“Another grand a month starting in September when the lease renews. I’m sorry,” she says, and she does sound like she means it. “That’s the lowest I can go with the property taxes going up again, not to mention the plumbing repairs that we both know I need to make. That’s going to take extra cash. Try as I might, I can’t keep pretending I’ve got all the time in the world.”
I know the feeling.
She gets up from the chair and puts a hand on his arm. I wonder if she hasn’t noticed he’s wincing or is simply pretending not to. “Thank you for understanding. I’ve got my fingers crossed that this’ll work out, because I’d like the bookstore to stay put—I’ve always thought of it as the heart of West Haven. But I understand if you decide it’s time to find a new space, too.”
“Thanks,” he says quietly. “I’ll be in touch.”
Once Kathy’s gone, Miguel crouches beside me on the floor and runs his hand down my back. After a moment, he says, “September’s five weeks away, Harold. The revenue from JMB’s event that isn’t already earmarked for staffing can helpwith the first month or two—but I’m not sure we can pull it off all year long when the postholiday season’s so slow and I’m already draining my savings to make payroll. I guess we could move, but that’ll probably be even more expensive. We’re screwed.”
He’s staring at me with big eyes, but instead of staring back, I gaze around the store. I want him to see what I see, to remember the story he and Amelia used to tell people when they asked how Lakeside came tobe.
“Many years ago, in a land before email,” he’d begin, “a beautiful sprite of a woman was browsing at the original Borders bookstore in Ann Arbor when a man spotted her through the window…”
And something about the woman—perhaps her halo of curls, or the constellation of stars dotted across her nose and cheeks, or maybe just her sparkling self—made the man stop in his tracks and go inside, even though it meant he would be late for the meeting he was headingto.
Now, this woman didn’t usually trust random men. After all, most men give no reason to be trusted. Yet something about this one was different. So, she was willing to humor him when he asked if she’d readAlaskaby James Michener, which happened to be on the table she was standing in frontof.
She held up another novel with a bright red cover and large gold script and told him that was more her style.
He laughed and asked her if he could have her number.
She said that she didn’t give her number out to strangers. Also, she had a boyfriend. But she smiled at him in a way that made him feel an entirely different sort of strange, and in that moment, he knew he’d met his match.
So, he plucked a copy of the red novel off the table and jogged over to the checkout counter, where he purchased it and borrowed a pen from the cashier. He returned with a paper bag and told her his number was on the inside cover, if she ever wanted to talk books—and by the way, his name was Miguel Rivera.
Three months later, she called him to say that while she hadn’t likedZoyaas much as she’d hoped to, she was single now. Oh, and her name was Amelia May, and she was a romance novelist who wanted to open a bookstore one day.
“Which was exactly what I wanted, too,” Miguel explained, slipping his arm around her waist when he said this part. “Spotting you through the window was the happiest coincidence of my life.”
“There are no coincidences,” Amelia would respond, then kiss him. “Everything lines up as it’s supposed to, even if it takes a while to see how and why.”
I believe that. After all, if I hadn’t lived with the other man first, I wouldn’t have ended up at the shelter, where Amelia happened to drop in on a whim and decided to make me hers. Which led to the most magical sixty-some dog years of my life. Sometimes I wish I’d gone with her to wherever she is now—but if I had, I wouldn’t be here to help Miguel. I guess that worked out the way it was supposed to, too.
I just wish it hurt a little less.
Miguel must’ve just remembered their origin story because he stands, puts his fists on his hips, and says, “Harold, we’re going to have to find a way to fix this. Losing Lakeside would be like losing Amelia all over again—only this time, I can do something about it. From here on out, my only focus is to make money and keep the store afloat. I owe her that.”
I’m glad to see him worked up aboutsomething.Except…Amelia didn’t task me with saving Lakeside.
Given how stubborn he is, I’m more likely to grow another tail than convince the man to change his mind about his newfound purpose. Which means my job just became twice as hard.
Because somehow, some way, I’m going to have to make him see that love’s the key to his next chapter.
Three
“We’re going to meet JMB, Harold,” Miguel says, opening the car door so I can hop into the back seat. “After all this time! I can hardly believe it.”
Me neither. Miguel’s been a wee bit obsessed with Jonathan ever since he read his first novel,Missing Person.Oh, how he can go on about that book—how lyrical the prose, how clever the narrator! But most of all, he loves the story, which is about two siblings who lose their parents and have to make their way in the world by relying on each other. It’s fiction, but it’s based on Jonathan’s life—and it’s what happened to Miguel and his sister, Miriam, too. Their dad left them and started another family, and their mom died soon after of a broken heart. He told Amelia thatMissing Personis the only book he’s ever read that made him feel someone understood what that was like for him.
And now he’s finally—finally—going to get a chance to tell JMB that himself.
As he and I make the short drive to the bookstore, I hear a strange yet familiar sound that makes my ears perk up. It’sbeen so long since I heard it that it takes me a moment to recognize it as something other than an amorous cicada. He’s humming!
Oh, this will be a good night indeed.
There’s a crowd gathering in front of the store, which has closed early for the event, so Miguel and I go through the back entrance.
“Boss,” Riley greets Miguel from the register. “You look sharp.”
