“Mom and Sylvia. They can’t seem to get enough of her and Olive has them both wrapped around her finger.”
“Not at all surprised. She’s quite a charmer.”
“Too much. She already thinks she runs the world, living with three women who all adore her.”
“If Olive truly did run the world, we would all be much better off.”
“Don’t tell her that. You’ll give her more ideas. Now, how can I help you?”
While the rain pattered outside, they worked together in sections, with him pulling away the drywall and her coming in after him to clean off any residue with a wire brush.
The bricks beneath were a weathered rose, like the faded petals of a long-forgotten Valentine’s bouquet. They would look fantastic under the track lighting Bryce planned to install, especially behind the open-backed shelving they had already agreed on for this wall.
“This is looking so good. You were exactly right when you insisted we should use the original bricks in the design.”
“It takes more work than if we simply repainted the drywall but the results will be worth it.”
“I wish we could close the whole bookstore for a month, clear everything out and then remodel from the ground up. It would be so much easier.”
“Doing the work mostly after hours is definitely more complicated, but at least you can continue to stay open during the remodel.”
“For all the good that’s doing us.”
“Business has been slow?”
She grimaced. “Painfully. You would think a rainy day would bring more traffic in, since tourists usually don’t want to spend time on the beach in this weather. But I think they’ve either left town altogether, are staying in their hotel rooms, or have driven up to Newport or Lincoln City.”
“It does seem quiet everywhere in town right now. Don’t worry. They’ll be back.”
“I hope so.”
She continued the work, wishing she could brush away her own unsettled mood as easily as she brushed away the residue of years from the walls.
Chapter Twenty
Bryce
She was the most complicated woman.
As he worked together with Emma in the quiet space while rain pattered outside, Bryce felt an inexorable pull toward her, the same one he had been fighting since they were kids.
Emma had always been so pretty and together when they were kids. Her hair had always been curled, her clothes neat and clean, her locker and backpack organized, without a paper out of place.
He remembered sitting near her in the lunchroom a few times and marveling that her packed lunches always seemed crammed with healthy, delicious food. Fresh apples, cut into slices that somehow magically never browned. Sandwiches on whole wheat bread, with the crusts cut off. Sometimes even vegetable soup on rainy cold days.
Bryce had free school lunch, of course. His mom always made him turn in the paperwork the first day of school. He wore clothes picked up at yard sales or Goodwill and his mom always cut his hair.
He considered himself fortunate if she decided to do it on a good day, when her hands were steady.
His life had always seemed far different from Emma’s and he had envied her as much as he yearned for her, even before he knew what yearning meant.
While she had invariably been kind to him, she hadn’t paid him any more or less attention than anyone else at school.
He could still remember when he learned about her accident, the fear when he found out she had been injured and the sadness when he found out her father had died. He had taken her flowers in the hospital but had left them at the nurses’ station without leaving a note.
She had missed two or three weeks of school. When she returned, she had seemed a pale, subdued version of herself for the rest of the school year.
By the time summer ended and the new school year started a few months later, she seemed to have undergone a complete transformation. She was hard, angry, sporting several new piercings, a tattoo and an attitude to go with them.