Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
STELLA
Sunday morning, my heart beats painfully in my chest as I send a text to my parents.
STELLA: Can I stop in today? I need to talk to you both.
DAD: Come now if you want breakfast.
STELLA: Leaving in a few minutes.
Dishes clatter in the kitchen. That must be Naomi unpacking the dishwasher. Maybe I should start by telling her my plan. As I enter the kitchen, Naomi looks up from the recipe book she’s flipping through at the table. It’s Conrad unpacking the dishwasher.
“Good morning,” she says. “You’re ready early. Are you going somewhere?”
“To Mom and Dad’s for a talk. I’ve found a place I want to buy.”
“What!” Naomi says, her eyes wide. “So fast. Where is it? Close to us, I hope.”
“It’s not in New York!” My laugh sounds fake. This is hard. I feel like I’m disappointing my sister.
Naomi shares a confused look with Conrad. “Were you looking for a house in New York?”
I sit heavily in a kitchen chair. “The place I found is small. Two bedrooms. One bathroom. It’s more like an apartment, honestly. What makes it so appealing is that it comes with a bookstore.”
She tilts her head and scrunches her eyes. “I don’t understand. You’re buying a bookstore?”
I try to swallow, but my mouth is dry. With a decisive nod, I say, “In Blissful.”
Naomi’s jaw swings open. “What?”
Conrad moves to stand behind her and lays a hand on her shoulder.
“That’s a plot twist,” he says. “You’re serious?”
“Very serious.”
Naomi deflates further. “You want to move away from us?”
I feel terrible. Naomi and I have always been close, not just as sisters and best friends, but geographically.
“I don’t want to move away from you. I just want to live there.”
“There’s hardly a difference,” she says.
“There’s a huge difference. The idea of moving away from the family is eating me up inside. But there’s something about Blissful. It’s home in a way Tucson isn’t.”
Naomi crosses her arms. “You’ve spent two days in Blissful. How can you possibly know you’ll love it as a permanent residence?”
I close my eyes to block out her disappointment. “I’ve thought about the possibility that this is some sort of early onset mid-life crisis. I could very well fail. But I want to try.”
“This is really what you want?” she asks incredulously.
“It’s a bookstore, Naomi. In a beautiful town filled with friendly people. Yes, this is really what I want.”
Naomi blows out a long breath. “Conrad, what do you think?”
His eyes are kind. “Will you spend your life regretting not taking this chance?”
“Probably.”
Naomi studies me for a while. The only sound is the ticking of the wall clock. Eventually, she lifts her hands in capitulation.
“Fine!” she says. “I can’t help but remember how you tried to convince me not to marry Conrad for convenience, but you still supported me when I ignored your concerns.
And look how that turned out.” She reaches up and lays her hand on top of his where it still sits on her shoulder.
It’s sweet. “Your decision to buy a bookstore and move sounds ridiculous to me,” she continues.
“But, I trust you to know your own mind. I will support you in this decision.” She frowns.
“Or at least try. It won’t be easy to have you move so far away. ”
“It’s only an hour. And we can still talk on the phone. I’m not moving to the moon.”
“Or New York,” she offers.
“If bookselling doesn’t work out,” Conrad says, “You’ll always have a home with us.”
Which isn’t the comforting encouragement he means it to be.
Living in my younger sister’s in-law suite is good for the interim, but not what I want my life to look like forever.
If my bookselling dreams do fail, I still want to live in Blissful.
I can rent out the storefront and continue to live in the loft.
An investor seemed to think a flooring store would do well there.
Something to think about if I never sell a book.
“Thank you, both,” I say. “Now I need to confess my crazy idea to Mom and Dad. How do you think that will go?”
Naomi shakes her head. “You’ll need a lot of luck.”
Traffic is light on a Sunday morning, and I arrive at their home before I’m mentally prepared. When I walk in, they’re both in the kitchen. Dad’s at the oven taking out his specialty, oven pancakes. The only pancakes he likes. Mom sits at the counter, but stands when I enter and hugs me.
“You look nervous,” she says. “Tell us what’s on your mind.”
“Let’s dish up first,” Dad says.
Once we’re sitting at the table with our food, I struggle to share what’s in my heart.
They wait. Finally, I tell them about my love for Blissful and my plan to buy the bookstore.
I share my worries, fears, and concerns, as well as my plans for revitalizing the space.
I do my best to sound logical and prove I’ve thought through the possibilities.
Mom purses her lips and studies me. “I’ve always felt lucky that my kids didn’t move far away from home. Not many women have every grandchild within a thirty-minute drive. I don’t want you to move away.”
“Mom,” I begin.
She holds up a hand. “Wait. I’m not done. Over the last few years, your enthusiasm for your work and other things that used to bring you joy has dimmed. We’ve worried about you. If you need to move somewhere to find your passion again, then go.”
Her support makes my eyes burn and my throat tight. I reach across the table and wrap my hand around hers.
“Thank you, Mom.”
“You’re sure owning a bookstore is what you want to do?
” Dad asks. “Being a business owner isn’t a nine-to-five job.
You’ll be selling a product. The trick is finding people who want to buy what you have.
It won’t be as easy to take off and travel like you’ve done in the past. It can be a hard life. ”
Dad would know. He started his own business and for their whole marriage, he traveled almost every week, all over the country. He sold his company two years ago, but after my parents went on a world cruise last year, he started another small business just to keep busy.
“I can't anticipate everything or even understand exactly how hard it will be until I begin. But I’m ready to find out.” My heart pounds in my chest as I envision my future.
It will be hard, but I hope worth the sacrifices.
“I know no traveling, at least for a few years. Long days. Late nights. All my savings. But I’ve got to try. I want to do this.”
Dad studies me for a long minute. “There’s a lot to do to set up a business. We need to talk. You also need to plan time with your brother to go over the financial feasibility before you sign any papers.”
I nod my head, my smile too big to contain. “Yes, of course.”
Mom smiles. “I haven’t seen you this excited about anything in a long time.”
“I haven’t felt this happy in a long time.”
“I do want to ask something of you,” she continues.
“When you have a goal or a project you’re working on, you tend to get so focused on it that everyone else disappears.
I imagine getting a bookstore up and running is going to take all your mental energy, but remember your friends and family, okay? People before projects.”
She isn’t wrong. I will block out everything in my drive to achieve what I want.
I nod in agreement. “Right. People before projects. Now, about the wedding fund you mentioned last week.”
The two of them share a long look. It makes me think they’ve changed their mind about giving me money to buy a home. Not a problem. I have my savings and a great credit score.
Mom gives Dad a slight nod.
Dad begins. “You’re aware of how much my company sold for. Your mom and I have decided to give everyone their inheritances early. We were going to wait a few years for the interest to compound, but we want to give you your share now to help out.”
“What?” I shake my head. “No. I have savings I plan to use.”
“We want to see your inheritance put to good use while we’re alive.”
Am I really in a situation to turn down a monetary gift? “How much?”
“Two hundred fifty thousand. Once you and your siblings get your share, the rest goes into college funds for the grandkids, then charities we’ve already picked out. So don’t set your heart on getting much when we die.”
Two hundred fifty thousand. My jaw drops. I expect them to burst out laughing as they shout, “just kidding!” Joking like this isn’t in their character, but neither is giving me two hundred fifty thousand dollars.
“You’re serious.”
Mom and Dad both nod, grinning from ear to ear.
“We’ll start filling out the paperwork to have the money transferred to you,” Dad says.
That’s when it truly hits. “I’m buying a bookstore.”
“You’re buying a bookstore,” Mom agrees.
There’s no reason to hesitate. If I do, Mr. Long might think I changed my mind. I call him immediately and put him on speaker phone.
“Hello?” He sounds grumpy. Definitely not a morning person.
“I want to buy your bookstore.”
“Eh?”
“It’s me, Stella. I talked to you last night. I want to buy your bookstore.”
“Mmm. Give me a second to grab my glasses.” He groans as if standing is painful. “You understand that if you buy that store, you buy everything inside? I’m not carting all those books with me when I leave town.”
Many of those books belong in the dumpster, and we both know it. It will take a lot of work to get them out. Worth it.
“Of course,” I say.
“I did a few calculations last night after we talked. I’m willing to sell for one-hundred-forty dollars per square foot. It’s a two thousand, five hundred square foot building.”
That’s three hundred fifty thousand dollars.
I glance at Dad, who does a head nod-shake hybrid. He probably doesn’t know what a building in small town Arizona is worth, but the price is about what I would pay for a house in Tucson.
I have a third of that amount saved. With my early inheritance, I can pay with cash. I would own the building outright. All I need to borrow from the bank is enough to renovate and purchase stock for my store.