Chapter 4
THREE MONTHS LATER
Something had to change. It was a fact that had been dogging Jenna for months, maybe even years, but she knew she finally had to face it now as she stared at the spreadsheet of sales for August and the numbers didn’t remotely add up.
There weren’t that many numbers to begin with; sales had been dipping steadily month on month for longer than she was comfortable acknowledging, even if she had to now, because the money, what there was of it, was running out.
If she kept on the way she was going, Jenna reflected glumly, Miller’s Mercantile might be forced to close its doors by Christmas, if not sooner.
She’d known this, at least on some level, for a while, but now it was smacking her in the face, and it hurt .
Her stomach felt as if it were lined with lead, and she had to swallow hard as she closed her laptop and stared into space, her mind too blank to think of options.
It had been a good summer in many respects.
She’d had fun with friends, spending long, lazy evenings at Laurie’s or Annie’s, or hanging out with Zach and Maggie and her son Ben at Your Turn Next, the boardgame café Maggie had opened on Main Street.
There had been hiking up to Starr’s Fall’s eponymous waterfall, and a day out at the beach on Bantam Lake, admiring the gorgeous lake houses with their own shore frontage.
Annie’s mother Barb was, amazingly, still hanging on, which had given Annie a new sort of energy, even though everybody knew the end was inevitable, as it was, Jenna supposed, for every person on this earth.
Still, she’d enjoyed it all, and she’d been both glad and grateful for the needed affirmation that she really did like her life in Starr’s Fall.
Plus, she hadn’t seen Jack Wexler once, which made her wonder if he’d limped back to New York in his shiny new hiking boots.
Good riddance , she’d thought, with only a small pang of uneasy guilt.
Back in July she’d noticed that his awful review had been taken down…
Had someone complained or had he suffered a crisis of conscience?
She didn’t know, but she was glad it was gone.
And now it was fall, one of her favorite times of year, the sky a deep blue and the air crisp, the leaves turning orange and red and crunching underfoot. Really, life, overall, was pretty good… if only her business wasn’t failing. If only she knew what to do about it.
As if on cue, her annoying little brother, who had known Miller’s Mercantile was struggling for longer than Jenna had, sauntered through the front door of the store.
“Hey, sis.” Zach gave her a lazy smile as he fished a pickle out of the barrel by the front door and bit into it with an audible and juicy crunch. “How’s life? Haven’t seen you in a few days,” he remarked around a mouthful of pickle.
“Life is fine,” Jenna replied, unable to keep a certain glumness from her tone.
Zach cocked his head. He was, Jenna knew, ridiculously good-looking, which had once made her—freckled, red-headed and slightly overweight—resent him, but she’d learned to if not love her body, then at least like it, and she no longer begrudged Zach his effortless boyband looks.
“Life is fine, but…?” he prompted as he swallowed his bite of pickle, clearly clocking her sour emphasis.
“I’m going to have to close Miller’s Mercantile by January if something doesn’t change,” she admitted reluctantly, bracing herself for his inevitable told-you-so, even if it was just in the form of a cocked eyebrow.
“And no matter what you think, Zach,” she couldn’t help but add, “selling a few ridiculously priced candles is not going to fix things.”
He took another bite of pickle, looking bemused. “That was never my suggestion, you know.”
“I know,” Jenna grumbled. “It was all artisan-this and fancy-that. Right?”
Zach shook his head slowly. “I still don’t get your beef with quality.” Jenna pressed her lips together rather than reply and he continued, his eyebrow now raised just as she knew it would be. “Is it really just because some rich jerk messed with your heart ten years ago?”
“And now I feel pathetic, so thank you for that,” Jenna replied tartly.
Her heartbreak summed up in one pithy sentence, so she felt like a teenaged girl who still couldn’t get over her crush.
“There might be a personal element,” she conceded, “but it’s also common sense.
We don’t get the tourists Litchfield does, we never have, so what’s the point catering to them?
” She’d had precious few gracing the store over what were meant to be the most touristy months of summer.
“ You don’t get the tourists,” Zach corrected her, “because Miller’s Mercantile looks like a cross between a goodwill donation center and a defunct Texaco.”
Jenna flushed. There was an old gas pump in the parking lot that her parents had bought in the hopes it might be put to good use—it never was—and Jenna hadn’t managed to get rid of it.
It was kind of cool in a retro way, but it was also an eyesore and took up way too much space.
As did the sagging sofa on the front porch that looked like a breeding ground for fleas.
Zach had said he’d shift it for months, but Jenna had put him off, because she liked the idea of a sofa on the porch. Just not that one.
“Seriously, Jenna,” Zach said, gentling his tone. “I really don’t get it. Why are you so resistant to change? Any change?”
Jenna shook her head. “It’s not worth going into now,” she stated, “because I know I have to change if I want to keep this place open. Whether I’m resistant or not”—and she had been, she knew that full well—“something’s got to give. I just need to figure out what—and how.”
“And you don’t want to go with my artisanal take?” Zach pressed, wiping his pickle-juiced hands on his well-worn jeans. “Inviting local artists and craftsmen? Having demonstrations, workshops…”
Jenna heard the enthusiasm in his voice, but she knew she didn’t share it.
“Zach, that sounds like something you could do with your furniture restoration business,” she told him with a weary smile.
“It would probably be amazing, but it’s your thing, not mine.
I don’t need to piggyback on your dream.
” And the truth was, Zach’s business was doing way better than hers, not that she was comparing them.
Much, anyway. But far too often when cars pulled up to Miller’s Mercantile, it was to go to Miller’s Furniture Restoration, only six months old, in the barn behind.
Jenna had lost count of the confused frowns and wrinkled brows of would-be customers stepping into the store and saying, “Sorry… I’m looking for the furniture place… ?”
She’d learned to smile as she pointed them in the right direction.
“All right.” Zach was, as ever, equable. “So what’s your dream?”
It was a fair question, and one she didn’t have an answer to.
Once, she’d had dreams. Big, rosy, romantic dreams of finding that fairy-tale love and living in New York, having the career and the marriage and everything that came with it.
All that had come crashing down around her.
And yes, maybe it was pathetic to still feel bruised after some guy messed with her heart ten years ago.
But it had hurt . And it had made her very reluctant to trust just about anyone—or anything—again.
Too good to be true almost always was . Including artisanal workshops and expensive candles.
“My dream,” Jenna told him in a tone that was meant to close down the conversation, “is to keep this place going, whatever it takes.”
“Seriously, Jenna.” Zach’s expression had gone all soft and, Jenna feared, somewhat pitying, which she really could not stand. She was the older sister, the responsible one who had it all together. She definitely did not need her little brother feeling sorry for her. Ever.
“I am serious.” She rose from behind the counter, grabbing a crate of bottles of laundry detergent she’d meant to stack earlier.
“Just because you chased your dream of furniture restoration doesn’t mean I have to follow suit.
Leave it, Zach.” Her voice held a note of warning, and thankfully Zach heeded it.
“Have you got plans tonight?” he asked instead. “There’s a Scrabble tournament at Your Turn Next. It’s also Nacho Night. Five-dollar cover and all the nachos you can eat. Maggie makes a mean salsa. Why don’t you come along?”
Nachos and Scrabble. There could be worse things, Jenna reflected. A lot worse things. And, more because she didn’t want Zach feeling sorry or, heaven help her, worrying about her rather than actually wanting her to go, she shrugged her assent. “Sure, I’ll go. Why not?”
* * *
That evening, Jenna was strolling down Main Street, enjoying the September sunshine that set the lampposts afire as twilight began to darken the edges of the sky to violet.
The leaves of the maples lining the street were tipped scarlet, and yet the air still held the drowsy warmth of summer.
Jenna loved this time of year, when everything felt as if it were on the cusp; it reminded her of her school days, of sharpened pencils and fresh paper and a sense of optimistic possibility that in truth she couldn’t remember feeling in a very long while.
She’d figure it out, she told herself, trying her best to hold on to that fragile, fleeting sense of optimism that the weather had given her.
She’d find a way forward for Miller’s Mercantile.
Maybe more staples for the average townsperson, some extra decorations at Christmas, a section of prepared meals for the hurried homemaker, or…
Her mind sputtered out like a pickup truck on empty. She just couldn’t think what else to do. She had tried various ideas over the years, admittedly in a cautious and hesitant way that hardly counted, but still .