one
. . .
Rosalind
The San Juan Mountainsare trying to kill my car, and somewhere in Boston, my sister Margaret is closing on her second house.
I shouldn’t be doing math at eight thousand feet on a road that has turned to mud. My brain runs on two tracks: The switchback ahead is tighter than the GPS implied, and my hatchback is older than my driver’s license. Meanwhile, my older sister Margaret made partner at her law firm in February. Mother has crowed about this ever since, even texting a screenshot of the announcement.
Rosalind, sweetheart, why don’t you come stay with Margaret for a while? She has the room. You could get yourself sorted out.
Like I’m a pile of laundry.
The wheel eases to the left. The hatchback fishtails on a slick of half-melted slush and finds its grip an inch from a rusted guardrail. My laminated route map slides off the passenger seat and lands face down on my emergency snack bag.
“Stay where you are.” I focus on my driving.
As the road straightens, the trees pull apart. I take two breaths to calm myself. Hollow Peak sprawls below, a miniature town crafted from toy bricks and timber. The math in my head stops.
Storefronts are painted faded blues and barn reds, and steam rises from the hot springs beyond the rooftops. The snowcapped San Juans form the background.
I descend into the town. Several minutes later, my car sits crooked on Main Street. With so many empty spots, there’s no need to straighten.
I adjust my eyeglasses. “Please let this contract work out.”
Unlike Margaret, who bills five hundred dollars an hour to argue with insurance companies, book collections speak to me like tarot cards. In a stranger’s living room, the books on their shelves reveal divorce, secret trysts, or a teenager’s well-being.
One Thanksgiving, after my sister won a massive case, Mother wanted to frame her bonus check. When I mentioned that I’d spent two weeks on a rare 19th-century poetry collection for an archivist, Mother’s smile tightened. She patted my hand and asked, “That’s lovely, sweetheart, but when are you going to turn all this book stuff into a real career?”
Margaret is a quarterly earnings report. I’m a poem written in a language Mother refuses to learn.
I get out of the car, and the cool spring air hits me. Pine. Wet stone. Faint sulfur from the springs.
Binder tucked under my arm, Main Street beckons, the storefronts painting pictures of a future life here. The clouds have thickened overhead, and it smells like rain the forecast didn’t mention. At least it’s dry now.
A dark green pickup creeps over the uneven pavement. The driver glances my way through an open window. A man in a canvas jacket and a baseball cap, one hand loose on the wheel. Dark hair at his temples. A scar runs from the edge of his capdown along the side of his jaw, raised and pale against weather-tanned skin.
His gaze drops to my cardigan, lingers on my chest, and drops to the curve of my hip where the binder is wedged. Then his eyes flick to my face, which burns.
His jaw thrusts forward. He faces the road, and the truck rolls past the hardware store.
My throat tightens, blood thrumming behind my ears. As I push my glasses up my nose, my fingers aren’t entirely steady.
Bluebird Bookstore sits halfway down the second block. A hand-painted sign appears before the door.
Inside, inviting shelves and overstuffed armchairs greet me under ceiling lights. Scents hit me. Lavender. The faint dust of paperbacks. Eyes closed, I inhale.
The smells anchor me, and I’ll cry if anyone asks me why.
Evelyn Lake meets me at the counter. Sixties, soft white hair pinned up loose, and a blue apron over a flannel shirt. Sharp eyes behind reading glasses attached to a beaded chain.
A smile creases her face, warm as a well-worn book. “You made it. How were the roads?”
“Educational.”
She laughs and waves me toward the back of the store, where two armchairs sit beside a small bar with wine and cider and a charcuterie board nobody has eaten from.
“Sit,” she orders. “I’ve been waiting three weeks to meet you in person.”
