“Yes, ma’am,” he said, and then paused.
Uh oh. That was a bad pause.
“We, uh. We’re having a problem with the truck.”
“Oh, no,” she said. “Oh, no.”
Diana looked up, worry in her expression. Eleanor shook her head to signal that this wasn’t an emergency, even if she wanted to react as though it was.
“Yeah, we have to stop for emergency repairs, I’m afraid.” Poor Dan did really sound apologetic. “But your shelf is safe and sound in our warehouse. We should have it to you by Sunday. Monday at the latest. Definitely not after Tuesday.”
Eleanor decided it would be too dramatic to shove her face into a pillow and scream out her frustration. It probably was. Also, she didn’t have a pillow handy.
“I can’t do that,” she said. “I’m opening a bookstore. The shelf is for a bookstore. And our grand opening is Sunday.”
She knew she sounded a little frantic, but she couldn’t help herself.
“Uh.” Her stress was probably not something that was under Dan’s job description, but she appreciated his apparent concern. “Well, you’re in Massachusetts, right?”
“Right.”
“Okay, so based on your delivery address, it looks like the warehouse is about two hours from you. So you could come pick it up if you wanted to.”
Eleanor closed her eyes. The shelf would never fit in her tiny hatchback, otherwise she absolutely would. But to transport a book of that shelf, she would need a truck…
A truck like the one that her boyfriend owned, maybe.
“Yes, Dan,” she said, feeling a rush of triumph that came with actually working toward a solution to a problem. “I will do that, thank you.”
“What’s going on?” Diana asked the moment Eleanor hung up the phone.
“The truck with my bookshelf is broken down two hours away,” Eleanor reported.
Diana’s eyes went wide.
“But it’s fine!” Eleanor went on. She felt oddly cheerful. Yes, this was yet another hiccup in this unending bookshelf saga. But she was doing something about it. She was going to accomplish something.
“It is?”
“It is,” Eleanor insisted. “Or it will be in just one second.”
She raised her phone and dialed Garrett.
“Hey, Ellie, what’s up, honey?” She smiled when her boyfriend answered right away. She filled him in on the whole to-do about the truck breakdown and the bookshelf. “So,” she said in conclusion, “I need your truck.”
There was a long, thoughtful pause.
“Ellie, sweetheart,” he said very delicately, “do you know how to drive a truck?”
“Um,” she said. “Yes?”
Garrett’s laughs were rare, which made them all the more precious.
“I’ll drive you,” he said.
“Oh, really? Do you mean it?”
“Of course I mean it,” he said. “I’ll wrap up over here and head right over. Okay?”
