“Beautiful day!”
“Have a good walk!”
The Crew wasn’t used to this much friendliness, but after dropping their initial suspicions, they enjoyed it, waved back, and even hollered return compliments.
“Gorgeous flowers!”
“Pretty tree!”
“Love the porch swing!”
As much as she welcomed the warmer weather, Harper’s allergies acted up terribly. She carried tissues everywhere she went.
“Bless you!” Dot and Mary called out to her throughout the day.
“Thank you,” she said. “It’s nothing.” She refused to complain about allergies when there were so many other problems in the world. She avoided allergy medicine, because it made her sleepy and wired at the same time, and she wanted to stay sharp to write.
While Dot was busy from morning to night with the election, and with Mary working remotely for the law firm, Harper had to figure out how to keep busy. She’d never had so much free time and sometimes—well, most of the time—she didn’t feel motivated to write. She’d read in his bookOn Writingthat Stephen King wrote every day, no matter what and even when he didn’t feel like it.
So, needing a kick in the rear, she took his advice to heart and found a routine that worked well for her. She got up around 7 a.m., poured herself a coffee that Dot or Mary had brewed, and read theDaily Skimmand Apple News on her phone. After that, she put her phone in the closet to avoid distractions and took her laptop up to a loft area in the house where she wrote for a few hours without interruption.
On some days the words flowed out of her imagination and onto the page. On others, she would stare at the blinking cursor for a while hoping that an idea would come to her. All in all, she was making some progress. But she still didn’t feel confident enough to share her pages with anyone.
At noon, Harper would stop writing and go for a walk. She’d take her laptop in her backpack and headed to Curds and Whey for a Cedar Falls Classic smoothie—banana, cacao nibs, peanut butter, and vanilla protein powder—or a superfood bowl with beets, crisp chickpeas, and blackberries.
After lunch, she’d often pop into the Democratic offices where the For the Win team was parked until the election to chat up Dot, Fletcher, and Rose. Then she’d stroll down Main Street and stop at the bridge to watch the creek flow by for a few moments, before she made her way to the Sin Bin. Once there, she’d set up in the back corner to write for a couple more hours.
She liked the afternoon hum of the place. It helped to have something going on around her. She still wasn’t used to the small town quiet.
And, if she was being honest with herself, she enjoyed seeing Tommy Taylor. She’d steal glances of him over her laptop screen when she was sure he wasn’t looking. And while he gave her space to write at his bar, he’d occasionally catch her eye and stop to talk. She liked chatting with him. He was easy company, and so different from Kai the surfer who had been charming but, looking back on it, way too self-absorbed.
Tommy made her feel... happy. And she found herself spending more time at the Sin Bin. She’d met a few of the regulars and they’d call out to her, “Hey, Harper—how’s the great American novel coming along?” She’d blush and wave them away but felt the early excitement of making new friends.
On Wednesdays, Harper took over the children’s reading hour at Reader Falls Bookshop. The Jankowskis loved having her around, and the number of parents and children coming to the store noticeably grew. So did sales. Harper chose books that she loved as a child, includingCharlie and the Octopus,The Pigeon Wants a Puppy!,The Adventures of Pippi Longstocking,Eloise, and all the Beverly Cleary books about Ramona and Beezus. Kids begged their parents to buy copies of these books so they could take them home, and the parents preferred buying books over candy or video games. Anything to get them off their screens.
In the evenings, Harper made dinner with Mary and Dot, or they chose a new local place to try. Her favorite was a new farm-to-table place called the Butter Half. She loved the roasted chicken with baked apples, cauliflower puree, and the raspberry crumble. And ever since she tried milk at the farm, she’d been letting herself have cream in her coffee and the occasional scoop of butter pecan. It turned out that Tommy was right—shewasn’tlactose intolerant. She was glad to shed that label and limitation. She was feeling comfortable in her own skin. That was new for her.
Life in Cedar Falls was being good to Harper Lee Adler.
ONE WEDNESDAY, TOMMYtexted her.
“Hey! Will you be at the Sin Bin tomorrow?”
“I was planning on it. What’s up?”
“I have something to show you.”
“Can’t wait!”
Harper tried to write the next morning but kept thinking about Tommy. What could he possibly want to show her?
She got to her perch at the bar around two in the afternoon, her usual time. She kept looking up at the door every time it opened, expecting to see Tommy. The suspense was killing her.
Finally, around three, Tommy arrived, carrying a medium-size cardboard box from one of the bar’s vegetable deliveries.
“Hey, Harper,” he called to her.
“Hi, howdy, hello.”