Chapter Twenty
CHAPTER TWENTY
Mika asked if I wanted to meet up for coffee.
She was one of my coworkers from the bookstore days.
I liked her a lot, and we had these coffee dates to catch up about twice a year.
I’d turned down an invitation from her the previous month, and although I still wasn’t in the mood to socialize, the visit with Brittany and Reza had been mostly enjoyable.
It felt more exhausting to have to think up another excuse. Better to go and get it over with.
We met at a new place that she was excited to try.
It was off the main roads and tucked into a neighborhood not far from Macon’s.
The building was small and old, but it had a fresh coat of indigo-blue paint, a lemon-yellow door with matching window frames, and a clawfoot tub planter filled with pink and orange cosmos and herbs.
I spotted Mika right away. She’d chosen a table by the front window.
It was raining, and as I ducked inside, the café enveloped me in its warmth and calming energy. Scents of coffee and baked goods and potted plants mingled with a general vibe of cleanliness and friendliness. Some slumbering part of me stirred.
Mika had a huge smile on her face as she stood to greet me. “Is it okay if I hug you?”
I was still desperate to be hugged, but I appreciated when people were thoughtful enough to ask for permission first. It wasn’t something I’d considered before the pandemic.
I had given hugs to everybody back then, even to people who, frankly, probably hadn’t wanted them.
I felt bad about that now, how much personal space I had invaded.
Now I was careful with my hugs. It made sense that Mika was, too.
Her soul was gentle and attuned to the needs of others.
She moved through the world with a delicacy and light touch that I had always admired. It felt good to hug her.
“I got here early, so I already ordered,” she said. “I hope that’s okay.”
“Of course. What is that? It smells delicious.”
“The wildflower latte.” Her eyes widened and her smile grew. “Crushed flowers, buds, and a homemade floral syrup. Everything here is plant-based.”
I smiled back, my first easy smile in a while.
Mika’s was so infectious that it was hard not to mimic it.
I set my umbrella beside the table and went to the counter to place my order.
The baristas were as friendly and approachable as their surroundings.
I ordered a wildflower latte with coconut milk and then bought a vegan cinnamon roll, too.
Had Macon been here yet? He’d never mentioned it, but it seemed like his kind of place. He didn’t eat out often, though, so maybe he hadn’t heard of it. I’d have to tell him.
I was already feeling more alive as I took the chair across from Mika. “How have you been? How’s Bex?”
“Ooh, that looks good,” she said, admiring my cinnamon roll. And then, “They’re doing well. They’re about to receive their fifth-degree black belt.” Bex was Mika’s spouse who co-owned a taekwondo studio.
“Fifth! How many degrees are there?”
“Nine. Actually ten, but that last one is only given out posthumously.”
“Seriously?”
“Dead serious,” she said—and then laughed at her own joke.
We were already in. I loved all my friends, but I especially appreciated the ones who required no training wheels, no remedial courses to slide back into the rhythm of conversation.
“There’s a title change with the fifth degree, too. They’ll go from Instructor to Master Instructor. I told Bex that under no circumstances will I be calling them Master.”
“Master Bex,” I said, delighted.
She laughed again. “Under. No. Circumstances.”
“Well, please pass along my congratulations to Master Bex. I’m thrilled for them.”
“And Cory? How’s he doing?”
The café dimmed. I slipped out of my protective shell and into the driving rain.
“Whoa,” Mika said. “Where’d you go?”
It wasn’t surprising that she’d noticed the change, but it was surprising that she’d phrased it like that.
I repeated the long, humiliating story I had been telling all month.
I wasn’t that far into it when Mika reached across the table and grasped my hand.
Many people had given me commiserations and reassurances, but nobody had held me like that. It was pure Mika.
The rain softened against the window.
“I am so sorry,” she said when I was done talking.
“It’s okay,” I said, like always. Except I meant it a little more this time.
And then I said something new. “I think we were so stuck in our relationship that creating this overly complicated plan was the only way we could get out of it. Like, it had to be done in steps. I don’t think we ever could have just faced each other and said, ‘This isn’t working for me. ’”
These words rang with truth inside me, and I felt a burden lift. I was relieved to finally understand what we had done. That there had been a reason for everything. I didn’t have to feel so much shame and confusion anymore. Our plan had served a purpose all along.
“That makes sense,” Mika said. “It’s still strange.”
“It is. But we also made it through lockdown together, you know? And so many other couples didn’t.
I guess we figured, ‘Hey, we’re set. We’re good here.
’” My cinnamon roll was still untouched, so I released her hand to fork off the end piece that stuck out from the bun.
“I mean, Macon and his girlfriend broke up, like, the second the vaccine came out.”
“Who’s Macon?”
“Oh.” My cheeks reddened. “My coworker.”
Her eyebrows rose.
“It’s nothing like that.”
She continued to gently stare me down.
I couldn’t lie to Mika. “Maybe I was interested, but he’s not.”
Her brows lowered, and she sat with that for a moment. Sipped her latte. “Are you still interested?”
“I’m not looking for anybody right now. And when I do want somebody, I want them to want me back.”
“That’s a healthy answer.”
“Hey.” I sort of laughed. “Progress.”
She laughed, too. “So, apart from this single coworker—who for some unimaginable reason is not interested in you—how’s work?” Her expression fell as she watched mine fall. “Oh no. That bad?”
Mika was one of the few people to whom I’d admitted that I didn’t love my job.
The library was such a perfect fit for me that I felt ashamed for not liking it as much as I should.
In that regard, it wasn’t that dissimilar to the situation with Cory.
Things between us had been good but not right, which had left an unsettling disconnect.
It didn’t make sense for me not to love my job.
I was working with books, my coworkers were great, the building was beautiful.
What was wrong with me that I couldn’t feel satisfied with what I had?
But Mika understood because she was also stuck with an enviable job that she was skilled at but didn’t love.
She’d been working for the last few years as a buyer for a popular gift shop downtown.
I told her about turning down library school, and she listened sympathetically.
“So that’s it, then?” she said. “You’ll never be able to move into a higher position? ”
“No, I could still pay for school myself. But the thought of going back makes me ill. It’s so much time and money, and I don’t care about the more technical aspects of the field that they’d teach me.
I doubt it would feel worth it. And it’d be hard swallowing those fees now knowing that I could have taken the classes for free.
I should have just done it, but… it was like there was this force inside me physically stopping me from doing it. ”
“I disagree. I think you were right to listen to that force. It was there for a reason. It was protecting you from making a mistake.”
“Maybe,” I said miserably.
“No, I really believe that.” She said it with such conviction that it was comforting.
I asked about her job and allowed her to unburden herself of her usual complaints—her frustration about having to stock products she didn’t respect, her displays being underappreciated by the owner, her artistic side feeling stifled.
The store was bigger than most gift shops, a busy mainstay downtown that attracted a lot of tourists and had a large staff.
Mika had a great position and was paid decently for it.
She liked being a buyer, she liked working downtown, and she liked helping customers.
All of this made the job just good enough that she couldn’t justify leaving it.
“Why does stability feel so much like settling?” I asked.
“Not always. I don’t feel this way about Bex.”
“Sometimes I wish we could have our old jobs back.”
“Or that we’d been able to buy the store. Remember how we wanted to buy it?”
Mika had loved the Tick-Tock Bookshop as much as I had.
Born in Japan, her family had moved here when she was a tween, and she’d become a voracious reader as a way to get a better grasp on the language.
We’d both started at the bookstore around the same time, and we’d both been devastated when it had closed.
We had spent so many shifts fantasizing about what we would do if it were ours, but Mika was only two years older than me, so we’d both been young and broke.
Saving it hadn’t been an option. Instead, the space had turned into a boutique for hot sauce and hot sauce–related apparel.
“I honestly can’t believe that in a town like this, we still don’t have a good bookstore,” I said.
“That used store on Dogwood sells a few new titles, the popular ones. The same ones available at the box stores. But mainly everyone’s just buying their books from the Bad Place.”
Neither of us ever invoked the name of the online retailer that had a stranglehold on the industry. All these years later, it still tasted like a curse on our tongues.
“We should open a new bookstore,” I said, not meaning it.
“Yeah. With a huge banned books display right in the front window on opening day.” She smiled because she’d heard my stories about the banners at the library.
We continued to rhapsodize, adding reading nooks and local art and sustainable goods.
I could see it all so clearly. By the time our conversation shifted back to the real world, the seed had already begun to germinate inside my mind.
By nightfall, it had taken root. I went to bed early and, like always, struggled to fall asleep.
But instead of thinking about being alone, instead of thinking about a man, I thought about the store. I thought about what if.