Chapter Sixteen
Sixteen
The only downside to working in a beautiful beach town was that Hunter had to go to the office when almost everyone else was going to play.
She passed couples walking hand in hand, men jogging with dogs on leashes, groups laughing on restaurant patios over breakfast cocktails. It was warm, and sunny, and to her right, the bay was in near constant view the entire stretch of Commercial. Hunter had to remind herself that the people behind the counter at Joe Coffee and the front desk at the Anchor Inn or selling trinkets at the Shell Shop were also working. That many of the people biking, sailing, and brunching were only there on vacation, while she got to live there. For the summer, at least. She was lucky to have a publishing job at the beach. She might not be where she wanted to be professionally, but at least she was somewhere she loved geographically.
And she had to admit, her office in Duke’s house—a lavender Queen Anne’s cottage on Franklin Street—was a lot nicer than her cubicle at her last job.
Still, Hunter stalled that morning by going out of her way to stop at Scott Cakes, a bakery that only made vanilla cupcakes with pink frosting. She ordered a dozen, and she could feel through the box that they were still warm even by the time she reached Duke’s.
The front door was open.
Duke’s entrance hall floor was all handmade tile, and the walls were decorated with paintings by local artists. The living room featured chinoiserie and wood furniture with Queen Anne details and cabriole legs. She walked through to the library, where they both had desks. The large, sun-filled room had oriental carpets, Japanese fans, and porcelain figurines on every surface.
“I brought snacks,” she said, walking the box over to him.
“Oh, Hunter.” He shook his head. “I swore I wouldn’t eat dessert during the day anymore. Things just get so decadent this time of year. It’s like, the temperature rises above seventy and all the rules go right out the window.”
“Suit yourself,” she said, setting the cupcakes on her desk. She opened the box, plucked one out, and peeled the wrapper from its base. Her mouth watered just thinking about biting into the icing.
She sat in her chair and looked out the window at Duke’s back lawn. His birdfeeder attracted a constant stream of finches. Most were brown, but when an occasional redhead appeared, it was the highlight of her workday. Last week, a red one had set to work on a tree stump and its determination put her own work ethic to shame.
Duke walked over and handed her a pile of manuscripts.
“These are slush, but you never know when you’ll find a gem. So please read at least the first few chapters.”
Oh, how she’d love to find something special. But she wasn’t optimistic. The odds of finding a publishable novel in the slush pile had been slim even at her old job where award-winning writers were published. At a start-up press like Seaport, it was like picking up oyster shells on Herring Cove beach and expecting to find a pearl inside.
“Okay,” she said dutifully.
“By the way, I stopped by Shelby’s the other night.”
Hunter was surprised. And irrationally irritated. Duke was free to talk to her. Maybe their solidarity on the issue of Shelby had been partly in her imagination. “Why didn’t you mention it before?”
He sighed, glancing upward then back at her. “I’ve been trying to figure out how I felt about it. She did apologize. And I know how myopic artists can be—it’s part of their charm. Also, she’s helping Colleen...”
“Don’t tell me you’re fine with what happened,” Hunter said, crossing her arms.
“I wouldn’t say fine . But I’m trying to be my best self and turn it into something positive. And I think I did: Shelby agreed to petition for beach access by Land’s End. If she can get that done, her bookstore will have a competitive edge over Hendrik’s. Their location doesn’t have outdoor space.”
“I think if any of us are depending on Shelby, we’re really in bad shape.”
Duke let out a sigh. “Colleen is trusting her with the store. That must count for something.”
Hunter reached for another cupcake. “It just seems unfair to me. Shelby uses our secrets to write a bestseller, then just glides right back to her spot here in town like nothing ever happened. She gets away with it!”
“What would make you feel better?” Duke asked.
Hunter knew the answer. She’d thought long and hard about it. “I want to edit a bestseller. I want my own success.”
Duke patted the manuscript pile. “Success is the best revenge. Now pass me one of those cupcakes.”
Shelby stood behind the counter, scrolling through the Land’s End calendar. She must be missing something. Colleen had barely scheduled any author events.
“Excuse me,” a woman said, approaching the counter. She had long red hair and carried a bicycle helmet. “Do you have a local interest section?”
Shelby led her to a shelf stacked with Michael Cunningham novels, design books by Ken Fulk, and yes, copies of Secrets of Summer . “Are you looking for fiction or nonfiction?” she asked.
“Nonfiction,” the woman said.
She handed her Mary Heaton Vorse’s Time and Town . “This is a local classic. She writes about Provincetown like no one before or since.”
Shelby read the book twice during her first summer in Provincetown. One line stayed with her for a long time: “I am not the only person who came here to spend two weeks and remained a lifetime; I am not the only one who if exiled would feel as though my taproot were cut.” Thinking of the words now, she felt nostalgic. That first trip with Hunter, she’d fallen in love with Provincetown. Until that point, when she heard people use the expression “falling in love” to describe a feeling for a place, she felt it was hyperbole. And then she experienced the Cape. But unlike Mary Heaton Vorse, she’d always known the time would come to leave.
Shelby returned to the computer, looking again for any events on the schedule she might have missed. Was it possible Colleen hadn’t scheduled more than three events over the next eight weeks?
Author book readings had never been a huge priority for Pam and Annie. But things were changing in town and Land’s End should change with them. They’d sold out of the Mary Oliver biography last night. That might have happened over the course of the summer, but in one night? That could only happen with a book event.
There wasn’t that much she could do about it now. Summer book tour schedules would be set by now. Still, she logged into a program that listed touring authors. The interface was surprisingly basic, as if it had been built in the 1990s. It featured a single field to request an author, then two fields asking how many readers you expected for the event and how many books you expected to sell. There was a small text field for additional comments so bookstore owners could pitch themselves and their store.
“I found a few more copies,” Mia said, emerging from the stockroom and depositing three Mary Olivers on the counter.
“Mia, why are there so few authors events scheduled?” Shelby asked.
“I think Colleen requests a lot of authors but gets denied.”
“Denied?” Shelby hadn’t thought too much about how her publicist decided what bookstores to send her to on tour; she assumed it was a combination of which stores requested her and what made sense geographically. She’d never imagined a bookseller requesting her and being told no. They even sent her to one store where literally the only one in the audience was the bookseller. Shelby performed her presentation anyway. The bookseller’s sad little clap at the end made her want to curl up in a ball.
Standing in front of a room full of empty chairs had been a terrible feeling. It brought her back to the days of being the new kid at school, the last one picked for the team or the group project. She knew bad turnouts were a normal rite of passage for debut novelist, but it hadn’t felt that way.
“And also, you have to decide what to do with these,” Mia said, dragging a box close to her feet. “They’re coming out in paperback this month. So are we keeping them or returning them?”
“I’ll look through and decide.” It was tricky when books came out in paperback and they still had hardcovers in stock. She could lose money mailing a return for a fraction of the book’s retail value, or she could lose money by not selling the book at all because readers could go for the paperback.
Sometimes, making a living selling books seemed like pushing a rock up a hill. Pam and Annie probably thought there were more practical ways for their daughter to make a living. Practical, yes. But special? No.
Shelby hadn’t realized how much she missed the feeling of finding the perfect book for someone. It was one thing to suspect it when she made the sale, but then when they came back and told her they loved it? Or emailed her all of their thoughts and she’d had the exact same feelings about it? In some ways, it was even more rewarding than writing a book—at least, most of the process of writing a book. So much of her time was spent alone, creating a story she could only hope would connect with readers. But when she sold books, she had a finished product in her hands and got the immediate gratification of sharing it with another person. For the most part, bookstore owners were in it for the love of books.
She knew Colleen certainly was. And she wasn’t going to let Kate Hendrik move in on her territory.