass, but in reality I’m scared of snow. Silly perhaps, but there is so much I can’t do alone. At fifty-four, I have perhaps three full decades ahead of me of shoveling snow, changing tires, slipping on roads, salting my sidewalks. And according to The View, I’m losing a pound of muscle mass each year. I see it in my triceps and it’s all very concerning.
So I dawdle. I don’t want to go home. Not yet. I’ve set lights on timers at the house, not to fool a possible robber, but to fool me, and yet I’m never fooled. The house will be as cold, dark, impersonal, and quiet as it was when I left this morning and found it last night, and left it yesterday, and . . . It doesn’t change and I doubt it ever will.
I finally give up and leave the store. I drive home slowly, hoping the snow will stop and I won’t need to embarrass myself by calling Chris for a favor. Not that he’ll make me ask—I know he’ll do the job. But for how long? The next three decades?
I walk in the door, drop my keys on the counter, and perch on a stool to make a whole list of to-dos to keep me busy this evening. I wipe down the fridge, vacuum the kitchen drawers of all those pesky crumbs, scrub the cabinet faces, and then move on to baseboards. That’s when I stop. Enough. Enough cleaning. Enough hiding.
I decide to go for a walk.
I want to be courageous. I want to be strong. I am so tired of feeling scared. Besides, the wind has stopped, and although the snow keeps falling, the world looks new. I need new.
Without thinking about it, I walk . . . and four miles later find myself in front of Maddie’s house. Her house is ablaze with light, and my heart jumps up, then sinks low and sits heavy on my hips as I remember she hasn’t flipped all those switches, her music isn’t playing from the speakers, and her cooking isn’t making the air heavy and warm with garlic and tomatoes. I will myself to continue on.
I turn up the front walk.
I collect the newspapers and flyers off the porch and rap on the front door. The light above me flips on, blinding me for a moment as the door creaks and swings wide.
“Hello.” Madeline sounds surprised but not annoyed.
Dressed in sweats, she seems more human, and younger. She reminds me of Alyssa at times. Both have armed themselves with an impressive professional persona, but as Madeline’s cracks—as it did with the misordering today—I recall the fun I had with my kids.
A motion draws my gaze down. She curls her socked toes against the floorboards.
I’m intruding. I’m embarrassed.
“I was walking by and all the flyers and papers caught my attention. Here.” I shove the bundle into her hands and turn to leave.
“Do you want to come in?”
I spin her direction, then away, back to the silent, snowy world. I feel like I’m five and my mom is offering me a cookie. She used to do that and when I reached for it, she’d pull it away with a “Not until you—” It was always something—clean my room, set the table, practice the piano. There was always a chore before the reward. To be was never enough.
Her quiet “Please” stops my vacillating and I step inside.
“Take off your shoes if you want, but feel free to leave them on too. I always think it’s odd to be forced to take them off. I mean, I’m sure there’s a vacuum around here somewhere, and isn’t that what they’re for?”
“There is. A good one too.” I almost point to the closet, but stop myself. This is her house now. “I feel the same way.”
With all her silk blouses, pencil skirts, and sleek pants, I exp
ected fussiness. Instead I’m greeted with my kind of logic. Nevertheless, I slip off my boots and pad into the kitchen after her.
She flips through the flyers as she walks. “Seems I can get my . . .” She looks up as if the pronoun surprises her, then continues with a slight emphasis on the repeated word, “my house painted . . . new windows . . . siding . . . Oh, and I missed Christmas poinsettias from the high school hockey team.”
“Maddie loved those boys. She always used to buy flowers from them.”
Madeline dumps all the flyers into the recycling bin, except the one from the hockey team. I like that she saves it. No clue why, but it feels right.
I smell rosemary and chicken. I notice a head of broccoli on the counter. “Are you living here?”
Madeline blushes like Alyssa did when caught in a lie. “I’m not, not really. But it’s snowing so hard I didn’t want to drive downtown, and I need to start going through the house to clear it out.”
She nods toward the counter. “One of the books on the list she left me got me thinking about food, and another was a cookbook. I’ve found Marcella Hazan and her Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking take time, but are worth it. Maddie clearly had a plan with that reading list.”
She lifts the lid off Maddie’s favorite bright-orange Le Creuset dish, and I peek inside. I’m impressed. The chicken is golden and the sauce thick. It took me years to get to that point with my cooking.
“It’s almost done,” I say.
She peers in beside me. “How can you tell?”
“Thirty years of cooking. There’s a meat thermometer in that drawer. It should be 165 inside.”
She reaches for the white thermometer, stabs the chicken, and smiles. “163. You are good . . . Do you want to stay for dinner? I can’t possibly eat a whole chicken. Or . . . you probably have plans.” She smiles, a small, enigmatic thing. “Or a date?”
I snort. “I haven’t had a date in longer than I’ve been cooking. I’d love to stay.”
The kitchen is full of silent busyness. She puts the chicken to the side to rest. I sauté the broccoli. She sets the small kitchen table. I pull out the plates. And throughout it all, I feel emptied with the gratitude that washes through me. It startles me at first, then rests comfortably inside my chest. I’m so tired of being a charity case or, worse, an object of passive scorn. At this moment, I feel like family.
“How’d you and Claire fill the hours after I left?”
Again, her half smile returns. “It was pretty quiet. We caught up on some computer work.”
* * *
Claire
Janet futzed around a few minutes, then bolted out the back door. The snow was bad, but not that bad—yet.
“You can head home too if you want. I’ll lock up.” Claire joined Madeline at the front window. They watched the snow fall. All the customers had fled when Janet sounded the alarm.
“We’ve only got a couple hours till closing, and if this gets bad I’ll crash at Aunt Maddie’s house.” Madeline quirked a smile. “Seems I own a house in town.”
“Are you going to keep it?”
“Even if I wanted to, I can’t afford it.” The sentence accompanied a head shake that was long and, to Claire’s mind, unconvincing. “I’ll put it on the market in the spring, but I do like it. Aunt Maddie’s personality is in every fiber of that house, and she had good taste too.”
“She wasn’t a shopper. I liked that about your aunt. She took her time, and when she found something she liked, you instantly saw the connection. I liked visiting there. It’s a welcoming house.”
Madeline tapped the window. “Why don’t you go home? This will only get worse, and you’ve got a family waiting.”
“I promise you Brian is tucked in his study and won’t emerge until seven. He’s a consultant, a fixer, and this latest company is in pretty bad shape.” She paused as if a little jealous of the company. “And the kids are both out. Matt is at a friend’s house for the night and Brittany texted that she’s off to a friend’s for dinner too.”
“I’m sorry about the order. I thought I was helping.”
Claire shifted to face her. “It’s your store. I shouldn’t have gotten so exasperated. Yet it has struggled for years, and keeping it afloat hasn’t been easy.” She pressed her lips together. She heard her tone, and hated it. It sounded as if she was trying to convince Madeline, anyone, maybe herself, of her competence—from a sideways angle.
Again she heard Janet’s indictment as it floated through her memory. It’s like you live in those classics you love, in some odd third-person narration, as if you aren’t in charge of your own story. Who is, if not you, for goodness’ sake?
If Madeline noticed, she didn’t comment. Instead she continued. “I went back into the shop’s spreadsheets after we talked, and I saw where you cut back on orders and switched the store to the returning discount. I should have done that sooner. I . . . I could’ve learned a lot by paying more attention.”
“We have a good base of stock, and ordering the hot books, and almost only the hot books, keeps us relevant without too much waste. Beyond those must-haves, our customers buy along a few lines that I suspect are unique to the Printed Letter.”
“And from what I discerned, you’ve tracked them.” At Claire’s nod, Madeline smiled again. “You did well by Aunt Maddie.”
Claire faced the window. “Thank you. She did well by me too.”
“I transferred some money into the store’s account.”
Claire turned with a raised brow. She had not expected that.
“It’s enough for the next week, and I’ll have more by then.”
Claire asked nothing further. Madeline’s tone didn’t invite questions, and she suspected some hard choices had been made.
“Do you want to help me with something?” Claire tilted her head back to the store’s counter. “I’ve been working on an online profile for Janet.”
“A dating profile?”
Claire led the way to the back of the store. “She mentioned it a couple months ago, then dropped it. So I figured why not jump-start the process?”
“Because she’ll kill you.”
“Not if it works.” Claire tapped her laptop on. “I researched a few sites and decided on OurTime and Elite Over 50. I stayed away from the larger free ones. They don’t feel right.”
“If you say so . . .” Madeline’s eyes still bulged too large for Claire’s comfort.
“What? What could possibly go wrong?”
Madeline raised one brow. Claire noted the effect—it was declarative and condescending all at once. She wondered if that’s how Janet perceived her own raised brow.
Madeline shook her head. “Falsely impersonating someone online and setting up dates? Nothing could go wrong with that . . . Nothing at all.”
Chapter 9
Madeline
Two weeks can change your world.
Just as Claire and I started to seek out dates for Janet, I found one for me—or rather, one returned to me.
Kayla and I met every few nights at a bar between our apartments whenever I returned downtown. She would text when she left the office, then we would grab one drink, have a quick chat, and both walk home again. I gave her insight into some of her work, unloaded the drama of my little world—and it felt good. I didn’t feel like I’d fallen off the larger world outside sleepy Winsome, at least.
Then he walked in.
“Hey . . .” Drew dropped onto the stool beside me.
I pulled back and stared at him, noting Kayla held the same befuddled expression. As if nothing were at all out of the ordinary, he scooped a fistful of nuts and then grinned, trailing his gaze from my ankle boots to my jeans and up my dark-green sweater. “You look nice. I heard you’re working in a bookstore?”
“I own a bookstore.”
“We miss you at work.” He nodded to Kayla, seeking confirmation. She nodded in agreement, then widened her eyes at me.
The three of us then held an awkw
ard conversation until both Kayla and I pushed back and grabbed our coats.
“I’ve got an early morning. I’ll see you in the office, Drew. And, Madeline . . .” She gave me a hug. “Call me.”
A full eyes-only conversation revealed we both had questions, wanted answers, and needed to fully dissect what Drew was doing at our tête-à-tête.
She turned to go, but Drew pulled my hand back.
“Can you stay a little longer?”
And that’s how it began. A slow conversation, full of starts and stops, and a hesitant ask for another. I had never known Drew to be hesitant. He wore it well.
One date . . . Two dates . . . And two weeks later, February arrived and I was sure I had a “boyfriend” again.
Hmm . . . That jump was too far too fast.
Drew was different from who I remembered. He was taking it, taking us, slow—really slow. We hadn’t kissed, held hands, nothing. But each time we got together, he asked for another date. I could’ve seized the moment anytime I chose, but I wanted to watch it play out. The curiosity, the slow, almost courtship-like nature of our dates intrigued me as much as it confused me.
What’s more, this new Drew wanted to know about my day; it was the first question he asked on each date. At the firm, our days often intertwined and he witnessed my daily happenings. Now he peppered me with questions about them and listened to my answers. I told him about Claire and Janet, the store, the customers, the ordering, the bookkeeping, and the window displays. I told him about Aunt Maddie’s house and the garden I was beginning to imagine to the left of her back door, and then I stalled . . . Chris. My mind traveled there more often than I wished.
Then today Claire and I found someone we thought was a perfect match for Janet. I’d discovered a lot about her the night she stayed for dinner. I learned she had two kids, both only a few years younger than me, and an ex-husband who made her eyes shine despite divorcing a couple years ago. I learned she’d studied at the Rhode Island School of Design and was massively creative beyond the Printed Letter’s window displays. She thought in shapes, colors, and textures in ways I couldn’t fathom. I also learned that, while her delivery was horrid most days, her heart was kind. She had loved my aunt. I liked Janet more every day—and that changed the kind of man I let Claire “wink” at for her online.
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