Stacked

CHAPTER TWELVE

R OBERT

I hired four intrepid high schoolers to help me, two guys and two girls. They all wanted to go to art school. Scott wanted to be a graphic designer, Ashleigh already sold prints of her work on Etsy and had a decent following on TikTok, Cade wanted to be a professional photographer, and Brianna had won a few regional awards for her paintings. This was a good gig for them, and they were all more enthusiastic than I expected. By the middle of June, they were working out of the back of the bookstore four mornings a week, building a structure made of paper maché that we stored underneath a large tarp in the parking lot.

Watching them work was fun.

I liked the hustle and energy that came with having two projects going on at the same time on the property. There was almost a madness to it, a chaos that spread through the building, infecting everything. Javier and his team were up front, hammering, sawing, spackling, and gluing. Sometimes, it was just him, and sometimes there were two or three other workers with him. Then, in the back, the high school kids dug into their project, taking photos of it for social media: their hands covered in plaster, buckets everywhere, and supplies like chicken wire and old newspaper.

It was infectious.

I loved overseeing it all, making suggestions, and watching the vision come to life in front of me. This was totally different from what I’d done in New York City, where most of my daily grind consisted of balancing numbers on a spreadsheet. This was unique, and unlike the mindless repetition of that life, managing these two projects meant I had to work my brain in ways I hadn’t since college. I came in early and stayed late.

That’s how Anya found me one Saturday night in late June, ten days before the parade. It was after eight, and everyone else had gone home, but I remained behind, going over paint swatches for the wall behind the performance space in the store. I knew I wanted the navy, but which one? Imperial? Sapphire? Crescent?

So many choices.

“Anyone here?” she called as she walked through the unlocked front door. “I saw the lights on, and—”

“Oh, hey there.” I rounded the edge of the bar, hoping I looked and sounded casual. “Pardon the mess.”

“Still under construction, huh?”

“A few more weeks. We might be ready before Labor Day, though, maybe even mid-August.”

“Impressive.” She moved a few steps closer to me. “You’ve done a lot with this space.”

“Have you ever been here?”

“Not since high school, when it was a—”

“German bakery,” we said in unison.

She smiled and glanced at the dusty floor. Anya had a nice smile; one that made her eyes dance and soften the skin around them. “Had great bagels.”

“With brown sugar butter,” I replied. “The only way to fly.”

Her gaze returned to me. “Going to put bagels on the menu?”

“Hadn’t thought of that.”

“You’re going to serve food at the bar, right?”

Putting down my paint swatches, I said, “Yeah, I think so.”

“Good.” Her expression slackened as if she was wrestling with something in her mind. “I shouldn’t have stopped here. This was a bad idea.”

“Why?” I walked forward.

“I’m just... I’m sorry.” She turned halfway, as if she wanted to see herself out. “I was curious and...and I probably shouldn’t have barged in here like this.”

“I don’t think you barged in.”

“No, I did.” Anya moved a few steps backward, the heels of her flat gold sandals clacking against the freshly laid Positano tile. “Anyway, it looks great. You should be proud of all the work you’re putting into this. It’s fantastic.”

“You don’t have to leave.”

“I should.”

“Why?” I was still confused, still at a loss. Meeting her for drinks a few weeks earlier had been so nice, so refreshing. Comfortable, even. It hadn’t been a date, hadn’t been something formal, but I enjoyed it and thought she did too. Couldn’t we at least be friendly? That wouldn’t hurt, would it?

“Listen,” I tried. “I ordered pizza about a half hour ago, and it should be here soon. Want to stay and eat some?”

“I don’t—”

“It’s a meat lover’s one from Papa’s Pizza. You know you can’t resist that. Nobody around here can.”

Anya hesitated. “I do love that pizza.”

I gave her my widest smile. “Good, since I ordered plenty. I’d love for you to join me and have some.”

“I feel like you’re always trying to get me to eat with you.”

I shrugged. “I like food.” We stared at each other for a beat, and when she didn’t move, I said, “Well, then, it’s settled.”

“Settled?”

I gestured to the door. “The delivery guy just showed up.”

Anya turned in time to see a silver sedan with an askew “Papa’s Pizza” sign parked in the spot outside the front door. The driver hopped out and brought a large pizza box to the door. Even though I prepaid for the meal online, I yanked a few more dollars from my wallet, gave him the extra tip, and thanked him for being speedy on the delivery.

When I regarded Anya again, I balanced the box on the palm of my hand. “You’re not going to turn me down now, are you?”

“No way.”

“Good. Then we can eat at the bar, since it’s clean enough.”

The setup was simple. A large pizza piled with sausage, pepperoni, prosciutto, ground beef, bacon, and ham between us, two paper plates I dug up out of the box of provisions I brought in for the workers, a few paper towels to use as napkins, and two bottles of San Pellegrino from the stash of drinks in the cooler next to the pile of painting supplies. Not much, but enough.

“A real gourmet feast,” I said, sliding onto the barstool next to her. I lifted the sparking water bottle and clinked it with hers. “Cheers.”

“Cheers.” She laughed. “Sparking water. I should have guessed.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

She sipped some, put the drink on the counter, and pulled a piece of pizza from the round. “It's just very New York of you.”

“People don’t drink sparkling water here?”

“Not with that kind of panache.”

“I guess the Big Apple rubbed off on me.” I took my own slice, and the toppings were piled so high that a few fell onto the box liner as I moved it to the plate. “This is the first time I’ve had Papa’s since I moved back. Didn’t realize how much I craved it.”

“One of the best things about New Burlington.”

We ate a few bites in silence, and I savored the explosion of salty meat, cheese, dough, and sauce. It really did taste like home. Papa’s Pizza was present in so many of my early memories. Celebrations after big T-ball wins. Every class’s Christmas party in elementary school. Grub we grabbed during high school football games from the concession stand, which stocked towers of it next to the popcorn. So much of that came out in every bite, to the point that I wasn’t sure Papa’s was good . It didn’t have to be. It was just... cozy.

After the last few years in New York, that mattered the most. I craved comfort, and so far, I’d found it.

“I’m never doing that again,” I said to myself.

“Never doing what?”

I looked up from my bite, surprised I’d said that aloud. “The things I did before. When I lived in the city.”

“And what was that?” Anya was further along than I was, her slice of pizza more than halfway gone. She placed what remained on the paper plate and stared at me, waiting for an answer.

“Just stuff.”

It wasn’t an answer, and I knew it, but I also wasn’t ready to tell her all those details. In fact, I wasn’t ready to tell anyone the sordid shit I went through that prompted my move back to New Burlington. Even my Mom didn’t know everything. When I called to say I resigned from my job, my mom had been dumbfounded. I’d been so burned-out, ready to leave. Nothing could have kept me there anymore.

“You’ve done so well at Kane Capital,” she said on the phone from Sarasota six months ago. She lived there almost nine months out of the year now, and it wouldn’t be long before she sold the house on Green Court in New Burlington and made Florida their permanent home. So far this year, they hadn’t been back, finding a plethora of excuses to explain why they remained in the Sunshine State. “Another year or two, and you’ll be a principal there.”

I was at the tail end of another eighty-hour work week when she made this comment. I slept in my office most of those days, terrified I would miss movement on the Asian markets. Every line on my computer spreadsheets mattered, and every investment call I took was one more chance for me to squeeze a dollar from people who expected big profits and returns on their sizable accounts.

They were never happy, and neither were my bosses. And not so slowly, I became allergic to being happy too.

Plus, there was the little problem of what I’d discovered clicking around on the company intranet. I tried to ignore it. Tried to unsee the reality. Tried to make it go away. If I had been the only one who had noticed, would that mean I might have gotten it wrong?

But I hadn’t. I knew that. I’d seen something undeniable, and that had changed everything.

“Wall Street isn’t what you think it is,” I replied to my mom, hoping she wouldn’t press me too much more. I didn’t want to tell her what I’d seen, and I didn’t want to expose her to any liability. “And you know my dream was to work at a VC firm, not a hedge fund.”

“Aren’t they the same thing?”

I laughed. “No. The salary is great, sure, but that’s about it.”

“But New Burlington?”

“It’s nothing like that,” I replied. “And that matters.”

“It got to where I had a choice to make,” I said now to Anya. “My professional life was at a huge crossroads. I could extract myself from the situation, and leave with my dignity intact, or ignore what I knew and risk everything.”

Her jaw went slack. “What? Like criminal stuff?”

I shrugged. “Will you be shocked if I say yes?”

“Of course.”

“Then I’ll say no.”

“Which means yes.”

I spread my hands. “That answer means whatever you want it to mean.” I laughed to myself. Hadn’t I just thought I would keep this all to myself? Congrats, your plan just went out the damn window.

She grimaced. “Oh my God.”

“Wall Street attracts a lot of types. I’m sure that doesn’t surprise you.”

“No, but it’s one thing to hear about it or read about it, and it’s another to know someone with firsthand knowledge of it.”

I nodded. That comment made sense, and it was something I’d mulled over more than once too. During college, I’d been so idealistic, so young, and so naive. Sure, I’d heard about how greedy people in finance could be, how money could corrupt people before they knew what had happened to them, but I’d been determined that would never be me. I would never let the city get to me that way and would never compromise myself for a commission or a bonus. I was principled. I’d been raised right. And I was a good guy.

Mostly.

At first, that had been easy. I’d kept things straight, aboveboard. I got good returns for clients, gave them sound advice, and made careful moves that limited risk for a while, which was enough.

Too loose.

But not criminal. Never that. I never pushed that far. I kept to the shady road, always erring on the side of what could be proven as simply coincidental or a product of chance.

My colleagues didn’t. The gates were open, nobody cared, and they took full advantage of the gap. People were dying all around us, life as we knew it had shut down, and a thin film of existential dread seemed to cover the city, but the people I worked with couldn’t have cared less. They decamped to the Hamptons or flew away to Palm Beach, and they set about making as much money as they could from all the misery.

That was it for me. The moment of clarity I needed. I’d set my sights on getting out of there.

“Don’t worry,” I told Anya, turning my attention back to our conversation. “I’m not all bad. I still have some morals.”

“Good.”

She smiled, and I guessed that while what I’d said disgusted her, she was at least willing to stick around. And that was... welcomed. I needed more friends in town and figured a budding friendship with a rival bookseller wasn’t a bad place to start. After all, if she ran that kind of place, it meant she loved books. And I did too.

“So,” I said. “Now that we’ve got my horrid past out of the way, did you figure out what you’re doing for the parade?”

Anya was midbite when I asked that question, and she forced a hard swallow. “I think I’ve worked out a plan. You?”

“Sort of. I heard its stiff competition.”

“I think I indicated that when you were turning in your entry fee at the city building.”

“Yeah, but now I’ve heard it from a bunch of other people too.”

“It’s a very big deal.” She raised her left eyebrow, which was groomed but cosmetic-free. In fact, most of her was that way. Light, simple makeup that enhanced her natural beauty. Honey brown hair that wasn’t over styled, and a guileless air about her that said she’d given up trying to fit into whatever standard of beauty ruled the day. All that attracted me, and probably because it was so different from the women I knew in New York. “The winner gets their name engraved on a plaque that hangs in the city council chamber. So, this isn’t just about the cash prize.”

“Didn’t know about that.”

She gave me a slow nod. “Bragging rights around town are critical. About all we have going for us here in New Burlington.” She chuckled, and it was both cute and disarming.

“This place has more going for it than only that.” I placed my used napkin on my empty paper plate and leaned toward her. “You want to see what I’m working on?”

Her eyes widened. “You’d show me?”

“Why not?”

Shrugging, I hopped off my barstool before I could change my mind. This parade might be serious business to the other people who lived around here, but it wasn’t serious to me. Sure, I wanted to win, wanted the extra bump in small-town notability that would come with making such a splash, but I also knew that win or lose, I’d be able to make something of the bookstore once it opened. “Come on.”

I extended my hand to help her off the barstool, then ushered her through the still dusty and drab construction space. We stepped through the back door into the early evening sun. Even though it was after six, a few more hours of sunlight awaited us. I guided Anya across the small parking lot to the large trailer bed covered with an industrial-quality tarp.

“Pardon my mess.”

She laughed. “You’re storing it all under there?”

“Didn’t really have any other place to put it.” I lifted a curled edge, then stopped. “You sure you’re ready to see this? The whole vision has a way to go.”

“I’m ready.”

I pulled back the tarp, revealing the small stand, stacks of glued books, and other supplies the art students had arranged in the middle of the trailer. “Like I said, a total work in progress, but you can see where it’s headed.”

“Lady Liberty,” she whispered as she stepped closer. “Made out of books.”

“They’re doing a great job on it, aren’t they?”

Anya swiveled in my direction, and her eyes were wide. “ They ?”

“Sure.” I spread my hand. “I’m so busy with all the renovations to the store that there was no way I’d be able to do this myself, so I got help.”

She took one step toward me. “From whom?”

“A couple of high schoolers I got in touch with and—”

“Oh my God.” Anya closed her eyes, the spray of her lashes visible in the warm light. “Of course.”

“What does that mean?”

Her eyes snapped open. “Nothing.”

But I knew by the hardness in her voice that it wasn’t simply nothing at all. Something was wrong. In the space of less than two minutes, everything between us had changed. I flipped the tarp closed. “You’re upset.”

“No, I’m okay.” She backed away from me. “That looks...amazing, Robert,” she said, turning away. Was she angry? What’s going on here? I thought things were going well, and yet, Anya was once again leaving. “Thanks for dinner.”

She was already several feet away from me, moving through the space between the parking lot, the store, and the street.

“Let me walk you out.”

She shook her head. “No, I’ll show myself out.”

Anya turned and strode away. And then, just like the last time, she was gone.