Chapter Twenty-Five
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
I was still feeling hostile about being pressured into it when I took my seat at the Ridgetop Means Bizness orientation.
The stackable chairs were modern and lime green and matched the rest of the building’s decor, which gave off the vibe of a derivative tech start-up, further inflaming my distrust. There were fourteen of us.
Everybody was older than me except for one person who looked to be a few years younger.
This did provide a smidge of encouragement.
Starting a business was a job for adults, and if they were one, I supposed I was, too.
A man named Jamal with a friendly smile and a lime-green Ridgetop Means Bizness polo shirt walked us through what the organization had to offer.
He was good. His enthusiasm seemed genuine, and I felt myself being a little swayed.
Classes started in two weeks, but I could take them at night while still working at the library.
They also had their own loan department and—because they were a nonprofit organization as opposed to a bank—they could lend to people whom traditional banks couldn’t.
They could afford to take greater risks on their students.
Despite being unsure, I took home their paperwork.
When Macon asked how it had gone, I told him okay .
My lack of elaboration was a signal for him to leave me alone about it, which he did.
Instead, I asked the stained-glass portrait of Mary Brisson what she thought about me leaving to open a bookstore.
Mary met my inquiry with stoic silence, still cradling her book as if it were a holy baby, but I swear a new spark lit behind her eyes.
It might have been light reflecting off the lake, though.
At Macon’s house, the moment finally arrived: The cabinetry’s paint had cured, and it was time to reassemble the kitchen. All other projects were put on hold while we reattached the hardware, slid the drawers into place, and screwed the doors on.
We stepped back to take in the result of our hard work.
The effect was a magical heightening of reality.
The room gleamed with light and warmth and sunshine.
It looked both inviting and comforting, and it spoke of enchanted kitchens of yore—of braided bread loaves and bundles of herbs drying upside down and piping hot bowls of nourishing soup.
It was a space that encouraged love and gathering.
“I’m a little speechless,” I said.
We were standing side by side, and his voice thickened. “Thank you.”
I fought the urge to lay my head on his shoulder.
A number of frequently used items were already sitting on the shelves, but now we took our time adding the rest and arranging everything so that the most beautiful items—the drinking glasses and a collection of ceramic mugs made by local potters—were positioned in the open shelving.
Then we refilled the drawers with everything that had been crowding his dining room.
Suddenly both rooms looked better, and the clean spaces also highlighted all the recently conditioned wood.
This corner of his house no longer looked weak and empty. It had life .
“Is it okay for me to say that it looks even better now than it did when it was filled with Danielle’s stuff?”
It was a tease, but he answered matter-of-factly. “It is okay, and it does.”
“I think we’re restoring your house’s spirit.”
He let that sit for a moment before asking, “Just the house?”
I’d thrown my whole self into the work as a distraction. The need to do it had felt beyond my control. A compulsion, or maybe I was being compelled by something bigger. Macon was right. My spirit was in the process of being restored, too. And I was changing.
“I’ve decided to do it,” I said. “Open a bookstore.”
His brows rose in surprise, and I laughed—also with surprise.
“I decided just now,” I clarified.
“Oh my God. But that’s great.”
Library school had filled me with dread, but whenever I thought about business school, I felt nervous. It was that tingly anxious nervousness that could often be mistaken for a bad feeling but actually meant something was important and shouldn’t be ignored.
“I know it’ll be hard—” I started.
“You can do hard things,” he said.
“And I know it might fail—”
“It’s not going to fail.”
“It might. But even so, I want to do it.”
Unexpectedly, Macon sprang toward his fridge with a rare level of excitement and rummaged around until he found what he was looking for. “It’s not champagne, but it is bubbly.”
It was a golden-brown liquid in an unlabeled, repurposed bottle. “What is that? Vinegar?”
“Close. Kombucha.”
I laugh-groaned. “I didn’t recognize it without the amoeba pancakes.”
“Yeah, the mother is in my bedroom right now, making more.”
“Oh, Macon. The mother is in your bedroom .”
He ignored this and gave me a practical response. “It creeped you out, so I moved it into my closet where you wouldn’t have to look at it.”
I didn’t expect such a touching reason. “Aw. You hid the monster for me.”
He tried to scowl as he poured the beverage into two tumblers, but the corners of his mouth twitched. He shoved one of the glasses at me. “Just drink your celebratory fizz.”
I held it aloft for him to clink.
“To your bookstore,” he said.
“To my bookstore.” The words were as terrifying as they were jubilant.
Mika shrieked with joy. “I want to be your assistant manager. Promise me I’m your first hire.”
I wished I could hug her through our phones. “Of course you’re hired.”
On my first day of community college, I’d met Cory.
On my first day of business school, I gave Sue my six weeks’ notice.
On both occasions, the ground slipped out from underneath me, but while the former had given me a giddy floating sensation, the latter felt more like being unmoored.
I was preparing to say goodbye to stability, a regular paycheck, and health insurance.
“Yes,” Sue said. “But you’re saying hello to the opportunity for a bigger life.”
After some initial concern and a lot of questions to make sure my decision wasn’t as impulsive as it sounded—I had the money I’d been saving ever since I’d paid off my student loans, which wasn’t insignificant, plus the business school’s loan department had a solid track record of providing assistance—she was proud of me.
She said everything my parents had already said over the phone, and although I was grateful for their support, it meant even more to me coming from her.
Perhaps that was unfair. But Sue knew the adult me, she had witnessed the adult me, and my parents largely hadn’t.
When Sue believed I could do it, she made me believe, too.
School was school: helpful, overwhelming, boring, necessary.
I studied operations, research and development, financials, and marketing.
I worked on creating a business plan and learned how to apply for a loan.
Every time I grappled with the notion that I was about to drain my entire savings and willingly go back into debt, I felt sick, but there was no getting around it.
I needed the money, and I didn’t have the sort of family that I could ask to borrow it from.
Nor would I have wanted to. My pride wouldn’t let me.
This was something I had to do on my own.
My new teacher also made it clear that I needed to start looking for a business location immediately.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t the only location that needed finding.
I arrived home after my first class to discover a letter from my landlord slipped underneath my door.
My lease was ending on July first, and if I wanted to renew, there would be an increase in rent.
The rent was already more than I felt comfortable paying on my own, but I’d been planning to make it work somehow because I didn’t think I could handle becoming single, starting a business, and moving into a new place all in the same year. Now I had no choice.
“He only gave you two weeks’ notice?” Kat asked. “Is that legal in America?”
“I think so? I don’t even want to live here, but it was the one thing in my life that I didn’t have to deal with. I was gonna figure it out next summer.”
I chose to take it as a sign that it was stupid of me to keep ignoring the rent; I had to move someplace more affordable.
This was not the time to indulge. But a glance around my apartment made me want to cry again.
My one-bedroom with crappy furniture didn’t feel like an indulgence .
I supposed now I needed to find a studio. A less-than-one-bedroom.
I announced it that way at work the next morning. “I need to find a less-than-one-bedroom.”
Macon was confused, but when I told him about the letter, the audacity of the timing infuriated him.
“I don’t have time for anger,” I said. “I have to go to work, go to class, write a business plan, find a business location, and now find an apartment and move everything I own in two weeks. Not that it will take me long to move everything I own,” I added bitterly.
He didn’t even think about it. “You can stay with me.”
My heart stopped. What did he mean by that?
“You can take the spare room. Edmond’s room.”
I checked to see if any of our coworkers had overheard. They hadn’t. But my glancing around made him conscious of them, too. He hadn’t been talking loudly, but he lowered his voice even further. “Until you have time to find your own place, of course.”
“That might not be for a while.”
“That’s okay. It’ll give you a chance to save up some more money.”
“You want me to live with you rent free ?”
“Why would I charge you? You’ve done so much work on my house. You’ve already paid.”
I was stupefied. “Macon…”
Did he look hopeful?
“I can’t live with you,” I said carefully. Because it’s confusing. Because it would mean different things to each of us. Because I might never want to leave.