Chapter 2
Daisy
You see, bookshops are dreams
built of wood and paper …
They are, simply put, the best of places.
~ Jen Campbell
My whole demeanor softens when the front of Moss and Maple comes into view.
My grandparents turned an old craftsman house into our bookshop years ago.
I spent every spare hour here growing up—straightening and stocking books, running the cash register, refilling the coffee, talking with customers, and best of all, often tucked into a nook somewhere in the shop, losing myself in a book.
My mom doesn’t have a mind for business and my dad runs the hardware store.
When Gran retired, she left the shop in my hands.
When Gran passed, six months after Gramps, the shop was mine, bequeathed to me in her will.
If I close my eyes, sometimes I can see her moving through the space, tidying or chatting with a customer.
It’s like she left a part of herself behind for me.
We shared a love of books and people. My mom always says I’m far more like my grandma than I am like her. Maybe so.
I stare at Moss and Maple as I pull past it to park.
The house looks like any other historic home on the outskirts of town.
The wide front porch and large wood door could lead to a living room filled with comfortable furniture, toys scattered on the rug, kids running in and out from the yard until their dad came home from work and their mom announced time for dinner.
But Gran and Gramps bought this property and hung the carved wood sign out front over the entry years ago, and the old house has been home to Waterford’s local bookshop ever since.
Our large back lawn is surrounded by woods. The properties to the south side of us either still serve as homes or have been taken over by other small businesses, but the feel of the area remains the same—quaint, tranquil and welcoming.
On the north side of the building, a gravel lot surrounded by low wood fencing makes up our parking lot, and beyond that is an open field, a sweet reminder that not every inch of earth needs to be developed and populated.
I pull into a spot and grab my coffee, purse and box of books.
“I’m here,” I say into my cell.
“Me too,” Winona answers.
“I know, you goof.” I smile. “And thank you. I owe you one.”
“No problem. No one’s keeping score, Daisy. Moss and Maple is family. You always say that.”
I do always say that. It’s what Gran always said about our employees.
She told me, “Treat your employees like family, and your customers will always feel like your shop is their home away from home.” She might not have kept the financial books as well as she should have, but she definitely knew the spirit of how to run a business.
I inhale a deep breath once I’m inside. The scent of freshly brewed coffee fills the air, but just beneath that, the comforting and familiar aroma of musty vanilla. Old books. New books. Shelves of real wood. Floors scuffed by thousands of shoes over the years. This shop will always be home to me.
Winona emerges from the back room, a bandana tied around the lower half of her face and her fingers aimed at me in the shape of a gun.
“Give me all your Pride and Prejudice!” she shouts.
I set the box of special editions, my tumbler and purse on the counter and raise my hands. “Even the retellings?”
“All means all,” she says, pretending to cock the hammer of her invisible gun.
“I’d rather die,” I say.
She drops her hands and says, “Me too. Never surrender your pride or your prejudice or any combination of the two.”
“I don’t know if that’s the moral of that story.”
Winona simply sighs. “Why don’t they write books like that one anymore?”
I shrug. “Attention spans are shaped by the internet. No one has time or patience for sophisticated prose in this generation.”
Winona whips off the bandana and makes a flourish in the air. “Ah. The youth of today. Whatever shall we do with their feeble minds?”
“Storytime!” I exclaim, thrusting a fake sword into the air.
“Yes!” Winona shouts. “We shall woo them with storytime.”
We both burst into giggles just like we did as schoolgirls.
The shop door opens as if on cue and the first mom walks in, her preschool daughter holding her hand and her infant strapped to her in a sling.
“Hi, Miss Daisy,” Emmajean says. “I brought you a picture.”
I lean down and look at the drawing Emmajean is holding out.
“Wow. That’s amazing. Can you tell me all about it?”
Emmajean launches into a story about a princess and a pig, based loosely on the story we read last week, but highly embellished by her four-year-old imagination.
Winona offers Sarah a cup of coffee as other moms and preschoolers filter into the shop, making their way to the back room where the children will plop onto carpet squares laid out on the floor and the moms will fill the fluffy chairs and couches around the perimeter of the room.
“Mornin’,” Effie, our sixty-seven-year-old employee says, walking in behind a mom and two girls. “It’s a beautiful day.”
She beelines to the counter where Winona and I are standing. Then, in a stage whisper that’s far too loud to keep a secret, she says, “Heard you’re gettin’ a housemate.”
“Not a housemate,” I say too loudly, heat creeping up my neck at the thought.
Several heads turn.
I smile at our customers and lower my voice. “He’s moving in next door. Not into my house. For the love, Effie!”
She just chuckles and pats my hand. “You know they say hate and passion are two sides of the same coin. And passion can lead to all sorts of fun.”
“Not this passion,” I declare. “Not that I have passion … I don’t … at all. It’s just infuriating that he would move in right next door.”
“Forced proximity,” she smiles widely. “Remember when you taught me all the tropes of romance?”
“Effie!” Winona scolds. But she’s smiling widely. “Don’t tease about Patrick. He’s not a protagonist in a love story. He’s the evil villain. The arch-enemy.”
“I don’t know. He’s awfully sweet to be a villain,” Effie defends.
“That’s part of his diabolical scheme,” I say plainly. “The looks, the smiles, the unflappable nature. It’s all a part of lulling people into blind affection and denial of his darker nature.”
“Oooh. Now you’ve got me intrigued,” Effie says. She pauses and adds. “No. I don’t think so. I’m a pretty decent judge of character. Patrick’s one of the good ones.”
She pats my hand again for good measure and says, “Then again, vinegar and baking soda both have their uses. But put them together and—boom! Things start blowin’ up. Maybe that’s all it is with you two. You’ve got chemistry.”
“We most certainly do not have chemistry,” I insist. Then I take a breath. “I’m sorry, Effie. I don’t know what’s gotten into me.”
She smiles, resting her hand on mine this time. “Patrick has. Plain and simple.”
As quickly as she brought the subject up, she turns. “I’d better put my purse up. I’ll meet you in the back room for story time.”
Winona smiles at me. “Want me to man the counter until Waylon shows up?”
“Would you?”
“Sure. I’ve heard this one before.” She hands me a copy of The Frog and Toad Treasury and winks.
I take a steadying breath and stroll through the shop to join the group of moms and kids waiting in what we informally call “the book nook.” I take my seat in the old wood chair at the back of the room near the windows overlooking the grassy lawn and woods behind the shop.
“This week,” I say with a practiced flair to my voice, “We’re going to read a wonderful story called Frog and Toad Are Friends.”
“I have a toad in my yard!” Mikey shouts in his outside voice. “It’s diss big!”
“Evweebody has dem!” Theo shouts back.
I gently place my finger to my lips and the whole room copies my gesture.
“Thank you, friends,” I say softly. “I love hearing about your toads. Let’s talk about them after we read this special story.”
I pause to smile at the eager faces looking up at me as if I am in sole possession of the key to a brand new world.
“Do you know what?” I ask them.
“What?” the chorus of little voices answers me.
“My mom and my grandma used to read this story to me when I was your age.”
“Before you were bigger?” Luna asks, her brow scrunched severely as if she’s trying to reconcile the bizarre idea of me as a little girl.
“Yes. Many, many years ago. When I was little.”
It was only twenty-three years ago, but to them that might as well be a hundred lifetimes.
I smile, thinking of my childhood in this shop.
I hold the cover out and pan the room with it while I say, “Frog and Toad are Friends, by Arnold Lobel. Arnold Lobel is the author and the illustrator. He wrote this story and he drew the pictures.”
The previously wiggly group of children sit in rapt silence, their precious faces all tipped up toward me, eagerly awaiting my next words.
I push thoughts of Patrick O’Connell as far from my mind as possible, turn to the first page, and read, “Frog ran up the path to Toad’s house …”