Mae stared out the front window after she’d placed her phone back on the counter.
She’d been doing that a lot, lately.
She knew she should be panicking about opening day being in three days, but the truth was, she’d had everything as ready as it was likely going to be a week ago. Any of the preparations, all of the spreadsheets she was crafting now merely verged on neurotic, moving things here or there, daydreaming about every possible thing she could keep track of in colored columns and rows. She ran home constantly to spend more time with the dogs, eventually drifting back to the store because she felt like she should. Because the store smelled less like Dell McCleary.
Mostly, these last few days, she spent her time staring.
She’d officially moved the pride flags last weekend. She found places for them elsewhere: behind the front door, on the wall by the end of the counter. She had never intended for them to obscure the view of the space forever. She wanted people to look, now, in the days leading up to opening. Wanted them to peer in and wonder. To see all she and Dell had done.
She’d stuck some stickers on the glass in their stead, in the corner closest to the door, next to a Black Lives Matter sticker, a small Palestinian flag. But she was still adjusting to it, the increased light, the view of the ocean behind Ginger’s. It was a good spot for staring.
She knew Vik was right. It wasn’t smart, for a number of reasons, for a store to only have one employee. Even Olive had several people on her staff, even if they weren’t all full-time. Mae was grateful beyond measure that Vik would be there on opening day to help Mae through any rushes or hiccups.
But she had wanted to own something.
She had tried to be selfish.
Maybe it had worked too well.
Because now she didn’t want to let it go.
It was possible nothing had ever been as muchhersin her entire life as this little store, even if it had yet to open its doors to a single official customer. It was filled with all of her favorite books, with art and colors she loved, with pieces of this community, with things Dell and Vik had made for her.
Maybe she had only truly envisioned one other person behind the counter with her.
And that person had been so sure, at least for a time, that Mae would be the one to leave.
And while Mae knew he hadn’t left because he wanted to, that there was nothing about this situation she had the right to feel upset about, it was still hard, sometimes, to swallow.
That she was still here.
And Dell was so very far away.
* * *
On the night before opening day, Mae stood in the center of the floor. Between the New Releases table and the table of local merchandise and gifts.
Vik and Jackson had gone to Dell’s house to check on the dogs and wait on their pizza order. But Mae had wanted a little more time alone. A last hour when Bae Books was just hers.
She closed her eyes and remembered when the room was nothing but a bare floor and dust. When she’d danced, right here, all alone with Jesus’s final playlist.
She remembered when she added the rug underneath her feet. When she and Dell had slept on it.
Her body had gotten stronger, these last three months. She spent a lot of time hunched over her keyboard, squinting at the computer screen, and maybe she’d never once used one of Dell’s heavy duty tools, but she’d still become handy with a drill and a hammer. She’d done her fair share of heavy lifting.
Seriously. Boxes of books were fucking heavy.
She’d had her moments of doubt and soreness, but her body felt strong, just then.
She breathed in the last three months. Told herself to look at it all as it was, right now, one last time.
When she fluttered her lashes open again, a mote of dust danced in front of her eyes, highlighted by the rays of sun heading toward the horizon outside the window.
And like that, it all became clear.
She had wanted to own something. Something hers and hers alone.
But Dell had been there from the start. Telling her she couldn’t.
