“Thanks,” Mae said, her heart fluttering inside her chest.
She remembered, within that very first hour, what had been the best part, in the end, of every one of her previous jobs. Even if she often forgot.
Talking with strangers.
An act that had also been the hardest part of every job.
But sometimes, it was the most surprising form of art.
Liv’s words had never truly left her, but she felt them in every heartbeat of today.
You have to talk to people, Mae.
Say hi, sometimes.
The next person to say hi back was a short white woman with feathery hair Mae hadn’t even seen walk in. Mae greeted her with a smile and started ringing up her stack of picture books.
“My baby’s gonna have a baby!” The woman declared with the zeal of a grandparent-to-be. “I can’t wait to read these to my grandbaby.”
“Congratulations,” Mae said. “Picture books are just the most beautiful things.”
“Aren’t they, though? I’m so glad you’re still up and running here, even with that horrible incident with the window. I amsosorry about that, by the way.”
Mae’s smile faltered.
“Oh,” she said. “Thanks.”
The woman leaned in as she handed over her credit card.
“Say. Did they ever find who did that?”
For the first hour of Bay Books’s opening, Mae hadn’t thought once about that brick.
And she didn’t want to now.
It wasn’t the same thing as what had happened to Dell, wasn’t near the same thing, but she understood his feelings about his attacker even more deeply now.
She didn’t want to know who did it.
She just wanted to forget it had ever happened.
“No. I’m just focusing on the here and now.” Mae forced a smile as she placed the woman’s picture books in a paper bag, stamped with Vik’s logo.
“That sounds like a good course of action. Thanks again!”
Mae focused on calming her pulse as she waved goodbye.
And not two seconds later, Jodi and Felix walked in.
She wouldnotcry in front of her parents again. Why had that woman’s comment affected her so much anyway? She was okay. Jodi and Felix were here.
“Oh, Mae.” Jodi stopped short, a hand over her mouth. Felix didn’t stop for a second, heading immediately to the history section.
“Mom! Dad.” Mae stepped out from behind the counter; Vik seamlessly took her place. She hugged her parents in turn. “How was the ride? Thanks for coming.”
“We were careful. Drove the speed limit the whole way. Had a whole angry line of cars behind us. Oh, Mae, this is somehow exactly as I pictured it. It’s soyou. It’s beautiful.”
Mae wouldnotcry in front of her parents again.
