CHAPTER 1NOW
July 14, ? days until I finally take a vacation
When you spend so much of your life in stories, it’s hard not to think of your life as a story, too. At least, that’s what I tell myself—that I’m not the only book lover who’s parsed life’s defining moments into chapters, scoured it for themes and foreshadowing; who’s been so captivated by a good beginning, sosureit would lead to a happy ending, because how else could something that began so well possibly end?
I have a theory that all book lovers grow up doing this, seeing their life as story. But by the time we’re adults, so few will admit it because, having read enough stories, lived enough life, we’ve learned the hard lesson that life isn’t a polished story but a jumble of messy drafts, and even the best beginnings can’t save some stories’ ends. We grow up when we learn how uncertain life is. That’s when some give up on stories altogether. The rest of us clutch them even tighter.
I’m one of those still-story-lovers—I’d be a pretty terrible bookseller if I wasn’t. And while I could do without uncertainty in life, I love it in books. Because in books, even after you’ve grown up, a kernel of your childlike trust can prevail. You can still free-fall into the magic of a good beginning, endure each shocking plot twist, even a terrible ending, and still say to yourself,This was worth the journey.In books, hope in the face of uncertainty is safe.
In life, it’s not that simple, of course. It’s not so easy to hope for a happy ending once life has taught you a good beginning is hardly a guarantee. Which is why, though my life still revolves around stories, I try not to think of my life as story anymore.
That said, lifelong habits are notoriously hard to kick, so I do relapse on occasion.
Thea Meyer thought back to the day of her interview, when she’d stopped beneath a patch of summer-leaf shaded sidewalk, took one look at The Bookshop, and fell head-over-heels in love at first sight. Little did she know, that first blush of love for bookselling her way through the day would fade as her days ended in the most miserable of tasks—cleaning toilets.
I tap the brush on the toilet bowl’s edge with my rubber-gloved hand and return it to its holder.
“Dear God,” I say—I’m not generally the praying type anymore, I just find myself reverting to it in desperate moments—“I ask your mercy for whoever came in here and committed such a heinous crime to this toilet. And I ask that you keep them far from The Bookshop for the rest of their life. Or mine,” I add, “whichever ends first. Amen.”
It takes three seconds of eerie quiet for me to realize the Get Sh*t Done playlist I’ve had blasting through the bookstore’s speakers has come to an end. Deeply annoying, when I’m so close to being finished.
Just as I start to peel off a rubber glove so I can grab the store’s laptop and restart the playlist, my phone rings in my overalls pocket. I yelp and fall backward, my elbow knocking over the toilet brush and plunger set. I have unique ringtones for my favorite people, so I know who’s calling—Lauren—and then I remember why—I was supposed to callher.
An hour ago.
“Shit. Shoot.” I pick up the toilet bowl and plunger set, yank off both rubber gloves, chuck them in the bucket of cleaning supplies, then finally manage to unearth my phone from my pocket. “Hey, Lo—”
“You’re lucky I love you,” Lauren says. “And that I just upped the dosage on my anxiety meds.”
“Sorry! I lost track of time. I didn’t mean to worry you.”
“I think we should reenable location tracking,” she tells me. “The anxiety meds are good, but they aren’tthatgood.”
“Lauren.” I put the phone on speaker and set it on the sink’s edge so I’m hands-free. I still have to refill the paper towel and hand-soap dispenser. “We agreed that wasnota good idea.”
“Did we?”
“We did, after that time I tracked you because you hadn’t shown up for dinner and found out it was because you were tied up at a kink club. Literally.”
“Ah.” A beat of silence. “So?”
“Lauren, that was how I found out you werepartof a kink club.”
“Exactly,” she says, rallying. “It brought us closer.”
“At the time,” I remind her, “it really pissed you off.”
“Well, speaking of being pissed, since we no longer use location tracking, I spent the last hour worrying you were dead andchucked in a dumpster. Abducted at the bus stop. Lost without a trace!”
“You could have texted or called!”
“First of all, I did call. Three times.”
“Oh.” I wince as I rip off the wrapping on a fresh pack of paper towels. “Well, I had music blasting in the store, so I couldn’t hear my phone—”
“And texting?” she says. “What for? So your abductor could answer for you? I don’t think so. I needed auditory confirmation that you were okay.”
I roll my eyes. “You need to lay off the true crime podcasts.”