Los Angeles or not …
Mom doesn’t know that I was coming back from Lucky’s house when the boatyard window was broken. But she knows that I was outside the bookshop when Adrian drove up and demanded to talk to Evie. And Mom ispissed. And a little scared.
“If that really was Adrian who did it … ,” she says a day later, when we watch four people installing a new window across the street.
“Of course it was him! Who else would it be?” Who else would hurl a crowbar at a window after drunkenly threatening people with that eye-for-an-eye speech? I don’t understand how the police can’t get fingerprints off it, but apparently they can’t. He must have wiped it before he threw it.
Or someone in the police department is covering for him.…
“Why would an Olympic rower from Harvard be vandalizing windows in Beauty?” Mom says. “Evie? Would he really do that?”
“I couldn’t really say,” Evie murmurs.
Oh, but she could. She could say, all right. Evie doesn’t want me to tell Mom—I think because she’s so embarrassed that Adrian’s such a toxic stalker, even though it’s no reflection on her, duh—but she swore me to secrecy when she showed me all the drunken texts he sent her that night. Forty-three. Forty-three! And that’s on top of eleven phone calls. Who does that? A maniac, that’s who.
Then again, who throws a rock through a historic department store window?
Maybe I’m a maniac too.
Which maniac came first, the chicken or the egg?
After I insist again and again that it was Adrian, begging her to trust me on this one, Mom relents and tries to call up Adrian’s father through his business number—just to talk—but he’s not taking calls. And he’s not the kind of guy to whom you can march up and demand justice. You can’t just ring his doorbell. Guess when he’s the one whose property is destroyed, he’s available. When it’s his son who’s doing the destroying … well, he’s a busy man.
Take a number.
When Wednesday rolls around, Mom locks up the store at noon for our half-day closing and walks next door to Freedom Art Gallery, where several neighborhood shop owners are gatheringto talk about security. Hate to break it to them, but they are in zero danger from Wreck-It Ralph. Adrian doesn’t care about their windows.
Evie is remarkably quiet about all of this. Pretty sure she’sfarmore upset than she’s letting on, but she says she needs time to think about things. So I’m giving her space. But I’m also thinking about those forty-three texts.
Maybe we’ve all got our ticking time bombs.
While Evie closes out the accounting up front, I pull all the empty book carts to the stockroom and line them up for receiving tomorrow, when we’re supposed to be getting a big shipment from a distributor. At least that’s what Istartto do, until someone knocks on the stockroom door—the one that opens to the side of the house between the street and the alley.
Delivery people don’t knock. They ring the bell.
Cautious, I unlock the door and peek through the crack to find Lucky’s face staring back at me over a deep-red T-shirt. My heartbeat quickens.
“Hey,” he says, one side of his mouth quirking upward. “Saw Winona heading to the neighborhood meeting next door. My mom’s there too. Not sure if I’m still banned from these premises … ?”
“In Winona’s eyes? I don’t know; in this time of crisis, it’s hard to tell. Would you like to risk it all and come inside for a minute?”Please.
“Isn’t ityouwho’s taking the risk? I’m not banned from seeing you.”
I shrug, attempting to look casual, and open the door. “And I’m not good at following rules. Welcome to the stockroom.”
“Sorry to disappoint, but I’ve been back here. Lots.”
“You have?” I say, shutting the door behind him.
“Your grandmother lets me browse the new stuff before it goes out on the shelves.”
She never let us come back here when we were kids.Never. Honestly, I’m surprised she allowed kids in the bookshop. She dislikes noise and disorganization.
“She also lets Saint Boo sleep in here sometimes when we go out of town.”
Mouth open. Jaw on floor. “Beginning to have some serious suspicions that the Diedre Saint-Martin you’ve been acquainted with over the last few years is some kind of pod person,” I tell him. “The grandmaIknow and love dislikes pets. She’s also a rule-obsessed harpy who ruined my mom’s life, and mine by extension, and listens to too much fiddle music.”
“Shedoeshave a disturbing preoccupation with fiddling. Wonder if they fiddle in Nepal?”
