by A. K. Klemm
He was out as soon as he hit the sheets, accidentally leaving the fire in the fireplace burning all night. It would be a few months yet until the grand opening, but the restoration was moving along much quicker than he had anticipated. AJ was truly on a mission.
AJ surveyed the floor. More of the debris had been removed, and the crew was hauling trash away outside.
“What is all this?” Matthew asked, pointing to the stains on the wood floors.
“Animal urine?” He could tell AJ wasn’t sure but felt the need to be in more control than her experience would have her be. Between the chatter from the construction crew and the handful of books and binder notes from her great grandfather that she constantly consulted, Matthew was sure she was pretty out of her depth but willing to do the work to make up for it.
He was pretty sure he was out of his depth, too, and there were a lot of late-night Youtube videos being watched repeatedly. Hammering and carpentry done but not yet ready to make things pretty by interior decorating choices, there was an obvious lapse in AJ’s knowledge of getting from construction to hanging pictures.
“What do we do?” Matthew asked. His impulse was to sand it, but what did he know? He’d been a coffeehouse manager, not a hardwood floor expert.
“What does your gut tell you?” she asked. She was putting a lot of stock in his gut.
He frowned. “Sand it.”
So they sanded it. By hand. The whole downstairs. It took all that day and well into the night until their shoulders were sore. They got so tired of the noise, they wore earplugs most of the time. They stopped only to eat and use the bathroom, and then they sanded some more.
At one point, Matthew looked over to see his new boss napping in a pile of sawdust. At another, AJ looked over to see her new assistant’s head lolling into his own shoulder.
Finally, they swept the floor only to see that all that work had done nothing but make the stains smooth.
“How long was this building abandoned?” Matthew asked when he was awake.
“A long time.”
“It saturated the wood.”
“You’re right. We could sand it forever…”
“Wouldn’t do us any good.”
They both sighed, and, as if on cue, Sam came in to deliver a round of sandwiches. He made the mistake of asking how they were doing, and all Matthew and AJ could do was motion to the spots. They were too hungry to speak.
“Vinegar,” Sam said decisively.
They made a trip to the general store and bought large vats of vinegar. They diluted them as little as possible and drenched the stains.
Matthew grimaced at the smell. Surely this wasn’t part of Jack Walters’s plan. He eyed AJ as she repeatedly consulted her great grandfather’s notes, trying not to show the worry in her face. From what Matthew had been privy to see, the old man had left extensively detailed plans, ledgers, and funds in a bank for this project.
AJ had sort of a “if you build it, they will come” attitude, but Matthew had done enough peering over her shoulders to see that Jack knew she’d need a little more than that. Animal urine on the floorboards, however, was not addressed in the plans.
“At least it doesn’t smell like feral cat piss now,” one of the crewman said as he worked on the plumbing in kitchen.
It seemed everyone in town was dropping by to see what the holdup was. Word got around fast that there were stains on the hardwood and AJ refused to cover the floors with tile or carpet.
“Damn fools,” Harper Jay said, lighting his cigar while he stood on the sidewalk and peering through the large bay windows.
Ann was beside him and nodded in agreement. “Why a bookstore anyway? Everyone knows a bed-and-breakfast is the way to go out here. Those city folk flock in and can’t pass up a quaint little town with antique stores. Or be useful like Sam and Abigail—people like being fed.”
“Hush.” Sue slapped at Ann’s hand. “It’s marvelous what she’s doing. Surely even tourists buy books.”
“Tourists will buy anything,” the reverend said sagely.
“Even a pew?” Nancy teased.
The revered grunted at her and took a puff off Harper’s cigar.
Nancy Harrigan shooed them all away before popping in. “Are you sure this place is going to be ready in November? You got to wow the townies so they can blab to all the holiday tourists, you know.”
“We’ll be ready,” AJ said, but Matthew was used to her now and heard the uncertainty in her voice.
“Bleach,” Nancy said. “That vinegar isn’t doing it. Taking out the smell, but not the color. You need good-old-fashioned bleach.”
After the second bottle of bleach, though, they gave up. There was no un-staining stained wood.
Max Harkins came in to do some work on the fireplace mantel just in time. He wrinkled his nose. “What are you doing to the wood?” He looked appalled as he inspected the flooring. “Oh no, no, no, honey. No. Get rid of those.” He waved at the empty bleach bottles. “We’re going to the hardware store. Now.”
As they walked, Max pushing his wheelbarrow that he loaded supplies in when working away from his own garage, he explained, “You can’t beat that kind of damage. That place was boarded up for years. Skunks, mice, cats, dogs, rabbits, you name it—every wild animal in Lily Hollow has peed on that wood. It soaked through the carpet and the carpet pad, then it was held in place. The wood is still good, it’s just not pretty.”
Matthew and AJ followed the man right into the hardware store and down a few aisles as he talked. Apparently, they did the right thing sanding it, but beyond that, they’d have to stain it. “Choose a color,” Max said when they were parked in front of the wood stains with his wheel barrow.
“I like this one that says oak,” AJ said.
“Darker. You got to cover the stains. All of them.”
Matthew scratched his chin, reached out, and grabbed a nice dark one near the one AJ had chosen. “Dark Chocolate Oak,” he read aloud.
AJ snickered at him, “I’m not even sure what that means, but I like it.”
The grand opening was exciting and, as it turned out, just in time for the mad holiday rush. It was November 1, so the citizens of Lily Hollow were already scouting out Christmas sales, and the B&B owners were looking for local business coupons to offer their patrons. Halloween decorations were coming down from the night before, and pumpkin seeds scattered the streets from the annual Pumpkin Roll, which was nothing more than a really messy pumpkin race through the center of town.
Matthew sat on the patio of Sam’s Deli and watched it all with great interest. AJ had told him that in the past, the person to get their pumpkin to the steps of the courthouse the fastest would win a trophy, but this year, Nancy had collected items from all the local businesses and piled them up in a gift basket. AJ included a gift certificate to the bookshop and announced the grand opening of the shop at the end of the race.
A kid named Devon Henley won the race that year. He was the first person to beat Sam Finney ever. Devon was fifteen and, naturally, quite proud of himself. AJ couldn’t wait to see what he thought of the shop. He was a good kid with a lot of influence over other good kids at the high school, which could make the store a lot of money in the long run.
“Those high school kids have the power to make us or break us,” AJ had told Matthew, remembering how she and Kevin had affected the outcome of Sam’s Deli. He believed her.
On opening day, the displays were set. AJ had collected a mountain of Thanksgiving and Christmas cookbooks that lined the walls of the café area, and Matthew had built in waist-high shelving units around the entire dining area for cookbooks and kitchen/café related items.
They were far enough away from the tables to not get destroyed by spilled coffee or overcrowd disinterested customers but close enough so that the older ladies could pick one up and browse through it. AJ planned to eventually serve certain baked goods that Abigail made especially to encourage sales for specific books. For the grand open
ing, though, she was serving Abigail’s staple, tarts and Danishes.
The latest fantasy fad had its own table in the path between the entrance and the register counter. It was crisp and clean, towering high toward the open air under the main chandelier of the old lobby. The signs were polished, and the store was empty of dust and any remnants of debris.
There was a smell of oak and pine throughout, fresh and mingling with the coffee bean and chai tea wafting from the café. AJ had a few cinnamon and hazelnut candles burning on the register counter and in the offices.
New merchandise was lovingly branded with “The Bookshop Hotel” stickers and logos and priced neatly underneath. Used merchandise had a “used” sticker, and the “Bookshop Hotel” stamp was on the inside with a price penciled underneath. And underneath all the coffee, tea, cinnamon, and wood was the beautiful odor of ink and old books.
Matthew was poking the fire in café fireplace. It was massive, large enough for two café two-tops to be comfortably placed in front of it. It used to be the main feature of the large, carpeted hotel dining room, and AJ couldn’t help but be pleased with the restoration of the mantel and how it complemented the new layout of the café.
She had placed a plaque to the right of the hearth that stated, “Lovingly restored by Max Harkins,” as he had not charged her for that part of his handiwork. The main wall separating the dining room from the lobby had become a half-wall with double-sided shelving.
The carpet was gone, and the construction crew had found a hardwood floor from when the hotel actually used to be a house. Matthew had read some books on floor restoration and made it look gorgeous and new.
There was a small line under the “Grand Opening” sign outside. “Ok,” AJ breathed. “Let’s do this thing.” People rushed in to get out of the chilly morning air, but once in, they seemed to just pick around and talk to each other. AJ realized they weren’t here to shop, just to see what all the fuss was about.
AJ wouldn’t panic. She picked up a tray of apple cinnamon tarts and started parading around the room, finding the people she’d known all her life and addressing them personally.
“Hello, Mrs. Finney. Have a tart. Thank you for coming. The knitting books are upstairs in that room on the right.” She waved toward the home arts suite above them.
“Oh, there’s an upstairs.” Mrs. Finney wandered off with three tarts in hand, her plump bottom swaying as she meandered up the stairs.
She answered a compliment from an older gentleman. “Oh yes, thanks, Mr. Henry. Have a tart. We have coffee as well. My assistant Matthew can pour you a mug. It’s on the house today, but we hope you come back for more later in the week.
“Is it good coffee?” Mr. Henry asked.
“Oh, of course it’s the best coffee. Matthew used to manage a coffeehouse in the city. He knows all the best secrets.” AJ winked at the old man. “The history section is upstairs. I found some amazing World War II miniatures in an estate sale in Brennan last week. You’ll see them on a display above the Holocaust shelf.”
Matthew kept the coffee fresh and flowing, and within an hour, AJ was able to part from the center of the floor as a traffic director and actually started ringing up sales. The Percy Jackson books were gone by the end of the day, new and used.
The cookbooks were picked clean, and Mr. Henry had bought all the miniatures she’d told him about. Reverend Michaels had even spent a few hours perusing the religion section and purchased everything she had in stock on G. K. Chesterton, as she had suspected he might. AJ had done a lot of gift wrapping of children’s and young adult books for Christmas gifts.
She also sold out of copies of The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, because that was the first book that had been discussed at Nancy Harrigan’s book club, and the newest members of the club didn’t want to be out of the loop. Nancy had diligently sent all the ladies into the store for a grand opening discount of ten percent off.
At the register, AJ dropped all the carbon copies of the receipts into a bucket, and that night, after cleaning up and closing down, she and Matthew crawled up to the fourth floor, where she’d set up a more personal office than the one on the main floor, and started sorting.
She had a library cataloging system on her laptop that she’d picked up for fifteen dollars at a Half Price Books in Chicago last time she was there. She set a file up for each customer. It was part of Granddaddy Jack’s plan, to keep a list of what every customer had purchased and owned, to bring back the customer service level of the old days.
She entered each purchase into a ledger first, and Matthew started cataloging what was already entered into the computer. They sat shoulder-to-shoulder for hours, and around two in the morning, they were done.
“Now, when I’m out buying my used stuff, I can be specific with my purchases and have someone in mind and what I think they’d be willing to spend. I’ll know that Reverend Michaels still needs The Illustrated News Volume XXVII, that Devon already has everything by Vonnegut but wants to start collecting Kerouac, and that Susan Rogers is still searching for an extensive book on upholstery. A lot of the same tourists return year after year for specific holidays. We can do the same for them.”
“It’s a good plan, but I’m beat.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. And we’ve got to do this again tomorrow.”
“Not quite, but yes.” Matthew’s eyes were closed. He was flat on his back on the office floor, and AJ wondered why she’d bothered buying desks for this room. He lay there quietly with his eyes closed for a few minutes, and she thought he was asleep when he startled her by saying, “We’re gonna need another person.”
“Give me nine months or so. I have to make sure there are enough funds. I’m almost out of my inheritance with all the renovation work we’ve done. Soon, we’ll have to stand on our own two feet.”
“Nine months. I can do that.”
“Ok. Goodnight.” She popped up, stacked all the paperwork on her desk, and scurried down the stairs to the suite directly below them.
Matthew got up slowly and made his way down the two half-flights and down to the end of the hall, where his own apartment sat lonely, a long walk from AJ. He closed the door behind him, not bothering to lock it. Living here, he noticed, was a lot less like being in your own apartment and more like in a college dormitory, only with thicker walls than the average dorm.
The carpets in the hallways were even red, like the dorm he’d moved his older sister into years before. It had been at one of those southern private universities trying to look Ivy League. There’d even been a baby grand piano in the lobby there.
AJ’s taste was better than that. Everything looked a bit more vintage. He’d helped her restore the original 1920’s chandeliers that lit the entire hall on every upstairs floor. Oddly, the floors were numbered one, two, and three, despite the fact that they were second, third, and fourth stories.
He wanted to fix that, but AJ wanted all the original room plates kept. Granddad Jack had always encouraged restoration over replacement. That was why AJ was leaving one of the downstairs offices empty. She and Matthew were going to a book-binding-and-restoration seminar in a few months, and she wanted a room set up just for repairing potential merchandise.
Matthew meant to take a shower, but he didn’t even make it to getting undressed. He passed out face down in the sheets with his clothes on. They had to open again at eight o’clock and try to get the locals hooked on the morning coffee blends.
Sam’s Deli Menu
Friday Special: Turkey Bell Pepper Sandwich
Thinly sliced Turkey Breast served with Sam’s Special Sauce (Honey, Mustard, Miracle Whip, Cayenne, and Dill Weed) on Honeyed Wheat Bread with Green Bell Pepper and Asiago Cheese dipped in Olive Oil and Rosemary. Served with Milk and Fresh Strawberries.
Abigail Lacey
Abigail jammed the key into the door of the bakery and, after several tries, managed to get the door open. It was crisp, cool, and four o’clock in the morning. Her arthritis
was at its worst when she needed to be at her best. She started the ovens pre-heating, pulled the cool dough out of the fridge, and began working her magic. Cinnamon rolls, Danish rolls, pastries of every kind, every morning. She worked on the tarts last, using fresh berries from her own garden first, then utilizing the gardens of her neighbors when she ran out.
Tossing dough and trays about, she almost missed seeing the figure walk down Main Street, creeping ever so quietly away from Aspen Court. Ah, she thought. AJ. AJ always crept out in the wee hours of the morning when she visited the cemetery, probably to avoid the prying eyes and the wagging tongues of Lily Hollow, and even more likely to avoid being noticed by that cute assistant manager. He was a looker, that one.
Sure enough, the bundled figure limped a tad in the morning air and hobbled right into the cemetery. On behalf of Jack, Abigail had gone to the cemetery a few times herself and given that headstone of Kevin Rhys’s a piece of her mind. She knew those Rhys men well and was more than certain that after the hero worship was gone and there were no more football games to play, the truth of the matter was that Kevin Rhys had probably been a difficult man to live with. Jack hadn’t had the good sense to shelter his great granddaughter from that.
Jack had been the one to lead the charge on being enthralled with Kevin Rhys. Kevin was smart and kind, not to mention his achievements, his winning smile, and his football career. The only fault anyone could find in him was his apparent knowledge of his own good looks and wit. He made a great effort to appear modest for the sake of other people’s feelings, but he knew what he was and what people thought of him. He was an idol.
It was only natural that the boy further prove his perfection by not falling in love with the prettiest girl in town but the smartest, most promising one. AJ was, after all, the most likely to succeed and later became the valedictorian. At first, AJ wasn’t interested. “Good girl,” Abigail had said. “Good girl.” But Granddaddy Jack had smiled and said, “Sweetheart, give that boy something worth playing for and go cheer him on,” slapping his knee.
