12. Willa
CHAPTER 12
WILLA
There’s a loud thud outside my hotel room door. I know what it is, but I don’t want to look. Steeling myself, I open the door and my eyes quickly find the local newspaper on the floor at my feet, bundled and waiting to be read.
I have no real desire to read it, I don’t have to. I was there last night. I’ve still got that Vanilla Ice song “Ice Ice Baby” stuck in my head on repeat—and I’d love to know who picked that as their team anthem.
The last thing I need to see is the photo I took. I used to get excited when I’d see a photo I’d taken in a paper, no matter how big its readership, but this time it feels empty. The image I snapped shows a sea of people wearing the number 29 jersey, for local hero Dan Roberts, and all looking as defeated as the Ice Breakers when the game was lost 2–1.
One of the Lumberjacks had shot the puck into the goal, and it slipped past Dawson, not that there wasn’t any effort on his part. There was time on the buzzer, and Noah managed to get the puck and make a good try to get the shot in on the opposite team, but the horn had blared and signaled the end of the period, and the end of the game, only too soon.
Even the after-game media Q he wasn’t down in the dumps, just bummed. And tired—but luckily not tired enough to not ask me out for breakfast this morning.
The sound of my phone ringing pulls my attention away from picking out my “what to wear to brunch to hang out with the hot ice hockey guy I used to hate” outfit. Has to be a thing, right?
“Hello,” I sing, without even glancing at the screen.
“Sweetie, you sound chipper,” Mom begins. “Things must be going well?”
I quickly fill her in on the turn of events I’ve had with Noah. When she doesn’t say a word for a full thirty seconds after I’m done, I know she’s as shocked as I am.
“Things can turn on a dime, can’t they?” She snickers in my ear. “And you kissed him? Multiple kissing times?”
“Mom,” I groan. “Yes, but not the point, nor is it up for discussion. He’s nice. Kind, in fact. Intelligent and has motivation to do more with himself. I don’t know. I’m taking it day by day, or trying to. Having fun and seeing where this goes.”
“Considering what happened in the past—” she starts, but I quickly interject.
“Like us, he’s had his own demons to wrangle. He just did it more publicly and with more booze than was prudent.”
She takes a breath, letting it out slowly in my ear. “Fine. I’ll be happy for you, but if he does anything to screw up or hurt you, I’ll be more than happy to leak it to one of those newspapers or bloggers or influencers or whatever it is you work with. Gossip is still gossip.”
Shaking my head, I refuse to even be mad at her ideas. She’s my mom, of course she’s going to be protective. “Thank you, I’ll hold you to it. Now, I know you’re not calling just to say hi, are you?”
“I’m not. I’ve had a visit from the bank, and I don’t have good news, sweetie.” Her voice sounds tight, so I sit on the edge of my bed. “They’ve begun foreclosure proceedings, in West Virginia this can take ninety days. The bank has given me options—from selling the house back to them, to filing for Chapter 11, which would lead to filing Chapter 7 bankruptcy, or to pay off the loan.”
“I knew you were behind in payments,” I say gently, “but to be in foreclosure they must have told you that you were in pre-foreclosure, no?”
“They did, and I didn’t say anything. I chose not to.” Her voice hitches. “I don’t want to worry you, but I wanted you in the loop. Since the bank president knew your dad, they’ve given me another option where I can catch up on payments and pay six months ahead. He feels it will give me time to figure out what I can do without ruining my credit and running the business into the ground.”
“Whoa.” I feel like I’ve been punched in the stomach, then sideswiped by a tractor-trailer; I can only imagine how she must be feeling. This was my parents’ dream that became their livelihood. Life hasn’t been easy, but in the past year, business had picked up. “Do you know what you want to do?”
“Crawl back under the covers and sleep for a month, that’s what I want to do. But, I’ll open the shop today and stay status quo. I’m going to sit down with the accounts tonight and see if there is anything I can do or sell, or I don’t know, a bank I can rob to try to save the place. If I can pay off what I owe and then pay ahead six months so I can restructure, that’s the ideal scenario, but I have to see.”
A beep in my ear breaks my thoughts. A quick glance at the screen tells me it’s Frank, my editor at Athletic Edge . He’d emailed that he’d be calling, and sadly I know I need to take this call .
“Mommy, let me call you later, okay?” I say, resorting to calling her Mommy, yes, but I feel it’s a necessary tactic, plus I’m feeling vulnerable. “It’s my editor, and being up for this promotion, I need to essentially be at his beck and call as much as I can. After this call with you, I really want this promotion now.”
“Sweetie, I don’t think it would help, but you’re coming from a good place.”
The beeping stops, but I know it will pick up again. When Frank wants to talk, we talk. “I love you. We’ll figure this out, okay?”
“I love you, too, sweetie.” She sighs. “Hey, we’ve been through worse, so don’t let this get you down. Talk later.”
As she disconnects the call, the phone begins to ring. There’s no time for me to process her news or to do anything except shake it off and get my game face, and voice, ready for the day.
“Hello, Frank. What’s up?”
Falling for Books is the cutest bookstore I’ve run across in my travels in a long time. Stepping into the cozy interior, the smell of chai lattes, mochas, and other coffee delights being brewed hits your senses. There’s also the subtle scent of old books and new paperbacks filling the air. It’s like dangling a carrot to me; I love to peruse the aisle of a bookstore when I’m stressed. Disappearing into the pages of a good book can not only open our minds but help calm them, too.
Since the call with my mom, I’ve been anxious, playing out her words on repeat. When I picked up the call with Frank, I struggled to listen. My focus purely on what he was saying, but my mind wandering back to my mother.
The thing is, the call with Frank was great. He’s gotten nothing but positive feedback on the assignments I’ve been completing for them while I’ve been here, and all of the executives are loving the pictures I’m taking of Noah in action. That part made me grin, because there are a few photos I could take of Noah when he’s with me that would most certainly show a whole other side to him, but the only two people interested in those would be us.
I did manage to agree to a call with the reporter who is finishing up the piece on Noah in the coming week. Once I’ve got the content they need for that, I’ll be done with Noah’s part of my business here. Surprisingly, when I think of things like that I get a little sad.
Turning down an aisle, I scan the shelves, trying to find something I can grab for myself. Just beyond where I stand I can hear the low voices of two women chatting away about last night’s game.
“Dan was heartbroken last night,” one of them says. “He’s always taken things like that hard, but when he’s in an arena in front of all the local fans …”
“And they’re wearing his jersey,” the other voice pipes in. “Yeah, I remember that side of him from high school.”
Fans. Cute. A few minutes later, I find a book I’ve been wanting to read, The Art of Falling in Love with Your Brother’s Best Friend by new-to-me author Anne Kemp, tuck it under my arm and head to the counter. It’s a closed-door rom-com about an ice hockey player.
Perfect.
As I approach the counter, a blonde, who must have been one of the voices I heard, turns and smiles as she accepts her takeaway cup of coffee and heads toward the door.
“See ya later, Emmy, thanks for the chat.”
“Bye, Keira.” Behind the counter, a woman with wavy brown hair smiles cheerfully. “See you at the game tonight.” She then turns her attention to me as I slide my book toward her. She picks it up and nods her head approvingly. “I read this book and loved it. Good timing, with all of the hockey madness happening around us.”
“I needed something light, but with the feels, you know?”
She nods, and a twinkle in her eye does not escape me. “I do know. Where did you find this copy?”
I point to the aisle behind me where I’d just come from. “There.”
“Thought so. If you finish this and want more like it to read, I have a whole end cap at the other end of the store for ice hockey rom-coms only.” She points to a table at about the halfway mark. “Books by Ellie Hall and Grace Worthington are there, too. If you’re in the mood for a royal rom-com, check out Kate O’Keeffe, and Elsie Woods has the cutest series set in Paris. If you’re looking for a laugh, there’s Whitney Dineen’s books, and Melisa Baldwin has a holiday rom-com I enjoyed. There are others, but those are the ones I’ve been reading lately and really digging.”
“Thanks,” I say as she starts to ring up my purchase.
“I’m Emmy, the owner,” she adds. “And I have no stake in those suggestions.”
“Good to know,” I say with a giggle. “I’m Willa.”
Tapping the counter, I gaze at the trinkets she’s arranged on the stand. Last-minute purchases for shoppers like me who love to find a tchotchke they can add to their bag.
Bookmarks, pins, stickers … wait. I point to one of the pins turning on a display. “Excuse me, but is that a Blue Rock Thrush?”
Emmy squints as she looks where I point, her mouth breaking into a grin. “It sure is. Did you know they’re rare? Only one has been sighted in the US, and that was in Oregon.”
“Funny enough, I do know,” I say, plucking the pin off its spot and adding it to my purchases. “I’m here taking photos for the hockey games, but I’m also trying to capture that little bugger myself. Did you know that its native breeding habitat is actually in Europe, Africa, and Asia?”
“I did hear that on NPR,” Emmy says, nodding. “Your total is $21.99, please. I also heard it was the first sighting in North America since 1997.”
“And I thought I was obsessed,” I say with a laugh.
“It’s not obsession, it’s just knowing things. I like learning, and I have NPR on in here sometimes. Local birdwatchers come in and I get to hear all about it. Or it could have been one of the book club members. Mary-Ellen likes to spout off every now and then, like a geyser in Yellowstone. Eh, small town. We’ve got some chatty locals, you know.” She smiles as she hands over the bag to me. “I hope whatever it is you’re looking for, bird or otherwise, you find it while you’re here in Maple Falls.”
“Me, too, Emmy,” I say, spinning on my heel to head out the door. “Me, too.”