Chapter Nine
Nine
At first, Shelby said no. There were so many legitimate reasons not to go back to Ptown, she didn’t even have to make one up: she was on a deadline. She still had a few book events scattered throughout the summer. She didn’t want to live in the same town as her now ex–best friend. Not to mention her ex-boyfriend. Provincetown was tiny—just three miles long and two streets wide. There was nowhere to hide.
But then Colleen told her more: not only was she twenty weeks pregnant, she was expecting twins. And she was experiencing bleeding.
“I’m not in pain or anything,” Colleen said. “But the doctor put me on modified bed rest.”
It was a lot to absorb. The pregnancy alone was a lot.
“Your parents can’t help?” The Millers had retired and were now spending summers in Maine and winters in San Diego. But surely, they’d change plans if Colleen asked.
“If I tell them about the bed rest, they’ll use it an excuse to sell the store. That’s what they wanted in the first place. I’m the one who promised to make it worthwhile to keep it in the family.”
After decades in the book business, Colleen’s parents worried that the best years were behind the store. Still, Shelby couldn’t believe the Millers would actually sell. It was unthinkable. Land’s End Books seemed as intrinsic to Provincetown as the jetty, or MacMillan Pier. Personally, she felt it was as much a part of her literary education as her graduate degree. In some ways, maybe more so. Her MFA program helped her develop the craft of writing, but Land’s End taught her about the relationship between books and readers. She’d seen firsthand how people responded to book covers, observed what they came in asking for, noted when a book’s rave reviews didn’t match customer feedback. The bookselling experience made her think as much about the reader as she did about the story she was telling, and that this set her apart from her classmates.
Shelby wanted to agree to help—to say yes right there on the spot. But Claudia’s directive, still fresh in her mind, held her back. Instead, she told Colleen she just needed a day to think about it.
Now, out for drinks with her grad school friend Eve, it was all she could think about. And unfortunately for Eve, all she could talk about.
“It’s not that I don’t want to help Colleen with the store,” Shelby said. “But I can’t take off from my own job. And it’s already questionable if I’ll make the deadline on my next book. Claudia will kill me.”
They were sharing a bottle of pinot noir at a wine bar near Union Square. Eve had tried to change the topic twice asking about Noah. But there was really nothing to talk about there: he’d messaged her a bunch of times, and she’d ignored them. There was no getting past her disappointment in him.
God, she wondered if that was exactly how Hunter felt about her . She gulped her wine.
The server, a tall, broad-shouldered brunette who talked with a Scottish brogue, checked in with them. Eve opened her menu and pointed to the rosé section.
“I’m going to try that orange one,” Eve said, looking up at her. “You want one, too?”
Shelby declined, even though the server assured her it didn’t have an orange flavor. She wasn’t in the mood to be adventurous. After the server left, Eve said, “Do you want me to cancel my order? We can get out of here if you want.”
“What? No,” Shelby said, shaking her head. “Sorry. I just don’t know what to do.” She meant what to do about Colleen, but Eve clearly thought she meant the novel, because she said, “Maybe a writer’s retreat would help. I did the Woodstock one—just went off the grid and pounded out a first draft.”
Shelby had to get off the grid; that was for sure. She just wasn’t sure which one: either she stayed in New York City and let down Colleen, or she went to help Colleen and let down her agent. And herself.
And then it hit her: she was looking at the summer all wrong. What was her biggest excuse—to Colleen, and to herself—for not going to Provincetown? Her deadline. But her new book was once again set in Ptown. Maybe going back would actually give her a creative boost. And she’d help Colleen in the process.
Hunter went to Colleen’s straight from work.
A month ago, Colleen moved in with her boyfriend, Doug MacDougal, leaving behind the apartment above Land’s End where she’d grown up and where she’d returned after college. Colleen and Doug had known for a while that they’d ultimately move in together, but the pregnancy had turned “at some point” into “immediately.”
Doug’s one-bedroom was on the ground floor of a classic Cape cottage on the East End that had been converted into four apartments. The entrance to the unit was on the side of the house. In the back, a pebbled path led to a shared flower garden with a few iron benches. It was lovely. She’d take it over her parents’ sprawling, modernist house anyday.
“It’s open,” Colleen called out when Hunter knocked.
She followed Colleen’s voice to the living room. Colleen was alone in a corner of the sectional couch, her arms around a needlepoint pillow decorated with a starfish made by her mother Annie. She held the pillow like a shield around her midsection.
“Hey,” Hunter said. “Doug still at work?”
Colleen shook her head. “He ran out to get a few things.”
“I hope that doesn’t include dessert.” Hunter had picked up lemon cake from Connie’s Bakery, and placed the box on the coffee table. She sat next to Colleen. “So, a little update: I found out that the new bookstore is opening in a few weeks. I didn’t want to text you because it’s not great news, obviously.”
Colleen reached for her eco-friendly water bottle. “Well, I guess we knew it was coming.”
Hunter appreciated the sanguine response, but she knew how Colleen really felt. When Hunter first told her about the bookstore a weeks ago, she’d burst into tears.
“Really, I almost feel sorry for Hendrik’s,” Hunter said. “Everyone in town loves you—will be loyal to you. And anyone who visits here summer after summer knows you’re the Ptown bookseller. Hendrik’s might have half a dozen locations, but they don’t have you.” She leaned forward and pulled the cake box from the paper bag.
Colleen sighed. “Well, as you can see I’m sitting here so Land’s End doesn’t fully have me right now, either.”
Hunter stopped messing with the bag. “Yeah. I stopped by the store today to talk to you. You feeling okay?”
The door to the apartment opened and closed, and a moment later Doug strolled into the bedroom with two cups of take-out ice cream from Lewis Brothers. Doug was over six feet tall, with light brown hair, kind brown eyes, and the hint of a beer belly. He was like a big teddy bear. “Hey, Hunter,” he said. “Didn’t know you were coming by. I would have brought more.”
“I’m good, thanks,” she said. “I’m just checking on Colleen.”
“I’m fine,” Colleen said unconvincingly before glancing at Doug.
“I’m going to put these in the freezer,” he said.
Hunter watched him walk out of the room, then turned to Colleen.
“Okay, what’s going on?” Hunter said.
Colleen pulled the butterfly clip out of her hair, then clicked it open and closed, open and closed. “I found out I have a complication. My placenta is blocking part of my cervix.”
That sounded bad. But Hunter was embarrassed to admit she had no idea what that meant. She didn’t actually know what a cervix was supposed to do.
“Are the babies okay?”
Colleen nodded. “But I can’t spend much time on my feet, or lift boxes, or basically do anything I have to do at the bookstore. Exertion puts me at higher risk for bleeding.”
Doug walked back in. “I’m calling Liz’s for takeout. You wanna stay, Hunter?”
“Um, sure. Thanks,” she said, distracted. What was going to happen with the bookstore? Mia was a part-timer, but she couldn’t run the place. “So what are you going to do? Can one of your moms help out?”
Colleen pulled a second pillow onto her lap. “No. I haven’t told them. You know how skeptical they are about me taking over in the first place. I can’t give them any more reasons to doubt the plan. So I asked Shelby to manage the store for the summer—her old job.”
“Very funny,” Hunter said.
“That’s what she said when I asked her,” Colleen said.
Wait—this was for real? Doug sat next to Colleen and put his arm around her. Together, they faced her in a way that made it clear it was, in fact, for real.
“Hunter, we really need for you to put your beef with Shelby aside for now,” he said.
“My ‘beef’ ?” Hunter felt a flash of annoyance. She knew Colleen was having a rough time, but they were totally invalidating her. How would Colleen feel if Shelby had written about her personal life? Maybe she was getting upset about nothing: Shelby was a big-shot writer now. She wasn’t going to leave her book tour to work at Land’s End. “So Shelby agreed to this?”
“Not yet,” Colleen said, but her expression told Hunter she believed that ultimately, she would. And that was the difference between the two of them: Colleen hadn’t learned yet that Shelby’s only concern was Shelby. Which was why Hunter wasn’t going to stress about it.
There was no way Shelby Archer was coming back.