Happy Ending

Chapter 1 Now

When you spend so much of your life in stories, it’s hard not to think of your life as a story, too.

At least, that’s what I tell myself—that I’m not the only book lover who’s parsed life’s defining moments into chapters, scoured it for themes and foreshadowing; who’s been so captivated by a good beginning, so sure it would lead to a happy ending, because how else could something that began so well possibly end?

I have a theory that all book lovers grow up doing this, seeing their life as story.

But by the time we’re adults, so few will admit it because, having read enough stories, lived enough life, we’ve learned the hard lesson that life isn’t a polished story but a jumble of messy drafts, and even the best beginnings can’t save some stories’ ends.

We grow up when we learn how uncertain life is.

That’s when some give up on stories altogether.

The rest of us clutch them even tighter.

I’m one of those still-story-lovers—I’d be a pretty terrible bookseller if I wasn’t.

And while I could do without uncertainty in life, I love it in books.

Because in books, even after you’ve grown up, a kernel of your childlike trust can prevail.

You can still free-fall into the magic of a good beginning, endure each shocking plot twist, even a terrible ending, and still say to yourself, This was worth the journey.

In books, hope in the face of uncertainty is safe.

In life, it’s not that simple, of course. It’s not so easy to hope for a happy ending once life has taught you a good beginning is hardly a guarantee. Which is why, though my life still revolves around stories, I try not to think of my life as story anymore.

That said, lifelong habits are notoriously hard to kick, so I do relapse on occasion.

Thea Meyer thought back to the day of her interview, when she’d stopped beneath a patch of summer-leaf shaded sidewalk, took one look at The Bookshop, and fell head-over-heels in love at first sight.

Little did she know, that first blush of love for bookselling her way through the day would fade as her days ended in the most miserable of tasks—cleaning toilets.

I tap the brush on the toilet bowl’s edge with my rubber-gloved hand and return it to its holder.

“Dear God,” I say—I’m not generally the praying type anymore, I just find myself reverting to it in desperate moments—“I ask your mercy for whoever came in here and committed such a heinous crime to this toilet. And I ask that you keep them far from The Bookshop for the rest of their life. Or mine,” I add, “whichever ends first. Amen.”

It takes three seconds of eerie quiet for me to realize the Get Sh*t Done playlist I’ve had blasting through the bookstore’s speakers has come to an end. Deeply annoying, when I’m so close to being finished.

Just as I start to peel off a rubber glove so I can grab the store’s laptop and restart the playlist, my phone rings in my overalls pocket.

I yelp and fall backward, my elbow knocking over the toilet brush and plunger set.

I have unique ringtones for my favorite people, so I know who’s calling—Lauren—and then I remember why—I was supposed to call her.

An hour ago.

“Shit. Shoot.” I pick up the toilet bowl and plunger set, yank off both rubber gloves, chuck them in the bucket of cleaning supplies, then finally manage to unearth my phone from my pocket. “Hey, Lo—”

“You’re lucky I love you,” Lauren says. “And that I just upped the dosage on my anxiety meds.”

“Sorry! I lost track of time. I didn’t mean to worry you.”

“I think we should reenable location tracking,” she tells me. “The anxiety meds are good, but they aren’t that good.”

“Lauren.” I put the phone on speaker and set it on the sink’s edge so I’m hands-free. I still have to refill the paper towel and hand-soap dispenser. “We agreed that was not a good idea.”

“Did we?”

“We did, after that time I tracked you because you hadn’t shown up for dinner and found out it was because you were tied up at a kink club. Literally.”

“Ah.” A beat of silence. “So?”

“Lauren, that was how I found out you were part of a kink club.”

“Exactly,” she says, rallying. “It brought us closer.”

“At the time,” I remind her, “it really pissed you off.”

“Well, speaking of being pissed, since we no longer use location tracking, I spent the last hour worrying you were dead and chucked in a dumpster. Abducted at the bus stop. Lost without a trace!”

“You could have texted or called!”

“First of all, I did call. Three times.”

“Oh.” I wince as I rip off the wrapping on a fresh pack of paper towels. “Well, I had music blasting in the store, so I couldn’t hear my phone—”

“And texting?” she says. “What for? So your abductor could answer for you? I don’t think so. I needed auditory confirmation that you were okay.”

I roll my eyes. “You need to lay off the true crime podcasts.”

“Listen here, my true crime podcasts keep me—”

“Paranoid?” I offer.

“Informed,” she says.

“Well, you can relax now; I have not been abducted.” I catch my reflection in the mirror and grimace. Tired hazel eyes, a wild high pony of brown sweat-frizzed curls, flushed tomato red cheeks. “But, oof, do I look rough.”

“Is your hair at the porcupine stage? If so, please send a pic.”

“You’re a turd.” I drop the paper towel pack into the dispenser and flip down the lid. “My hair is slightly frizzy from the sweaty work of deep cleaning this restroom, which I’m proud to say no longer reeks of the bowels of hell.”

Lauren makes a retching sound. “Ew.”

“The joys of the job.” I dab sweat from my face with my forearm and sigh. “I really need a vacation.”

“Yes, take one!” she says. “And come visit me, crash my hotel. I’ll work all day, you’ll relax all day, then we’ll party all night.”

I laugh. “When would you sleep in this scenario?”

“I wouldn’t,” she says. “But it would be worth it. So why are you closing today? You never close on Tuesdays.”

I never used to because that was one of our nights—Tacos and Tequila Tuesdays, Fried Food and French Wine Fridays—until Lauren moved away almost two years ago for a new job that has her racking up frequent-flyer miles and living out of a suitcase.

Since then, we’re rarely in the same time zone, let alone the same city.

“Typically,” I tell her, “Tuesday is not one of my days to close, but Jordan, who was supposed to close, got a call from her son’s day care that he’d puked and needed to be picked up early, so I said I’d cover for her.”

I squeeze soap from the giant refill jug into the dispenser, and it makes a loud fart noise that echoes in the bathroom. “That was the soap. Not me.”

“Sure it was,” she says.

I slap the cap down on the soap jug. “Rude.”

Lauren snorts. “So did Jordan offer to swap you a closing shift to make up for covering for her?”

“Not… yet,” I hedge.

“Thea.”

“I will follow up with her.” I scoop up my phone, taking it off speaker mode, and walk down the hall, then set the cleaning supply bucket back in the closet. Shutting the door, I sigh with relief. My least favorite task at the bookstore, finally done.

“You’ve said that before,” Lauren reminds me. “Because Jordan has done this before.”

“I know. But she’s juggling new motherhood and a full-time job, and that has to be hard. I don’t want to push her.”

“You could stand to push a little, Thea.”

I head into the office and grab my cross-body bag along with the stack of children’s books I keep forgetting to take with me, then head for the staff-only exit. “Guess what,” I tell her.

“A blatant subject change?”

I smile as I yank the door shut. My friend knows me well. “I’m finally free! Store’s closed.”

Lauren yells, “Huzzah!”

“Now, tell me what’s been going on,” I say. “Get me all caught up.”

“Eh.” I hear the glug of liquid poured into a glass, a margarita in the making—Lauren is the queen of routine, and it’s Tequila Tuesday. “The job is finally not perfect anymore.”

“I’m sorry, Lo. Have a gulp of that margarita and tell me all about it.”

“Oh, I’ve already had two.”

“Gulps?”

“Margaritas,” she says.

I laugh. “Go on.”

“I am,” she says. “Margarita número tres is ready to go.”

“I was talking about work.”

She sighs. “I kicked off a new project with the client from hell at the end of last week. It’s already a nightmare. I don’t need to get into it beyond that.”

Pinning the phone between my ear and shoulder, I jiggle the key in the door’s lock until the bolt slides home. “Why not?” I ask.

“Because you just survived the bookstore-restroom-cleaning trenches, hours after you should have clocked out, and I’m pleasantly buzzed. The last thing we should talk about now is our jobs.”

“Well, I had my turn to vent about work, but you didn’t. I think we should talk about it, so you can have your vent session, too. Look at me, pushing! Please clap.”

“Sure, we’ll call that ‘pushing.’ ”

“We’ll call that progress.”

“Progress,” she concedes.

“Speaking of progress.” I cross the small gravel driveway reserved for The Bookshop’s staff, then start walking up the side street toward the main drag.

Summer dusk is in its glory, dripping tangerine down the shops that have closed for the day, the restaurants that spill crowded two- and four-tops across the sidewalk.

I wend my way around them, walking the curb like a balance beam, and pass tables littered with the dregs of happy hour—nearly empty glasses, half-finished plates of food.

Laughter floats on the humid air, everyone’s bodies turned like flowers toward the sun.

“Speaking of progress?” Lauren reminds me.

“Right. Progress.” Stopped at the intersection, I press the crosswalk button and squint a smile at the sunset warming my face. “I managed to run a whole two miles nonstop yesterday without you barking at me to keep going—”

“I do not bark,” she says. “I encourage with vigor. Also, I’m proud of you!”