Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
Until he had begun working at a hardware store, Garrett had never thought much about the demographics of the kind of people who came in to buy equipment and supplies. After about ten years on the job, he could sum up his customers as “early risers.”
He saw about as many customers between eight and eight-fifteen in the morning as he did for the entirety of the afternoon.
Thus, when he looked at the old analog clock that had hung in the same spot on the wall for the entire time that he’d owned Nuts and Bolts hardware and saw that it was one in the afternoon, he decided that this was a good time to break for lunch.
And if he was going to get lunch for himself, he should grab something for Eleanor too. She’d been so busy at the bookstore recently, after all. It would just be polite. It wasn’t because he was looking for an excuse to see her…
He shook his head, laughing at himself. Who was he trying to convince? Heck yes, it was just an excuse to see her.
He flipped the sign on the front of his door to Closed and tacked up the handmade sign that promised that he would be back soon, then headed to his car. The Main Street Diner would do for lunch today, he decided. They had Eleanor’s favorite tuna melt there, and it traveled pretty well.
Garrett had not always been the kind of man who made excuses to see his girlfriend or who knew her favorite lunch and brought it to her.
In fact, anyone who had known him even a year ago would have laughed at the idea that Garrett Wilder, resident curmudgeon, would find himself this wrapped up in a woman.
Even more surprising was that he did not regret it for a minute.
Eleanor had come into his life like a red-headed tornado, all energy and chaos. At first, he had not been prepared for it, nor had he been particularly welcoming. Their first few encounters had been more friction than friendliness.
But the more time they’d spent together, the more irresistible he had found her. And now?
Well, now he was pretty confident that he was the luckiest guy in Magnolia Shores. He didn’t intend to let Eleanor get away from him either.
A year ago, that kind of long-term thinking would have made him start to feel sweaty and anxious.
But for the first time in a long time, since before his fiancée had left him ten years prior, he looked to the future with excitement rather than seeing it just as something to endure.
For the first time since Maria had left him shortly before they were scheduled to be married, he was actually grateful to her for doing so.
He hadn’t been able to see it until he had gotten to enjoy this happiness with Eleanor, but he and Maria had never been right for one another. He was just lucky that Maria had been able to see that before they’d gotten in too deep.
“Well, well, well. I would have said that I haven’t seen you in a long time, Garrett, but I’m not sure I’m seeing you now. Surely this cheerful, smiling fellow can’t be our Garrett Wilder.”
Garrett, again demonstrating how much he had changed recently, grinned at this teasing instead of scowling. He waved at Janie Peterson, the daughter of one of his most frequent customers at the hardware store.
“Yeah, yeah, you and your dad are both hilarious,” he snarked, making the woman, who was about his age, laugh. “Can I get a tuna melt and a roast beef sandwich? Both to go, both with a side of fries?”
“Of course,” Janie said, plugging it deftly into the system, then passing the order through the open kitchen window to the cook. “I take it that one of these orders is for that pretty lady who has put you in such a good mood recently?”
“The tuna is hers,” he admitted, smiling. “I can’t account for her taste though. First the sandwich that puts tuna and cheese together, then saddling herself with this old grump.”
“Pfft,” Janie said, shaking her head at him.
She had always treated him with a faintly maternal air, even though she couldn’t be more than three or four years older than he was.
“You cut that out. You’re a catch. Or…” She paused, her eye twinkling.
“You are now that you’re not so grouchy all the time. ”
“Hilarious,” he said, deadpan, not really minding the teasing. “Give me that food, will you? I have to get out of here before I end up laughing too hard at your jokes.”
“Give Eleanor my best,” Janie called as Garrett headed out, bag of food in hand.
It was a short trip to Eleanor’s bookstore, but Garrett found that the shop’s small parking lot was full, forcing him to park farther down the street.
As this traffic promised, the store was crowded, no doubt due to the leaf-peeping crowd that had started to come into town as fall took New England by storm.
Garrett slipped inside the store and glanced around, finding Eleanor deep in conversation with a couple who was holding a large stack of books in their arms.
Not wishing to distract her while she was in her element, or risk disrupting what looked like a pretty significant sale, Garrett put the bag with the food on the small shelf that Eleanor kept behind the cash register for her personal items. He took his own sandwich out of the bag to take with him, then scrounged around for a scrap of paper to leave her a note. When he found it, he paused.
He could write something simple, just a quick note that the lunch was from him, not some random sandwich left behind by a customer. He found though, that he wanted to do something a little more. Something romantic, even if it did feel a little cheesy.
Take time to eat something, Ellie. You are looking amazing. You’re such a star at your business. And to put things in book language… this chapter together is my favorite in the book of my life. I hope we have lots more chapters together. Garrett.
He paused over the signoff. It felt a little impersonal, but he’d made his intentions pretty clear in the note, hadn’t he?
Still, he was starting to feel, recently, like he wanted to say more about how he felt. Like he wanted to be really, really clear about it.
But that wasn’t something he was going to stick in a note and leave with lunch.
There was no rush, though. He was enjoying where they were. They had time.
He caught himself sending Eleanor one last fond smile before he left, enjoying the animated way she described a book that she was showcasing to customers.
Yeah, his life was pretty good these days. Who ever would have thought it?
Winnie had given more tours in the past month than she had in the past year. She knew it was just a random confluence of chance, as one of their summer college student employees had returned to school and another tour guide had gone on maternity leave, but phew. She was beat.
Still, she kind of liked doing the tours. It felt like a good way to flex the social skills that she had let grow rusty for so long.
She didn’t think it was totally unreasonable to hope that the tour group wasn’t super chatty today. It was that time of the afternoon where energy felt extremely elusive.
Of course, that meant that it was just that moment when Cherry knocked at the doorjamb to Winnie’s office.
Surprises always did manage to come just when you were least prepared, didn’t they?
“Hey, Win,” Cherry said, a sheepish smile on her face. “Lyle needs us in his office.”
“Now?” Winnie asked, trying to look cheerful about it. She’d been hoping to sneak out to grab a cup of coffee before the tour.
Cherry shot her a sympathetic look that said that Winnie’s efforts at good cheer had not hit the mark.
“I’m afraid so,” she said. “He’s slammed the rest of the day.”
Winnie stifled a sigh. Lyle was a good boss, and he didn’t often do things like throw an unexpected meeting into her lap. If he was doing so now, it meant that he really was slammed.
She bid a sorrowful mental farewell to her afternoon pick-me-up and followed Cherry into Lyle’s office.
“Hello, Winnie, Cherry,” he said, looking up from the mountain of papers on his desk. “Sorry for the short notice, but I did send out for some coffee.” He gestured to a paper holder with three cups inside, each emblazoned with the logo from Juniper Café.
“Lyle, you are my hero,” Winnie blurted out before she could think better of it, then blushed at the over-exuberant comment. “Uh, sorry.”
Luckily, her boss just chuckled. “Don’t worry about it.
I know the feeling when an extra cup of coffee feels like it is saving you from a miserable afternoon.
” He tipped his head toward the window. Outside, the weather was blustery.
It wasn’t quite raining yet, and sometimes this kind of wind didn’t manifest into any actual precipitation, but it was still dark and a little gloomy. “Today, we need coffee.”
The three of them took a moment to sip their beverages, savoring the warmth that soaked into them.
“Okay,” Lyle said, putting down his coffee cup with a reluctant clunk.
“I know that you didn’t have this on your calendar, so I’m not going to ask for anything formal, but Winnie, I wanted to check in with you about that folder I passed your way the other day.
The one about the fundraisers for this year. Have you given it any thought?”
Winnie took another sip of coffee to give herself a second to think.
She had thought about the upcoming fundraising calendar in a vague, unhelpful sort of way, but she’d gotten so caught up in her worries about feeling excluded at book club that she hadn’t gotten any real, productive planning under her belt.
“Well,” she said, drawing out the word, “I did see a note about possibly doing a collaborative event… I think that’s a good idea to get something a little different on our schedule.
Maybe we can reach out to the historical societies of some towns nearby, see if they want to do a collective event?
That will let us combine our collections for display, as well as cut down on some of the overhead costs of hosting an event. ”
Lyle nodded. “Yes, we did something like that a while back… before your time, I think. You’re right that it does cut down on costs, which is always good.
The organizing is more complicated though, as I’m sure you can imagine.
The one downside is that, for most of our donors, they don’t really think all that hard about what is Magnolia Shore history and what is, say, Fielder’s Run history,” he said, referencing a town about fifteen miles away.
“So, for them, having a combined event with more artifacts isn’t really something that feels different. ”
The historian in Winnie was affronted at the idea. How could anyone look at the two towns, which had very different histories, and say that their stories were the same?
A more rational voice inside her though, reminded her that not everybody was quite so passionate about local history as she was.
“Well, I see how that could happen,” she said, her mind racing as she tried to come up with ideas. “And I do agree that having something a little more innovative would help encourage new donors to sign up…”
She trailed off. She still didn’t have any good ideas, no matter how much she might have hoped that they would pop magically into her head under Lyle’s considering gaze.
Her heart sank as her boss let out a tiny sigh. She knew he didn’t mean it to be hurtful, but she looked up to him a lot, and knowing she had disappointed him stung.
“Right,” he said, sounding like it was his turn to dig for something positive to say.
“Well, like I said, I didn’t exactly give you notice that I was going to ask about this.
But I would like you to really put your nose to the grindstone on this one, Winnie.
I want some concrete ideas, not vague ones.
If you’re not able to think of anything that could really add some pizzazz to the events… ”
This time, his sigh was a little less muted, a little more weighed down.
“I guess if we can’t think of anything new,” he went on, and Winnie felt that his use of we was extremely charitable, “we’ll just go back to the old standbys and try again next year when it comes to being innovative. It’s not ideal, but…”
“I’ll think of something,” Winnie said earnestly, hoping that she could deliver on this promise. “I’ll really get the gears turning. I’ll get you something in the next few days. Really.”
Lyle gave her an appreciative smile, but she could see the tinge of worry in the crease of his eyes. Money was always a concern for a public project like the historical society, but was Lyle more worried than usual?
Winnie would fix it. She would. She had to.
“That sounds great, Winnie,” Lyle said, sounding a little older and a little more tired than usual. “Okay, Cherry. You have those spreadsheets I asked you about?”
While Lyle and Cherry quickly discussed something that had to do with staff retirement accounts, Winnie racked her brain for something new and innovative, but everything that popped into her head was either too expensive or too close to what they had always done, year after year.
As their meeting ended and she and Cherry drifted back to their own workspaces, calling thanks to Lyle for the coffee over their shoulders, the question continued to plague Winnie, nagging at the back of her mind.
She wanted to do this for her boss… but how?
A glance at her watch told Winnie that she had about five more minutes before she had to report for the next tour. She decided that was a suitable amount of time to wallow, just a tiny bit.
The problem with coming up with a new and exciting way to fundraise, she thought, dropping her head onto her arms, was that it was basically the same issue as trying to come up with a new and exciting way to be social.
In both cases, she wanted to achieve the goal.
She was willing to work to achieve the goal.
She knew that, once she got there, she would be proud of herself.
But she just couldn’t figure out the first step. She didn’t know how to get there.
It was the execution that eluded her. She kept turning the problem over in her mind, but…
Nope. She had nothing.
Her time for wallowing was over. Now, she had to go give a tour to a bunch of tourists and pretend that she wasn’t freaking out inside.
It was starting to feel a little like she had bitten off more than she could chew. And she didn’t know where to go from here without letting her boss or her new friends down.
Worse, she didn’t know where to go from here without letting herself down.
But that was a problem for later. It had to be. For now, she would paste a smile on her face and go tell people about the wonderful, fascinating history of Magnolia Shore, Massachusetts.