Page 86 of His Heart

Joe glanced up from his book. He seemed a bit melancholy. “You can close up early tonight if it’s still a ghost town.”

“Okay,” I said. “Is everything all right?”

He closed his book and set it on the counter. “Yes, fine. Business has been so slow. There are always ups and downs, but I’m getting a little worried.”

I wasn’t surprised to hear that—it had been slow—but I hated seeing Joe look so stressed.

“Well, if you need to cut back my hours or anything, just let me know,” I said.

He smiled. “It’s not so bad as all that, yet. And things usually pick up around the holidays. It just seems like it gets slower and slower every year.”

Some days we had a lot of customers, but I often wondered how Joe managed to keep the place open. I glanced over at the curtained-off area on the far side of the store. There was a counter there that had once been a little café, serving coffee and tea. “Have you thought about reopening the café counter? It might give people more of a reason to come in if they could get something warm to drink. Especially with the weather getting colder.”

“It didn’t seem to make much of a difference when I had it open before,” he said.

I tilted my head and took a good look at the space. “Was it just like this? The layout, I mean. Did you have places to sit?”

“There were two tables,” he said.

I walked toward the curtained-off nook, thinking about the current placement of the bookshelves. There was a lot of wasted space. The building was sizable, and Joe had everything spread out. It did make it feel open and airy, but it wasn’t a very efficient use of the square footage.

“What if we had more seating?” I asked. “Not just a couple of tables, put there as an afterthought, but a whole section. There’s room if we move things around.” I gestured toward the rear of the store. “And we’re using that whole area for storage, but couldn’t we put that stuff in the back room? It would free up a ton of space.”

“Space for what?”

“For people.” I paused for a moment, thinking. “What if this wasn’t just a bookstore? What if it was like… a gathering place? We need ways to encourage people to come in and shop here, instead of ordering online or going to one of the big chain stores.”

“Well, sure,” he said. “That’s why we have our local authors section, and the staff recommendations. Those are popular with customers.”

“Yeah, but is it enough?” I asked. “If you had places for people to sit, you could host some of those local authors. Invite them to do readings. Open it up to book clubs.” My mind spun with the possibilities. “You could have open mic nights for poets or even acoustic musicians. This is a college town. College kids love that stuff.”

He nodded slowly, his eyes moving around the space. “But I’ve never had much luck getting the college crowd in here.”

“They’d come if you gave them a cool place to hang out,” I said. “All we’d have to do is organize a few poetry nights or something, post fliers around campus, and I bet it would be packed.”

“I’d have to hire someone to run the café,” he said. “I tried before, but I don’t know anything about operating that sort of business. Books, I know. Overpriced coffee? Not so much.”

“Okay, but let’s say you could hire someone,” I said. “Or lease the space and let someone bring their own small business in here. What about the rest of it?”

“I’m open to it,” he said. “Although with my knee, I can’t do any of the rearranging. That’s why I’ve left it like this for so long. The bookshelves are too heavy for me to move around.”

I grinned. “Don’t worry. I have the muscle covered.”

He laughed. “That’s right, I’ve met your boyfriend.”

I felt a surge of excitement. “So, we can do this?”

He narrowed his eyes and his white mustache twitched.

“How about this,” I said. “I’ll see what I can find as far as seating and give you the costs. Rearranging the layout is no problem, Sebastian and our friend Charlie can help with that. And I’ll come up with some ideas for events. I’ll keep the costs down. And if you need help with getting the café going again, I can do that too.”

“It’s very hard to say no to all of that,” he said.

“I think this could be really great,” I said. “I won’t pretend like I know what I’m doing, exactly, but I’ll do my best.”

“All right,” he said. “But I need to approve the new layout first.”

“Of course,” I said.

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