Page 15 of The English Bookstore in Bologna

Sandy had started to walk away but pivoted. “I am.” If she asks for a Lucy Score book, I will hit her in the head with a hardback of Lolita.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” the impressionable, and obviously Italian-American, woman said. “I live almost across the street, moved here from Austin, and I was so worried I’d have a hard time finding books. And not that I’m a big deal at all, like at all, but I noticed you have a few copies of my book. Thanks for that.”

Sandy looked at her deadpan. Oh, great, an author. If this one is anything like the last one, she’ll ask me why I’m not selling more copies. But Sandy played it cordial. “You’re an author? How wonderful.” Her sarcasm dripped off her words like honey.

“Well, author is a strong word. I’ve written one self-help book.” The not-really-an-author-because-she-only-wrote-one-book held up a copy of From Meh to Megawatt: Supercharge Your Life.

“Oh, that’s you?” Sandy turned toward the cash register and called out, “Moira.”

No response.

“Moira! Are you playing solitaire again? Can’t you hear I’m speaking the two syllables of your dumb name?”

After what felt like an hour and a half, Moira appeared from the back and crept up like she was negotiating a sheet of melting ice.

“You won’t believe who this is,” Sandy said.

“Who?” Mousy Moira looked through the telescopes she called glasses. It took her a minute to process who she was looking at, but then light bulbs appeared over her head, and she sprang to attention like someone had shocked her with jumper cables. “No way. Bianca Briggs?”

Surprise hit Bianca’s face like wind from a commercial fan. “That’s me.” It sounded more like a question than statement.

“You have no idea how much I love your book! I’m a total Megawatter.”

Here we go, Sandy thought, recalling the time Moira had chased the famously introverted Fredrik Backman all the way down the street like he was Robert Redford.

“Look what I got last week!” Moira rolled up her sleeve and aimed it at Bianca, then Sandy. A tattoo on her forearm read, Leave burn marks.

“And?” Sandy said, clueless as to what it meant. Also beyond shocked that Moira had this secret Megawatter life—and a tattoo?

“Leave burn marks,” Moira said. “That’s the battle cry of the Megawatters. Live life in such a way that you leave burn marks. I was telling the tattoo artist it’s like the crater after an asteroid crash. Live loudly, you know? Boom.”

Boom? Sandy questioned silently.

Bianca looked to be in her own state of shock. When Moira finally gave her a moment to speak, she said genuinely, “I’m beyond flattered.”

Moira rolled her sleeve back down and whisper-screamed in her English accent, “I’ve been pushing it like crazy. It’s on my shelf of favorites in the back too. What brings you here?”

Sandy thought she better go find some cheese and lure Moira away before she scared their visiting author.

“I just moved here from Texas.”

Moira opened her mouth so wide in surprise that you could have crammed all 849 pages of Stephen King’s 11/22/63 in there. “To Bologna?”

“Here, to Via Giulia,” Bianca said.

The mouth of the mouse opened even wider, making room for the entire Outlander series. “We’re neighbors?” She performed a double fist pump. “Yes! Megawatters unite!”

Sandy looked for a wall to ram her head into.

Bianca explained that she’d done a gap year in Bologna ten years prior. Moira pointed out that Sandy had opened the bookstore around the same time. What a coincidence! Then she took over with a barrage of squeaky literary praise, how Moira had been following the steps in the book, how her life was different, blah, blah, blah.

Sandy worried Bianca would run out the door like Backman had, but she held her ground and listened with what could be construed as grace, though Sandy hated to give anyone that much credit.

When Moira finally took a breath, Bianca touched her chest and batted her eyelashes. “I don’t know what to say.”

Sandy wanted to shout, “You just said it. By saying ‘I don’t know what to say,’ you said something.” Bianca and Moira were two peas in a stupid pod.

Starting toward the counter, she decided she better get some work done because Moira would be distracted all day after this celebrity encounter.