CHAPTER FOUR
R OBERT
During the first month after closing on the new commercial venture, I spent a lot of time at Home Depot. More than I had expected. I was probably the customer keeping them in business that quarter, and a few weeks into my visits, the staff knew me by name. Javier, the contractor I hired, had plenty of great ideas about layout and design, but there were still so many trivial things to consider—tile for the bar, light fixtures, paint, grout, and finishes.
The kinds of things you had to see “in person” before deciding.
That day, I needed to decide on the right color for the entryway and trim. I had three or four possibilities but couldn’t settle on one. Gray? White? Off-white? Some kind of mix? Nothing felt right, and I walked out of the store with samples and color cards but no answers.
I was still weighing the options when I drove past The Green Frog and its familiar spot on the two-lane road across from the ancient Parker-Olsen YMCA. The bend in the road signaled to every driver that the New Burlington city limits had begun. I’d passed it countless times, but I never stopped. I had too many things to do and not enough time to do them.
But why not check it out?
Growing up, I liked the store. Like a lot of kids in town, I went to The Green Frog with my parents for book signings and in-store events. Mom used to take me frequently during the summer or in the winter as a Saturday treat when I was coming back from a soccer tournament or a basketball game. Still, it had been forever since I’d been inside. I doubted it looked or felt the same. Without Gwen at the helm, her plump, grandmotherly figure on the stool behind the cash register, there was little way it could.
I parked the car out front anyway.
The Green Frog still had the same antique signage with gold lettering and stacks of books in the bay windows that framed the front door. I trotted up three small concrete steps and pushed through the door, a trio of bells jangling from the handle as I walked inside.
I was the only person in the store.
“Hello?” I called, surprised I didn’t at least see a customer service attendant in the front room. Leaving a store unattended would have never happened in New York, not with the way crime had escalated. Most shops had armed security, locked doors, and merchandise tucked away. Nobody was ever this trusting.
But this was New Burlington, Ohio, not New York City. People still had faith in each other here. And that was comforting. I hoped it would never change.
After nobody appeared, I asked in a louder voice, “Is the store open? Maybe I should come back another—”
“Help,” a woman’s voice called from somewhere deeper inside the shop. She sounded muffled and strained. “Can you hear me?”
I walked toward the sound. “Yes—I can.” I stopped when I arrived at the small archway dividing the front room from what looked like an office and stockroom. “I...um...where are you?”
“Back here,” she shouted, and I immediately knew I was a lot closer to her than I thought. “In the walk-in vault.”
“Vault?” I spun around. “This store has a vault ?”
“Long story,” she replied, her voice still raised and intense. “Do you see the small hallway?”
“Yes.”
“I’m behind the door at the end.”
I strode the narrow distance, stopped in front of the metal door at the end, and yanked the handle. “It’s locked.”
“Yep. It locks automatically. I thought I had propped it open, but it shut while I was preparing an order for a customer.”
“From a vault?”
“I’ll explain it when I get out.” For the first time, I heard exasperation and frustration in her words. “Can you... can you do me a favor and punch in the code to unlock the door? You should see a small keypad by the handle.”
“Yep.” I flipped open the cover of a small black square on the wall by the door handle. “Sure do.”
“Press this code—six, two, eight, one, and then pound, okay? If you do it right, it should click open.”
“Here we go,” I said. “Six, two, eight, one, pound.”
The door unlocked, and I pulled it open. A pretty woman greeted me, her ponytail askew, with whisps of brown hair across her forehead, sweat drenching the collar of her sweatshirt.
“You,” she said. “It’s you .”
“Are you okay?”
Propping the door open with one hand, I took a tentative step toward her. She moved backward, pressing against the row of shelves lining the back of the tiny room. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Rescuing you.” I glanced around the tiny space. “From, whatever this is?”
“It’s a fireproof storage room for rare first editions. We have several of them.”
I smiled. “And you also have more than several. How long have you been doing this?”
“Five years.”
“That’s nice.” I extended my free hand. “I’m Robert Kilgore, by the way.”
She didn’t take it. “I know.”
“You know?” I asked and blinked at her for a beat before it all clicked into clarity. It had been years since high school, but the heart-shaped face was unmistakable, just more mature and somehow more angled. I recognized the eyes too, although this version was older and better than when I’d last saw her. Adulthood had been kind to Anya, very kind ... “Anya Post? I’m sorry, I didn’t recognize you at first.”
Anya raised her eyebrow and stepped forward as if to move past me. “That’s me. Now, is there something I can help you with?”
“No, I—”
“If you don’t mind, we need to leave the vault. Gwen doesn’t like to have it open for long because she doesn’t want the books exposed to the elements.”
“Certainly,” I replied. And what a fantastic idea. Probably helps generate some good sales each year.
Still a little mystified, I followed Anya out of the small room. She carefully closed the door behind us, locked the vault door, and brushed her hands on her wide-leg jeans. “What brings you to The Green Frog?”
“Just...I thought I would stop by and check it out. I haven’t seen the place in years.”
Her expression was unreadable, but she started walking to the front showroom, and I followed her once more. “Well, as you can see, we’re still here.”
“That’s admirable. The store has been open, what? Forty years?”
“Something like that.”
We were back in the main area now, and I glanced around, taking in various tables piled high with multicolored romance novels, the long shelf of YA novels, a manga section, coffee table books, and more. The displays were haphazard and cluttered, but there was a certain comfort that came from that. This store had been here a long time, and while that showed in almost every crevice, I suspected patrons were pleased that nothing much changed from year to year. They knew what they were getting with The Green Frog, and I bet they relished that.
“Must be nice,” I mused, mostly to myself.
“What?”
Shaking my head at having said those words aloud, I turned back to her. “Just that the store has managed to hang on. That’s a major feat.”
“I guess it is.” She wandered over to the cash wrap desk and stepped behind it as if to put a line of defense, between herself and me. Why does she seem like she’s on edge? Sure, we hadn’t run in the same circles in high school, but I didn’t have a bad impression of her. “But business is always changing, and so is this community.”
Something about her tone made my stomach twist. Finally, I understood her hidden meaning. “You’re talking about the store I’m opening downtown.”
“I heard you took over the old bakery space.”
“Word travels fast in New Burlington, doesn’t it?” I laughed to myself. “I guess that hasn’t changed either.”
“It’s not just gossip. I drove by the other day when I was on my way to the post office, and I saw you had the lights on and all kinds of crews hustling in and out.”
“We’ve been working hard,” I admitted. “And it’s not only going to be a bookstore.”
She raised her eyebrow.
“It’s going to be a bourbon bar too. And maybe a restaurant.”
“Bourbon and books. How impressive.” But she didn’t sound impressed. She sounded annoyed. Skeptical. Disgusted, even. Maybe she doesn’t understand how great this idea is.
“I figure readers want something more than just—”
“What? Books?”
I nodded.
“Perhaps your clientele will.” She turned her attention to the register. “As you can see, we’re still open here, and it’s just after lunch, so if you’re not going to purchase anything, I need to get back to the order I was fulfilling.”
“Right,” I said, understanding this was my signal to leave. Anya was done with me, and I had other things to do anyway. I took a few steps backward to the exit. “It was nice to see you, Anya.”
“Nice to see you too, Robert,” she said, but her voice was flat, and she wasn’t even looking at me. Whatever was on her computer screen had her full attention. I said goodbye and made a quick exit.
What was that about? I knew that we hadn’t been the best of friends during high school, but we’d always been civil with each other. Hadn’t we? Had she had a crush on me back then that I hadn’t known about?
It wasn’t until I was in the car, a few blocks away, that I realized she never thanked me for getting her out of the vault. Looked like one person in New Burlington was not happy I’d come back.