“Antonio! My favorite person.”
“Bet you tell Kat the same thing.” Antonio quirked an eyebrow at her as he dumped his armful of packages onto the counter. Mae gasped.
“I would never.”
She totally told Kat the same thing.
And Cooper.
“All right, you’re all set for today,” Antonio said as he scanned the last package. Because Bae Books was beginning to receive so much actual merchandise,all set for todaywas officially a thing delivery drivers said to Mae. “You have a good day.”
“You too!” she called to his back as he retreated to his UPS truck, idling at the edge of the alley. She really did love Antonio. And Kat, her FedEx driver. And Cooper, her mail carrier for USPS. They were all, each and every one of them, her favorite people in Greyfin Bay. Well, after Liv.
She actually squealed when she opened the boxes Antonio had brought her today. She FaceTimed Vik immediately.
“Vik!” she screamed into the phone, flipping the screen to show the goods on the countertop. “Your stickers came! And your cards! And they areso good.”
“Show me the whale with glasses better,” Vik instructed, laughter in their voice.
“Oh, the whale with glasses is top tier, Vik.” Shuffling through the stacks of Vik-designed merchandise on the counter, she brought the sticker of the whale reading a book, propped on a sea rock, closer to the phone. In the corner of Mae’s screen, Vik’s head dropped back as they laughed.
“This is the finest work I have ever done. Thank you for this, Mae, seriously.”
“Thankyou.Oh man. I need…vessels.”
“Vessels?”
“Yeah, to put all this stuff in, on the counter.” Mae’s mind was whirring. “I need…so many vessels.”
“You’re really doing it, Mae.”
“Yeah. I should go. I bet you Olive has some good vessels.”
“Olive’s the one with the antique shop? From Jersey?”
“Yeah. Oh wait, I didn’t even ask how you are. I’m sorry. I’m the worst.”
“You’re not the worst, and I’m good. Just plodding through work that iswaymore boring than whales with reading glasses, so this has seriously made my day. And hey, give me a little tour before you go. Things look way different from the last time you video called.”
And so Mae walked Vik on a slow sweep of the room, watching Vik’s dark curls in the corner of her screen, their smile and their own glasses they used while they worked, more than she looked at anything else.
“I miss you,” Mae said when she was done, standing in the middle of the rug.
“Miss you, Mae. All right, I should get going, too. Send me pics when you have all my shit in vessels.”
“Will do.”
Mae smiled down at her phone when they’d hung up.
And then she brought up her messages, and scrolled until she found Ben.
I miss you, she typed. Because she’d decided, after texting Theo, that this would be her new thing. Maybe their relationships would never be exactly the same, with Mae here, with all of them still there. But she could tell her friends, as much as possible, that she missed them.
Dell walked into the room before she could see if Ben replied.
“Hey.” He held a small stack of mail in his hands. “Cooper came by, too.”
“Sweet.” She stuffed her phone in her pocket and walked behind the counter while Dell began to peruse the stickers and postcards. Most of the mail she received was junk, all kinds of banks and contractors reaching out to a new business about loans and services, but seeing mail addressed to Bay Books or to Mae Kellerman at 12 Main Street still brought a flutter of disbelief to her chest.
