This is not to say my life has been easy, even though it might have appeared to be: I suffered and struggled, fought and lost hope. Felt lost and sad, listless and bored. I think it’s easy, when you live in paradise, doing your dream job, to paint my life in broad strokes: aging bohemian. Weirdo. Old hippie. I am all of those things, and proudly. But I’m a human being like everyone else—life up here was sometimes very hard. When your grandmother died, the first few years after her accident were only darkness, my only pinprick of light your summer visits.
I say all of this not to make you scared of inheriting The Mad Ones; quite the opposite. I just want you to know the full reality of a wilder life. I would say I went to bed happier, more content than many—that happens when your life choices align with your values.
But life still happens. The anxiety will chase you, depression can find you, and one night, while she’s picking up milk at the store, your soulmate might drive off the road and die, years before she was supposed to.
Your life is different now, Calvin, and it’s quite possible you no longer have the love and hunger for books that I saw in you during our summers together. You may want to burn this shambling old shack to the ground—and I wouldn’t blame you.
First of all, I’m dead, so who gives a shit? Not me. But secondly, your life might be brimming over with happiness and moving up here, taking this over, could be the absolute last thing you want to do. So don’t do it. I left it to you not as a punishment or a burden, not to pressure you into the shape of the life I had lived. I left it to you because, years ago, it was beyond obvious to me that you had that same tender poet’s soul, the heart of a book-lover, the desire for solitude and tranquility. And you’re different from me—you could do the things The Mad Ones needs to stay afloat.
Also, I just fucking believe in you, Calvin. So whatever choice you make, make it your choice. If not, you’ll only spend the rest of your life regretting it.
If I didn’t say it enough: I love you, very much. Think of me when you read Shel Silverstein to your children. Ask them questions. Help them open up their world.
The only ones for me, Calvin, are the mad ones.
I couldn’t turn around, so convinced was I that my grandfather would be walking out into the Big Room, mid-laugh, whiskey in one hand and a book in the other.
My grandfather hadn’t wanted me to live a life of regret, and yet the five years before he died I visited him twice, saw him at a few holiday gatherings. “Too busy,” I’d always said, “too stressed with work,” as if either of those things were actual excuses. And meanwhile, he stayed up here, continuing to think the world of me, even as I stayed away.
Whatever choice you make, make it your choice.
And just like that, I knew what I had to do.
It was going to be so much fucking work. And I had no plan, no idea, no fucking clue how to run a bookstore, let alone one that had completely fallen to pieces.
Nothing would be easy about this. Nothing in my life would be the same. The thought of the countless knots of my life I’d have to undo made me dizzy. And yet.
And yet. My grandfather believed in me. Lucia had believed in me.
I looked around, at this place I loved so much, and saw something: a future.
Maybe it was time to go a little mad.
◊
Three months later
CALVIN
“Right, no, I understand you’ve never heard of us before,” I said into the phone, waving to some customers as they strolled in. “We are…well, were, famous for a long time and I’m working to…right. No, I understand and I sure will,” I said, sighing as I hung up the phone.
I took out my red pen and crossed another name off the list.
“No luck?” Gabe asked, staring at my computer screen. He’d been coming by to help me set up some financial systems for the bookstore. Turned out, Big Sur had a lot of experts, and when your best friend had been running a business for his entire life—you should start there.
“Nope,” I said, shrugging. “But the list is long and I’m only 10% through it. They’ll come,” I said, with a confidence I didn’t really feel.
Gabe and I had taken a second look at my grandfather’s finances and, as I suspected, the bread-and-butter of his business—when it was good—had been readings and lectures.
Getting them started up again was another question entirely.
“Your sales are up 3%,” Gabe said, clicking through a report and printing it for me. “Not too shabby.”
I looked, impressed as the small line on the bar chart moved up. Slow, but steady.
“That’s good news,” I exclaimed, so loudly a few of the customers glanced my way. I smiled at them nervously. I still lacked a lot of my grandfather’s gregariousness, but I was getting better.
“It is,” Gabe said slowly, slapping a hand on my back. “But your expenses are still outpacing your revenue significantly. Almost shockingly so.”
“Fuck.”
“I’m still letting you drink for free,” he said with a wry grin.
I winced a little—for every ounce of good financial news, it didn’t seem to be able to chip away at the massive amount of debt.
“Much appreciated,” I said grimly, turning back to my list.
After I’d let down the investors—who had a few choice words for me—I called my parents. They thought it was a terrible idea and told me so. A few friends agreed. My boss didn’t seem to care—they hired the intern, like they promised—but he did express a fair amount of disbelief over my decision.
The first month was exhausting—between getting rid of my apartment, moving my things, running the store, and starting marketing classes at the community college—I barely had a moment to myself. And when I did, I spent it drinking with Gabe.
Hard, just like my grandfather had said. Some days it felt like I was pushing a mountain from one end of the earth to the other.
Others were sublime—a run along the beach, whales in the distance. A great book catching me by surprise. Seeing a bear, with two cubs, walking along the path leading to the cabins. A quiet contentment had settled in my bones.
And I knew what I was doing: distracting myself. Pushing myself so hard I didn’t have time to think of Lucia, yearn for Lucia, ache for Lucia. Every so often—watching the sunrise over the cliffs, or reading a line of poetry I knew she’d love—it would hit. Swift and sure, breaking my heart anew. Shattering that quiet contentment. I hadn’t heard from her, but I also hadn’t reached out. One night, during a fit of insomnia, I’d looked at her Instagram account.
She looked happy in Paris.
For the next two days, I felt like I was drowning, unable to fully catch my breath. It was the photos of her laughing, the curve of her lips. The interesting way she captioned things—I noticed, now, the poetic style of her writing.
The two poems she’d written for me were shoved into my grandfather’s copy of On the Road.
I couldn’t bring myself to read them.
I dialed the number of the next author, looking over Gabe’s shoulder as he did something I couldn’t begin to parse.
“You’re an accounting genius,” I whispered, sound of the phone ringing in my ear.
“That, or I’m stealing from you,” he said, waving up a customer.
I watched as he listened to them gush about the books here, handing them an index card. I’d decided to re-start the tradition. According to our new Yelp page (all five-star reviews…we just weren’t making enough money) customers raved about it. Loved its quirky charm.
A woman picked up on the other line—Noel Hartford, a local poet that the Big Sur Channel was raving about. Surely, she’d be interested?
“At The Mad Ones?” she semi-squealed and I grinned, appreciating the response. “I thought it closed down.”
“Nope,” I said. “It is alive and well and we’d very much like to start up the writers programming my grandfather used to run.”
“I used to go to those,”
she gushed. “I was little, and didn’t always understand what was going on, but I begged my parents to take me.”
My heart beat painfully, thinking of Lucia, begging her parents to take her to a bookstore. The way she’d denied those things to herself now, in pursuit of a career it was so obvious she was ready to leave. I hoped, wherever she was in Paris, she was reading. Or writing.
“Well, would you like to be the inaugural author?” I asked, crossing my fingers under the desk.
My grandparents stared out at me from their wedding photo, hanging above the register. You can do it, they seemed to say. Because really, I could.
“I’d love to.”
And just like that: hope.
◊
LUCIA
You’d think it’d be easy to fake putting on mascara in a mirror for six straight hours, all while saying, “I hate it when my mascara clumps. Don’t you?”
It’s not.
By the second hour, your wrist is so cramped that you can barely hold the wand. And the phrase I hate it when my mascara clumps starts to echo in your mind like a scene from a horror film.
Over and over and over again.
It was nearing midnight when I finally left, waving goodbye weakly to the crew. My makeup artist was a stern woman who spoke only French and who routinely looked like she was going to stab me in the eye with an eyeliner pencil.
It sucked. I missed Josie, terribly. Every time she called, I’d burst into tears.
Plus, there was no sexy nerd in glasses, standing in the background and intensely undressing me with his eyes.
Every day on set, I felt…empty.
I slept poorly that night, like I had every night since leaving Big Sur. Insomnia plagued me in Paris—a feeling I finally recognized as regret taunting me as soon as my head hit the pillow.
My only thoughts were about Calvin. The bookstore, our conversations, the hot springs. The night we fucked against a bookshelf, wild and free. Our naked run. Cal’s kind eyes and generous spirit. The words, flowing from my pen.
In the morning, I dragged myself from bed, made an espresso, and sat on my little deck, wrapped in a heavy wool blanket. My poetry journal lay in front of me: the blank pages like an accusation. I wasn’t inspired to write—at all. But every day I’d try—waking up at dawn, just like in Big Sur. Waiting for the words to come.
Nothing did, even though Paris was filled to the brim with inspiration. The cafes, with their thimble-sized cups. The red geraniums that had grown in my planter boxes, even through Christmas—even when it snowed, continuing to lift their heads to the weak winter sun. The adorable schoolchildren that waved to me as I walked to the studio every morning.
There was so much life here.
Nothing.
I couldn’t even write an awful, angsty, teenaged poem about Calvin and how he was probably already dating six other women.
I was fucking miserable.
But my Instagram followers were skyrocketing, just like I’d hoped, and I did interviews in Vanity Fair, pretending to dodge the paparazzi while I shopped for baguettes, looking fabulous. And the obsessive affirmation flowed in, as steady as a river.
The Rag photo shoot came out and people went nuts for it—the images were gritty and raw and I looked like a seductive wood nymph in all of them. Taylor told me some magazines were carrying the ones of Calvin and I, but I couldn’t look at them.
Miserable.
Every month I told myself it’d get better, listened as Josie did the same, reminding me, in soothing tones, that it was only two years. It’d lead to bigger and better things. And I’d prattle on about some interview with E! or a segment People wanted me to do and feel absolutely fucking nothing.
As I walked to the set that morning I tried to stay present in the moment, take in the world around me so I could break this loathsome writer’s block and feel alive again. Even pining over Calvin—that was something I needed to write about. To process what had happened—what he’d meant to me.
How I couldn’t stop thinking about him, even three months later. Night and day, he was ever present in my thoughts.
I walked past the café I frequented, stopping in for another espresso. As I waited, I watched an older gentleman with shockingly white hair read to his grandson. A sweet moment—the sun shining around them, the hazy air of the café. They were reading in French, and I couldn’t catch it, but the look on his grandson’s face made my heart hurt. I knew that look—I knew that feeling.
I felt tears suddenly, which seemed to happen all the time now. But I wiped them away, grabbing my espresso from the harried waitress.
There was a poem back there—-in the way the grandfather watched his grandson. The curling French vowels. The melancholy fact that the grandfather might always remember this moment, but the grandson will probably forget it.
The tears came again, but I wiped them quickly. Josie told me Calvin had kept the bookstore, hadn’t ended up selling it at all. Which had made my heart soar—it was the right thing to do. And he was living his life, truly—unafraid and hopeful. I’d wanted to send him a little note, maybe a poem in the mail—but I’d stopped myself.
Too painful. And what good would it do?
As I walked onto the set, Sabine grabbed me before I could plop myself into a makeup chair.
“Can I speak with you for a moment?” she asked, surprising me.
“Of course,” I said. “Is everything okay?”
She led me up the stairs to her office. “How are you liking things here? Settling in? Enjoying the Parisian lifestyle?”
I laughed weakly, remembering the last time I’d been here, before Big Sur, when I thought this job was going to change my life.
“Um…sure,” I said. “A little homesick, but that’ll pass.” I hoped.
“Right, right,” she said, distracted in that way that made you know the person didn’t really want to ask you a question and especially didn’t care about the answer.
She closed the door, offered me a seat.
“Let me start, Lucia, by saying you’re doing a great fucking job.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Oh, well…thank you.”
“You’re probably the most beautiful woman on the planet—”
“Doubt it—” I interjected, before I could stop myself.
“—and the camera fucking loves you.”
“Great,” I said, surprised at how little I gave a shit. I glanced at the wall clock. What time was it in Big Sur? With the time difference, I figured it was nighttime. Cal, closing up the store. Grabbing a good book and settling down with Max.
An ache pierced me like an arrow.
“But I’m going to give you a bit of feedback, and I hope you take it well. Because it’s all about learning, you know? How to be better at your job.”
I shrugged. “Of course. What is it?” I could really care less about doing better.
“You just seem to be…going through the motions. Not giving 100% or even 80%. Your expressions, the look in your eyes…dead,” she said, doing a kind of spirit-fingers gesture over her own face. “There’s nothing there. No passion, or feeling. Here at Dazzle, we want our models to be…to be engaging! Fun, free-spirited. We want women to see you in a magazine and think ‘she looks like she could be my friend.’”
“Okay,” I said slowly, not entirely disagreeing with her. And she was off by a longshot—I’d say, on average, I was giving 15% to this job. On a good day.
“Right now, you’re coming off as that morose friend everyone secretly hates.”
I snorted. I couldn’t help it. But Sabine didn’t crack a smile.
“Sorry, I just thought that was funny,” I said. “See? I’m not even that morose.”
Still nothing. I missed Calvin. I remembered the night at hot springs, crying at the Mary Oliver mural. What will you do, with your one wild and precious life?
Precious. Because it was.
“The reason I bring this up is because we want you to be happy here. This is
a long-term investment we’re making in your future. We have another twenty-one months on this contract and we want you to embody, well…to embody the Dazzle way. Do you understand?”
I nodded slowly, something shifting inside of me. We want you to be happy here. I thought back to the last time I’d been truly happy.
Wild. Precious. Mine.
Could I do another twenty-one months of this? The first month here I chalked up the constant, unyielding longing I had for Calvin as minor heartbreak—a crush. A heavy flirtation. A week of pleasure and joy I’d always remember but could never have again.
But instead of fading, as all crushes do, my feelings only intensified: of regret. Of sadness. Of love.
Because I was in love with Calvin Ellis.
I didn’t know what my chances were—if I went back to California, to Big Sur, he might not have waited for me. He could be engaged to some cute, nerdy writer, living my dream life and I would have missed out. On my chance—on the opportunity to create the life that I wanted.
But if he hadn’t…
“You bring up a critical point, Sabine,” I said, my voice shaky. My heart was beating like a pack of wild horses, tearing through the plains.
Be brave. “Because I’m actually not happy with this job. I’m actually not happy with my life.”
Sabine waved her hands around, tsking. “Darling, no one’s happy with their life. Get used to it.”
I sighed. Oh, Sabine. Cal had done it. I could do it.
And maybe what I was thinking about doing was risky and stupid. And maybe I’d regret it and my whole life would stumble off-course—my career, everything I had worked hard for.
Or maybe…or maybe I’d spend the rest of my life running a quaint bookstore with a person I was quickly determining was my soul mate.
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