Say hi, sometimes.
“Oh my gosh, are you Mae?” The woman smiled in return, wide and toothy, holding out a hand. “Quinn. I’ve been following you online.”
“Yeah? Do you live in Greyfin Bay?”
“I do, but I work remotely for an insurance company, so I rarely ever leave my house.” She laughed, a bit self-deprecating. “But I’ve had your opening day on my calendar for weeks.Seriously, I need more reasons to make myself leave the house. Oh no, you have journals.”
Quinn was beautiful, in that way people who were kind at heart always were.
“Of course I have journals. We all need pretty things to buy and then never use.”
Quinn grinned. “Exactly.”
A pair of goth teens stopped in next, who were first thrilled Mae had a graphic novel section at all and in the next breath, declared it “pretty mid.” They gave her a list of titles she should buy for next time.
As the afternoon progressed, the locals who dropped in mixed more and more with weekend tourists, until at last, finally, Liv walked in.
She gusted out a breath, lifting up her baseball cap to rub at her forehead.
“Sorry I couldn’t get here earlier, hon,” she said. “One of my distributors?—”
Mae cut her off with a hug.
Liv tapped her lightly on the back before pulling away.
“I’ll allow it. This time. Anyway, how have things been going?”
“Good. Really good. Hey, actually, if you see Taylor Nguyen around, can you let her know I bought a bunch of Pokémon books for Lanh? I haven’t seen them in a while.” Seeing the goth girls had made Mae think of it. She wasn’t sure, actually, if she’d seen either Taylor or Lanh since that first day in the IGA.
Liv’s face fell.
“Mae.” She shook her head, squeezed the brim of her baseball hat in her hands. “Taylor and Lanh are gone.”
Mae’s stomach dropped.
“Gone?”
“I mean—” Liv gestured emphatically, “they just moved. Sorry. They’re okay. They’re just not in Greyfin Bay anymore.” She sighed. “Lanh’s mom, Melody, is sick. That’s why Taylor, Lanh’s auntie, was always taking care of him. Melody needed better medical care, and Lanh needed more support, too, at school.” Liv crossed her arms, looked out the window. “I mean, his setup here wasn’tsobad; schools are still federally mandated to provide special education services, even in places like Greyfin Bay. But it’ll get harder when he has to head to middle school, and Melody or Taylor would’ve had to travel farther to get him there, to attend all his meetings.”
“Wait. Wheredokids go to middle school? And high school?” Mae knew of the tiny elementary school in Greyfin Bay, further up on Klamath. But now that she thought on it, she had no idea where any other school was.
“There’s a middle-high school county complex up north of Lincoln City,” Liv said. “Or folks can petition for their kids to attend down in Newport.”
Mae bit her lip, joining Liv in her stare out to Main Street. Distantly, Mae remembered that she herself had a bit of a drive to get to her high school, back in North Carolina. But it had felt normal at the time, because it was all she knew. Because Mae was able bodied and neurotypical.
She had forgotten, over her adulthood of living in cities with ample services. That it wasn’t just matcha lattes that required extra effort, when you lived in a small town.
“Damn,” Mae eventually said. “That’s hard.”
Liv sighed again.
“Yeah. I mean, it happens. Sometimes, folks have to leave. It’s just…it hurts, you know. The more divided we become. When you lose another family that wasn’t part of the majority. When you lose good people.”
“Yeah.” Mae’s stomach sank even further.
“Anyway.” Liv stuck her baseball cap back on her head and chucked Mae on the shoulder. “Sorry to be a bummer on your special day. There’ll be more kids who want to buy your Pokémon books, believe me.” Liv looked around the space with a smirk. “One day you’ll be thinking this town’s hit rock bottom, and then the next, some babe with pink hair will move in and open up a queer bookstore.”
“Liv Gallagher.” Mae beamed. “Did you just call me ababe?”
