Getting your heart involved in someone else’s business was a recipe for disaster.
He’d taken that lesson and never looked back. Love was not for him. If he could only get his nosy, if well-intentioned neighbors to accept this, he’d be happy.
A little bored, maybe, he acknowledged as he straightened boxes on shelves and noted how many spools of wire he had in each gauge. The things he was doing today were the things he did every day. They were the things that, in all likelihood, he wouldcontinuedoing every day for the rest of his life.
Case in point: at eleven o’clock, practically on the dot, Micah Peterson entered, the bell that hung above the front door chiming in announcement.
“Mornin’ Garrett,” Micah said.
Micah was an older gentleman, as were many of Garrett’s customers, especially on weekdays. Younger people, given their work schedules, were more likely to be weekend shoppers… or the kind of people who hired Garrett to handle the entire project, no stop in at the store needed.
Micah, however, was semi-recently retired, and had taken to, as he called it, “tinkering.” Garrett never knew what the man was building, nor if the projects were successful or not. Micah was not much for small talk, which made him Garrett’s favorite customer. That, plus he came in reliably a few times a week, even though his purchases were usually small: a few nails here, a couple of boards there.
“Morning, Micah,” Garrett replied. “Need help finding anything?”
“Nah,” Micah said, as he always did.
Garrett noodled over the crossword puzzle from the local newspaper as he waited for Micah to finish puttering around. He preferred to stay in his spot behind the counter when customers were in the store. If they caught you lurking around while they shopped, he’d learned, they either got annoyed that you were hovering or, far worse, thought you wanted a chat.
He was just filling inAvafor the clue “classic film’s Gardner” when Micah moseyed up to the counter holding about nine different screws, each a different length or width, a roll of painters’ tape, and a grease pencil. It was honestly an intriguing combination, but Garrett knew better than to ask what they were for. Micah’s answer was always a shrug and, “Oh, this and that.”
Garrett was not the kind of man who faulted someone for wanting to keep others out of their business.
So, instead of prying, he quickly rang the man up and packaged the purchases into a plain brown paper bag. Micah counted out exact change.
It was all just the same as it was every time. Garrett mostly found comfort in the routine… but sometimes he wouldn’t have minded just a tiny bit of change. A very tiny bit. Miniscule, really.
Apparently, however, the change would not be coming from Micah.
“See you later, Micah,” he called as the man left, just as he always did.
“Have a good one, Garrett,” came back the customary reply.
The bell clanged again as Micah left. Although Garrett knew the bell hadn’t changed its tenor, something about that clang sounded less cheerful than when the retiree had entered.
With a stifled sigh, Garrett went back to checking inventory. His days might get a little dull sometimes, but dullness had one important feature. When things were boring, they didn’t end up leaving you hurt.
CHAPTER FOUR
Diana Madsen, owner and proprietress of Magnolia Boutique, took a careful step back from the table she was about to cover with new inventory. This was Diana’s ritual, when it came to putting new displays in her carefully curated shop. She looked at the whole picture first, then built and image in her mind about how the display would fit into the overall flow of the store. Then she laid out the pieces, considered how they looked individually, and took another step back to check to see if what she’d done matched her mental image. After that, she would adjust the items until they looked just right, both as individual pieces and as an overall, cohesive effect.
Some people, such as her sisters—to name a totally random example—called this “excessive” and “a little obsessive, don’t you think, Diana?”
But Diana called it sophisticated, polished, ambitious. You didn’t get to earn those attributes by chucking everything on a shelf and calling it a day.
Besides, she liked the ritual of it all, the feeling that she could tweak and shape her store until this little slice of the universe, at least, was as perfect as she could make it. She tucked a strand of her long, black hair behind her ear and rolled up the sleeves ofthe emerald blazer she was wearing today. The color was bright, and, if not correctly matched to the rest of her outfit, could have come off as garish. But Diana had gone for muted colors for the rest of her ensemble: slate gray slacks, black loafers, and a dreamy,almostgray blue silk shell. Whenever she got dressed in the morning, she liked to think about how she would advise her customers, were they considering buying the blazer… which yes, of course, she sold in her boutique.
“You’ll be tempted to pair it with black and white, since they’re neutral,” she imagined herself advising. “But they’re also stark. Go for something a little more muted, so that the green can really pop.”
It was good advice, if she did say so herself. Every time she caught a glimpse of herself in one of her boutique’s full-size mirrors, she’d felt impressed with how she looked.
Style, to Diana, was more than mere clothes. It was how she presented herself to the world. It was how she built her mental image of herself. That was more than triviality, no matter what some naysayers might think.
She started hanging some shirts that were styled almost like t-shirts, except for the layer of lace atop the base fabric of the shirt, each in matching hues. The effect was subtly upscale, leading to an item that could be dressed up for a night out, paired with a jacket for work, or matched with cute jeans and shoes for a casual day of running errands. She added accessories to the display, placing chunky gold necklaces with a set of bangles that came in silver, gold, and rose gold. People were often hesitant to mix metals, Diana had learned, until they saw how good different metallics looked together.
Diana was debating how she wanted to showcase a set of simply gorgeous silk scarves she’d recently found on a buyer’s trip to New York City when her phone rang. Her younger sister’sname lit up the screen. With her hands busy, Diana decided to put the phone on speaker.
“Hey, Kylie,” she greeted. “Just a heads up, you’re on speaker, but I’m alone in the store.”
