Page 13 of Of Literature and Lattes
When Georgia Pavlis saidBuy my shop, the Seattle roasting house owners saidYou’ve done good workand rewarded him for it, Ryan offered to move with him and be his right-hand man, and Krista didn’t kick up a fight, he thought he had found it—that place where he belonged and could call “home” had finally materialized.
Standing alone on the sidewalk, nothing felt like he’d expected.
Krista held the silence a few beats before moaning, “I’m not doing this anymore. Go back to Seattle, Jeremy.”
“I’m trying here, Krista... Don’t... Please don’t cut me out... Just hang on. I’m coming to get her.” Jeremy crossed the street, pulled his keys from his pocket, and tapped open his car door. “I’ll be there in a half hour.”
Chapter 6
Janet pushed open the alley door to the bookshop. Peace filled her like oxygen. She took another breath to make sure it was real, and hoped it would last. Sleep had abandoned her the past two nights with her ex-husband’s call—or was he her boyfriend now? Their daughter was home. Alyssa had slept at Seth’s apartment upon her arrival Sunday night, but then again last night too, as Seth had worked late and hadn’t realized Alyssa was still in his spare room. But she was coming to Janet sometime today. Today. Janet breathed deep.
And while it hurt that seeing her daughter required a paternal ultimatum, after three years of virtual silence, she’d take what she could get. Three years...
The memory of that day was still sharp, vivid. Alyssa had cleared out her Chicago apartment, driven to Winsome to dump some boxes in her old bedroom, spewed a gale-force storm of venom at her, and headed west. Within two weeks of finding out about Janet’s affair, Alyssa, as far as Janet could determine, had blown up her life. According to Chase, who had relayed the events to his sister, she hung up on him, walked straight into her boss’s office, and quit. A quick flight to California for a couple interviews a day later, and she was heading west before Janet had even caught her on the phone.
She had lost more than her husband on that night three years ago. She had lost her daughter.
But now...
Everything was different. You’ve learned to look back, accept what has come before, and ask forgiveness, she reminded herself. Some days all the work left her defeated, tired, and back at the beginning with too much hill to climb. But she also knew everything was being made new, and that took time, patience, grace, and a good dollop of mercy. There was no way it couldn’t include her relationship with Alyssa.
The bookshop’s windowless office was so dark she moved by memory rather than by sight as she dropped her bag on her desk and pushed open the door to the storage room Madeline and Claire, the shop’s owners, had allowed her to convert into an art studio. It was her favorite place.
Right in the mix of books and story, with her two best friends beside her, she got to create art—and through art she found herself. That was new too, as well as exhilarating and a little frightening. Sometimes she wondered how different her story might have been, how differentalltheir stories might have been, if she hadn’t denied what was real and vital to her well-being for some unnamed and unreachable ideal—if she had followed whatwasright rather than whatlookedright.
She flipped the light switch and discovered the bookstore cat, Chesterton, curled on her high table, burrowed in her favorite sweater.
“Oh, no you don’t.” She swept him up with one hand under his belly. He draped over her arm like a warm heating pad as she pulled him closer. Then, as if recognizing who held him, he stiffened and leapt to the floor.
“I’ve apologized, you know, and it’s not nice to hold a grudge.”
Offering an apology didn’t mean it was accepted—and Alyssa held grudges well. Her daughter’s stubbornness had been adorable at two, formidable at twelve, pummeling at eighteen, and arctic at twenty-eight. Now, after three years held hostage in the cold dark, Janet found nothing “adorable” about blazing eyes and an unyielding spirit. They terrified her. They reminded her of herself.
She sank onto a stool and heard Chesterton purr at the alley door. She sighed and crossed the dark office again to open it for him. “Be back by lunch or they’ll think I was mean to you again... You’ll get me in trouble.” She called the last part, but the cat didn’t look back. He had slinked through the door’s first crack of light and had already rounded the corner, probably heading to Olive and Eve Designs.
Olive and Eve had opened their women’s clothing shop in April 2005. Actually, Olive opened it. High end, but with little markup; edgy, but not so on-point that the more conservative Winsome women didn’t embrace it; and varied enough to keep her clientele coming back almost weekly. But while her customers didn’t break the bank shopping there, Olive almost did, keeping it open. Six months in, Eve came on board. She ran the books, managed the inventory, and kept Olive’s sartorial dreams in check.
And gave Chesterton a bowl of cream each morning.
“You’re late.” Eve sat at her desk, the alley door propped open next to her with a brick. She bent down as the cat pounced into her lap. “You’d think I have nothing better to do than pamper you.” She pushed her computer keyboard across her desk as if distancing herself from something unpleasant. “We’re in a little trouble, Chesterton. Please tell me you’ve got some ideas.”
Chesterton purred and wiggled out of her arms. He dropped to the floor and slowly, with his back arched high, padded to his breakfast. Eve watched him until, bowl empty, he slid back through the alley door without a backward glance.
“If you don’t bother with a thanks, I might stop, you know.”
Chesterton didn’t pause. Eve suspected it was because he knew she was bluffing. The cream would be there tomorrow, and even in the dead of winter she would crack the alley door until he arrived. With kids long gone and moved away, she looked forward to her moment with that spoiled yet soft cat probably as much as he looked forward to his breakfast.
Brendon, on the other hand, did not look forward to seeing the cat. For the past four days, it sat perched on the dumpster as he took out the trash. His first two days, suspecting someone might hear, he’d shooed the cat away with a low voice. Yesterday he’d had a little more fun and launched the trash bag to the dumpster from across the alley. “Almost got you,” he’d jeered at the cat.
Today, his aim was even better. The bag skimmed Chesterton so closely it created a vacuum between him and the dumpster’s chasm as it sailed by. Brendon watched as the cat twisted in midair and arched away from the pull into the dumpster.
“Get out of here.” He crossed the alley and stomped near the cat’s landing spot. “You dirty old—” Movement caught his eye. He looked up. “You guys are early. Wait here.”
As Brendon opened Andante’s back alley door, Chesterton bolted through the back door of the Printed Letter Bookshop. Within seconds, he glided over a pair of feet and dived into the small space under his favorite desk, next to his favorite person.
“What’s up with him?” Claire remarked.
Chapter 7
