CHAPTER 7 THE READING ROOM
The reading room took shape in pieces.
On Monday, Eli replaced the damaged plaster.
On Tuesday, Clara chose a soft cream paint and immediately regretted asking Maggie’s opinion because Maggie brought six samples and held a forty-minute debate about undertones.
On Wednesday, Noah drew a picture of what he believed the room should contain: four chairs, a table, a dog, seventeen books, and what appeared to be a rocket.
“We can do most of this,” Clara told him.
“What about the rocket?”
“Building code.”
He accepted that reluctantly.
By Thursday, the old floor shone with a warm satin finish. Eli installed shelves along the long wall. Clara sorted local histories, poetry, essay collections, and books by regional writers.
They worked after closing time—though the shop was not officially open enough to close.
That contradiction had become normal.
Clara sat cross-legged on the floor surrounded by books while Eli measured for the final shelf.
“You missed one,” she said.
“I did not.”
“The gap by the window is three inches wider than the other side.”
He looked at her.
“Did you measure it?”
“With my eyes.”
“Your eyes are not a tape measure.”
“They’re very good eyes.”
Eli’s gaze held hers one second too long.
“I remember.”
Clara looked down at the book in her hands.
“Three inches.”
He checked.
It was two and seven-eighths.
Clara smiled.
“Do not speak,” he said.
“I said nothing.”
“Your face did.”
“My face is untrustworthy, remember?”
He shook his head and adjusted the board.
Clara shelved another stack.
The room smelled of fresh wood, paint, and old paper. Through the windows, evening light warmed the brick courtyard. Someone in the bakery next door was playing old country music softly enough that only the bass line came through the wall.
For a while, Clara forgot that the arrangement was temporary.
She forgot the Hawthorne offer.
Forgot Charlotte.
Forgot that Eli was a man she had once planned to marry.
He was simply Eli, fitting shelves to an old wall while she argued about spacing.
Then he said, “Do you still edit books?”
“Corporate publications mostly. Annual reports. White papers. Marketing material.”
“You wanted novels.”
“I wanted publishing.”
“That isn’t what I said.”
Clara slid a book onto the shelf.
“No. I don’t edit novels.”
“Why not?”
“Because the job I took led somewhere else.”
“Do you like where it led?”
There he went again.
She stood.
“Do you interrogate all your clients while installing shelves?”
“Only the difficult ones.”
“I am paying you.”
“You haven’t paid me anything.”
“I will.”
“No.”
“Eli.”
“Promise to June.”
“That promise cannot cover unlimited labor.”
“It covers opening day.”
“You are impossible.”
“So I’ve heard.”
He turned back to the shelf.
Clara watched him work.
At twenty-two, he had asked her to marry him beside Cypress Creek after a summer picnic. He had not produced a ring immediately. Instead he had handed her a house sketch.
A small house. Wide porch. Two trees in front.
On the bottom he had written:
Wherever we build it.
She had said yes before he reached into his pocket for the ring.
For six months she had been happy.
Then fear had entered quietly.
What if she became her mother, who spent years resenting every compromise?
What if Eli became her father, who worked more and spoke less until one day he simply left?
What if love turned into obligation?
What if staying in Honeysuckle meant never learning who she might have been somewhere else?
She had never told Eli those questions.
Instead, when Atlanta called, she had accepted.
He had asked her to delay the job until they could make a plan.
She had heard only: stay.
So she had left.
“Clara?”
She blinked.
Eli was looking at her.
“What?”
“You disappeared.”
“I’m standing here.”
“You know what I mean.”
She did.
“I was thinking about the shelf.”
“No, you weren’t.”
She picked up another stack of books. “You remain extremely confident about what other people think.”
“Only you.”
The answer stopped her.
Eli put down the tape measure.
“That sounded wrong.”
“It sounded honest.”
He leaned against the wall.
“Maybe.”
Clara held the books tighter.
“Were you angry?” she asked.
“When?”
“When I left.”
Eli laughed once without humor.
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“A while.”
“How long?”
“Clara.”
“I asked.”
He looked toward the window.
“Long enough to make poor decisions. Not long enough to ruin my life.”
She absorbed that.
“Did you hate me?”
“No.”
The answer came immediately.
“That would have been easier.”
Clara’s throat tightened.
Eli continued. “I hated that you left without letting us have the hard conversation. I hated finding out your apartment was empty from Maggie. I hated that you mailed the ring back.”
“I didn’t know what else to do.”
“You could have handed it to me.”
“I couldn’t.”
“I know.”
“No,” Clara said. “I don’t think you do.”
“Then tell me.”
The room seemed to narrow around them.
Clara looked at the shelves they had built together.
“I was afraid that if I saw you, I wouldn’t go.”
Eli said nothing.
“And at the time,” she continued, “I thought going was the only way to prove I had a life of my own.”
His face softened, which made her want to look away.
“I never asked you not to have one.”
“I know that now.”
He nodded slowly.
Neither of them moved.
Finally Eli said, “I kept the ring.”
Clara’s breath caught.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“That is not like you.”
“No.”
“Where is it?”
“In a box somewhere.”
She almost smiled. “Very organized.”
“I learned from you.”
A small laugh escaped her.
The tension eased.
Eli picked up the shelf board again.
“Two and seven-eighths inches,” he said.
Clara stared.
“You are admitting I was right?”
“Do not make me regret it.”
She smiled and returned to the books.
They finished at ten-sixteen.
Before leaving, Clara turned off the overhead lights but left the two reading lamps on.
The room glowed softly behind them.
Eli stood in the doorway.
“June would approve.”
Clara looked at the room.
“I hope so.”
“She would.”
Clara glanced at him.
“How can you be sure?”
“Because she told me what she wanted.”
“And what was that?”
Eli smiled faintly.
“For people to come in for a book and stay because they felt at home.”
Clara looked back at the warm room.
Somewhere beneath the grief and the work and the arguments, she felt the first clear pull of wanting the shop to succeed.
Not for ninety days.
Not for Aunt June.
For itself.
She was not ready to admit that.
But the thought followed her upstairs and stayed awake after she went to bed.