Chapter Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Eight
Carmen Lombardo didn’t spend a lot of time at Land’s End Books. She wasn’t much of a reader. In fact, the only book she read that year had been Shelby’s. (She’d been surreptitious about it knowing her husband and son wouldn’t understand.)
She wondered if that was part of the bookstore’s appeal for Mia. Teenagers always leaned towards whatever was opposite of their parents. And Carmen was fine with that—to an extent. But she was getting concerned.
Two nights ago, Carmen and Bert had been in bed watching an old episode of Beat Bobby Flay , debating whether or not they should add beer-battered cod to the menu, when Mia walked into their bedroom. Carmen found it endlessly irritating that her children never bothered knocking on the door before walking in. As if Carmen and Bert couldn’t possibly be doing anything that might be embarrassing to interrupt. (Which was entirely off base, thank you very much.)
“Mia, I’m happy to see you, but please, for the hundredth time...”
“I heard your TV on so I knew you were awake,” she said, sitting on the edge of the bed. Carmen looked at her husband and he shook his head: he gave up.
“How was the book party?” she said, turning back to Mia.
“Amazing. I’m actually good at this. The bookstore thing.”
“I’m sure you are,” Carmen said, smiling at her.
“Yeah. So... I’ve decided this is what I want to do after high school. I’m not going to apply to college.”
Carmen turned to Bert. She didn’t trust herself to speak without having an emotional outburst.
“Mia, don’t upset your mother with this nonsense,” he said. “If you want to work in the bookstore, work in the bookstore. But you’re going to do it with a college education.”
“I just don’t understand why you see this as an either/or decision,” Carmen said. “Colleen went to college. Shelby went to college.” Where was this coming from?
“I’m not Colleen. I’m not Shelby. And I’m not Justin. And I’m not good at school .” Her face turned red, and her eyes teared. “Why don’t you understand anything I say to you?” She walked out, slamming the door behind her.
“ What is going on?” Carmen said to Bert. Really, for most of the last school year she’d felt something was off. But she’d hoped that over summer break, Mia would relax a little. Cheer up. But she was barely going out with her friends. In fact, with all the hours Mia was logging at the bookstore, she was spending more time with Shelby than with anyone else. “Maybe I should talk to Shelby,” she said.
“Why would you do that?”
“All the time Mia’s spending at the bookstore. Maybe she knows something we don’t.”
Bert conceded it might be worth a try, but not to get her hopes up.
“I just need your help with one thing,” Carmen said. “Ask Mia out to lunch so I have a window of time alone with Shelby.”
Carmen found Shelby busy with a customer. And when Shelby noticed her walk in, her face registered surprise. As soon as she finished with the sale she walked right over to where Carmen stood browsing the new releases.
“Hi, Carmen,” she said. “Good to see you.”
“Good to see you ,” Carmen said. Shelby was adorable as usual, dressed in denim shorts and a short-sleeved button-down shirt with a Peter Pan collar. “How’s your summer going so far?”
“Great,” Shelby said. “I didn’t realize how much I missed this place.”
“Are you writing a new book? I really enjoyed Secrets of Summer . The ending was just... It made me smile.”
“Oh, that means a lot to me,” Shelby said, beaming. “I always want to write happy endings.”
A silence settled between them. Carmen knew she should get to the point of her visit, but now that she was standing there, she was second-guessing her visit. Maybe it was inappropriate.
“Mia’s been a big help around here,” Shelby finally offered.
Carmen nodded. “Glad to hear it.” That was her opening. She glanced around the store to make sure no one could overhear them. “That’s actually why I’m here. I’d like to talk to you about her.”
“Oh?” Shelby said, frowning. “Sure. Is everything okay?” A boisterous group of men filed in, dressed in swim trunks and T-shirts and carrying shopping bags from Tea by the Sea. “Excuse me for just a minute,” she said to Carmen.
“Of course. Please, no rush.”
Shelby asked the group if anyone needed help, and one of the men asked her to recommend a memoir or essay collection that would make good beach reading. Shelby directed him to the nonfiction section and Carmen heard her mention a book called The Andy Cohen Diaries . That sounded fun. She really should try to read more.
Just as she was thinking that she should leave and let Shelby do her job in peace—that it had been a mistake to go in the first place—Shelby returned to her side and suggested they talk behind the counter where they’d have a little more privacy.
“So, something is going on with Mia?” Shelby said in a low voice.
“I’m not sure,” Carmen said carefully. “But I’m concerned. She’s telling her father and me she doesn’t want to go to college. Do you know anything about this? I only ask because of all the hours you spend working together. And also, she was so fond of you that last summer you were here.”
Shelby sighed. “To be honest, I’d say she’s considerably less fond of me. So I’m probably not the best person to ask.”
Carmen couldn’t hide her disappointment—not just that Shelby didn’t know anything to help her, but that it seemed Mia was closed off to her, too. And she didn’t believe it was just because of the breakup.
Something was going on.
The front door opened again, and Duke Nestley walked in. He gave Shelby a wave, then stopped to talk to one of the men in the bathing suit group. When he made his way over to them, he greeted Carmen with notable coolness.
“Mia told me your house was just perfect for the book event,” she said.
He put his hands on his hips. “Honestly, Carmen, it would be even more perfect if Shelby could use the beach. But thanks to your son, that’s not happening anytime soon.”
What was he talking about? She turned to Shelby.
“What did Justin do?”
Shelby shook her head. “It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine,” Duke said. “Shelby petitioned at town hall to get temporary use of the space out there for book events, and Justin led the charge voting it down. It seemed a little personal, if you ask me.”
That didn’t sound like Justin.
By the time she walked out of the bookstore, she had more unanswered questions than when she’d walked in. At least with Justin, she could just ask him directly what was going on.
As for Mia? She didn’t know what she was going to do.
Hunter, sitting in the front row of Anders’s Tuesday-morning class, refused to let Shelby’s careerist dinner maneuver get to her. It was just one night, whereas Hunter saw him twice a week. They had a genuine, creative rapport. And she couldn’t help but wonder if it could lead to something more. He was proper and sexy at the same time—like Hugh Grant in that old movie Four Weddings and a Funeral .
From a few rows back someone asked, “What are your thoughts on beta readers?”
Hunter knew from her job at Malaprop that some authors had a writing group or even just one reliable friend who read their work before they delivered it to their editor.
“They can be useful,” Anders said. “It’s not always possible, but if I have someone who can give my work a quick read? Sure. But it’s important to choose that reader wisely, and to not have too many cooks in the kitchen, as they say.”
Hunter stopped typing notes and looked up. She’d love to read his manuscript. It would be a great experience—not something she could necessarily put on her résumé, but she’d know she’d done it. It would boost her confidence, make her feel closer to her ambition of making it in the big leagues.
When class was over, she lingered. People trickled out, and just when she thought she was in the clear, a classmate monopolized Anders for five minutes of name-dropping from his experience working at the Newburyport Literary Festival. She stayed in her chair, pretending to be busy on her laptop. When the guy finally left, she packed her things.
“Hello there, Hunter. I apologize for not getting to your question earlier. The class seemed to have stalled on the topic of the unreliable narrator and we needed to move on.”
“Oh, that’s fine,” she said. “I just wanted to say that if you need someone to read your work in progress, I’d be happy to take a look.”
Anders rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. “Well, that’s a generous offer. I might very well take you up on it.”
Hunter walked out of the classroom feeling better than she had all summer. And she realized it wasn’t just because of the manuscript. It was because of Anders.
She wanted him.