Page 9 of The Luck of Finding You
“Please allow me to continue,” Mr. Thorne says, “and then I will answer all of your questions.”
Tally nods, embarrassed. “Right. Of course.”
I can’t help myself; the question that’s been burning in my mind slips out. “Why didn’t she say anything to us about this before now?”
Mr. Thorne gives me a pointed look. “As soon as I finish the will, I will answer all of your questions, Mr. Jones.” He clears his throat again. “And to all three, thirty thousand dollars each on the condition that they—Tally and Noah or Annie—work at The Book Shop for the next year before selling.”
Tally’s eyes bulge at the mention of the money. It is a lot of money, more than I ever knew Grandma Marsha had. I wonder how the shop is doing. In all the years that Grandma owned it, I never thought to ask. I knew it brought her so much joy, but we didn’t talk often enough for me to know how it was actually doing profit wise.
“I didn’t know she had that kind of money,” Annie exclaims as I shake my head.
“She had some investments that she cashed out before she died so that she could leave you some money—on the condition that you don’t sell The Book Shop for at least one year from today,” Mr. Thorne clarifies.
“And one of us has to work there?” Annie gestures between her and me. Tally is pretending like she isn’t watching us, but I can feel her eyes on me. For the moment, I let her look until Annie asks, “With her?” My eyes fly to Tally, who glances away just as quickly, her cheeks red.
“That is correct,” Mr. Thorne says, a set of keys jingling in his hands. “The two of you can decide between yourselves who will stay here and work. Now, Tally already has her own set of keys to the shop. I’m sure she’ll be able to get both of you up to speed on how things are done.” He hands the keys to me. There are three, one of which I assume will let us into Grandma’s apartment above the shop.
When I look at Tally again, her brow is pinched. She looks beyond frustrated, which is not a great sign. Does she not want the shop? Disappointment crashes through me. “So, you’ve worked at the shop for two years?”
When her eyes swing to mine, everything else falls away and it’s like we’re the only two people in the entire world. Which is what seems to happen anytime I’m around her.
“I’ve been managing it for two years.” Tally’s voice is polite and stiff. “I’ve worked there for five.”
Five years! Five years? She must have started shortly after that afternoon between us. She couldn’t have known the connection; I steered clear of the shop that day because I didn’t want Grandma Marsha asking questions about my motives or what I was doing on my very last day in Utah. A sudden memory of Grandma asking me if I’d be interested in going on a date with a “lovely young woman” she knew a few months ago comes to my mind. I turned her down because I wasn’t interested in dating anyone I didn’t live in the same state as. But what if Tally was the woman Grandma Marsha had wanted me to date? She’d never mentioned her by name; I would have remembered if she’d brought up a Tally.
“Oh, Tally!” Annie says beside me, and her recognition does nothing to soothe my pounding heart. How on earth does Annie know who Tally is? Beyond being the person I messed up with all those years ago. Annie looks up at me. “Don’t you remember, a few weeks ago on the phone she mentioned how grateful she was for Tally helping in the shop since she’d been so sick?”
I think my heart is going to fall out of my chest. I definitely would have remembered that.
“Wait, I think you were working when I was talking to her, you must not have been there.” She turns to face Tally. “I’m Annie, Marsha’s granddaughter. Did she ever mention us? I know she was so grateful for all that you did for the shop.”
Tally shakes her head slowly. “Well, I mean, I knew she had two grandchildren. I knew your names were Annie and Noah. I just didn’t know—” Tally cuts herself off.
She didn’t know Iwas the same Noah.
Tally narrows her eyes at us. “How come the two of you never came to visit?”
I peek at Mr. Thorne to see what he’s making of all of this. He seems perfectly content for us to talk, so I look back to Tally.
“It’s been a couple of years for me.” I hate to admit that fact. I was planning to come again next summer, but I’d been stuck in between the middle of too many jobs to take an actual break—something Mom and Grandma Marsha were both constantly getting after me for whenever I talked to them on the phone. You’d think that working for myself would mean I could do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted, but I have a very specific setup at home, and I don’t like to work while traveling.
“I came earlier this year,” Annie tells Tally, “but we mostly stayed in the apartment. Grandma wasn’t feeling well then. I think that was beginning of it; we just didn’t know it.”
Tally nods, but I’m not sure she’s satisfied with the answer. I can remember her telling me about how her family was—is—everything to her. That she couldn’t imagine living in a completely different state as her grandparents. She told me so much that day we spent together, and you might think I’d forgotten it all, but I swear, every single thing she said has been seared into my memory.
She also couldn’t believe that I only came to visit my grandma every couple of years. It was easier as an adult because I wasn’t living with Mom, but it was hard to change the habits. We talked on the phone often though.
I look at Annie. “Did Grandma Marsha ever mention the will to you?”
Annie shakes her head. “I knew she had one, and I never asked what was in it.”
“Same.”
“And we can’t sell?” Annie’s question surprises me, since this morning she was trying to convince me to move here and work in the shop. Mo shifts in my lap, letting out a sleepy dog sigh. I was so worried about how he would behave during the meeting but we didn’t want to leave him in the hotel. We’ll be heading straight to the airport after this to fly back to New York. But I wasn’t sure he’d be happy staying still in a new place, though once Tally walked in, my worries about my dog faded away.
“You can sell it one year from today if all three of you agree on that. Or one of you can simply take over. But at least two of you need to work there for the next year, and one of those must be Tally. Marsha was very clear on that.”
“We’ll have to go back to New York to get our things.” I say "we" even though I already know that Iwill be the one who will end up coming back here. There’s no way Annie is going to leave her job, even for this. She loved the shop and that it was Grandma Marsha’s, but I don’t think there’s anything in the entire world that would get her to move across the country again. “We weren’t planning on staying.”
