Chapter 9 Clarke
Clarke
Leith Wilkes was absolutely off his rocker—no doubt about it.
I guess I understood why he had shown up at Toades to tell me about what he had found in the file.
Whether I liked it or not, I was part of this weird Wilkes family saga thanks to both Leith and his dad.
I had been the one who put this on Leith’s radar in the first place, after all.
But asking me to participate in some…fake dating farce?
“I think you should do it,” Earnest said from the corner of the kitchen after Leith left.
“It sounds entertaining.” He’d eavesdropped on the whole conversation.
I kept giving him urgent looks—trying to communicate for him to either buzz off or knock something over and distract Leith from his batshit ask.
Of course, he was no help.
“I’m sure it would be entertaining for you,” I said. “You’d just get to sit back and watch it all unfold with no consequences.”
Earnest nodded, agreeing. “Yeah, and Toades would also get a new roof. So it’s a win-win for me, really.”
“Not everything is about you, Earnest.”
“Just most things,” he joked. He seemed to be in a particularly good mood this morning. Maybe that meant I wouldn’t have to think of a secret come six p.m. “You never have any fun.”
“I have fun,” I shot back.
“What’s the last fun thing you did?” Earnest snapped his ghostly fingers. “Quickly.”
I opened my mouth to fling something back at him, but nothing came out.
Well, Earnest got my ass, I guess. I kept racking my brain.
Maybe going through my parents’ basement with Collins before she left?
Or Sadie’s birthday slash goodbye party?
Even though that party was the thing that got me into this whole mess, I had fun at the time.
With Leith. I had fun on Friday, too—even though I was loathe to admit it.
I shook that thought out of my head quickly.
“I fixed the label maker,” I said. “Which might not be fun on its own, but it implies future fun since I’ll get to label a bunch of shit.
” A year ago, that would’ve been true, at least. Recently, the things I used to love to do didn’t call to me in the same way.
Like, I still did them, and they sparked something, but the spark always went out before it could turn into a flame.
I’d never been someone who just went through the motions. I liked having hobbies and working hard and checking things off my to-do list. Now, though, those things inspired more dread than excitement.
“C’mon, Clarke. Live a little.” Well, that was rich coming from a dead person.
The buzz in my head was getting louder, which meant that the ghosts in Toades were getting closer to me—congregating to listen.
They didn’t always appear in a way that I could see, but I could feel them in a way that made me want to crawl out of my skin.
“I honestly don’t know how you could think that would be a good idea. Since we’re dealing with actual legal shit, doesn’t that make this fraud or something?”
“Eh, we all die eventually anyway.” Easy for him to say.
Again, dead. “And I didn’t say it would be a good idea,” Earnest corrected.
“I said I think you should do it. It’s the stories like this that you’ll tell when you’re knocking on death’s door—the kind that make people laugh, make them hold you close to their heart.
“I didn’t live long enough to have any of those, you know.” Earnest’s voice went soft. Oh god, not the ghost guilt again. Why was he so good at it? It was easy to forget that Earnest was just a kid, and he died chasing after the thing that he thought was most important in this world: love.
I took a sip of my coffee, which was strong and a little bitter. Just like me.
“Does that smile mean you’ll do it?”
I shook my head. “But I’ll find other stories to tell. Now, stop distracting me. Some of us have jobs.”
* * *
About two hours later, my mom came into the shop for the day. I was set up in what used to be the formal living room when Toades was someone’s home. Now it had an old writing desk where we rang up customers—where I was currently working—and all our jewelry and finer things were in display cases.
“Good morning,” Joanie said as she walked in the room.
Her tone was flat—something special that seemed reserved for me these days.
She took off her long, black wool coat to reveal a long, black duster with oversize red roses on it.
Every time she moved, her jewelry—a multitude of rings, bracelets, and necklaces—clinked together in some way.
A walking wind chime—just like the ones outside.
“Morning,” I said quietly. I was working on sorting through a box of knickknacks that Collins had sent back from her and Brady’s travels.
It was taking me much longer than usual.
My sister wasn’t as good at picking out the valuable stuff as I was, but she still had a good eye—way better than the average person.
“I just put on a second pot of coffee a little while ago, so it should still be hot.” I wondered if she knew that I only put on a second pot for her, a gesture of goodwill that I hoped meant we wouldn’t descend into another argument.
“Downs an entire pot of coffee daily and wonders why she can’t sleep,” my mom said, sighing.
Before she nearly lost the source of both our livelihoods, she would’ve said that with humor and affection.
Now, though, it was steeped in disdain. It made me want to defend myself—tell her I didn’t drink the entire pot—just most of it.
But then I would have to tell her that Leith was here this morning, and then I’d have to explain why Leith was here.
Well, I’d have to lie about why Leith was here, and I’m not a very good liar.
“Anything good in there?” My mom nodded toward the box. She only seemed halfway interested.
“Yeah, actually,” I said. “A few Kenner Star Wars toys that will do well on the website.” None of them were still in boxes, so they wouldn’t fetch top dollar, but we could still probably get a couple hundred for each.
I wanted to be more excited about that. I scanned my entire body for some sort of enthusiasm, but I couldn’t find it.
I took charge of the online portion of Toades after my epic New York City failure: I got an entry-level coordinator job with an ad agency after I graduated with a degree in marketing. I only lasted a year.
Maybe I would’ve done better if I’d picked a smaller city—like Portland or Minneapolis or Salt Lake, but I never did anything halfway. I felt so…disconnected there—so cramped and confined. It was like I was living in a giant MRI machine.
So I crawled back home with my tail between my legs, but at least I could breathe again.
My mom and dad welcomed me home with open arms—at first, anyway.
I think they thought that it was just a temporary setback and that with a little tender loving care, I’d be ready to get back to the great big world in no time.
They always told me I was too good for this place—too smart, too determined, too big.
Maybe I used to be, or maybe they were thinking of their other daughter.
When I first discussed helping out in a more official capacity at Toades, I was met with loaded silence. They didn’t want me to stay, and even if they did, they didn’t want me to settle for the family business.
But I had ideas. Good ideas that had the potential to stabilize this place, but it required my parents—mostly my mom—to change things up a little.
In the summer, we did a decent business in the store, especially for an antiques shop in a town that wasn’t along any sort of highway—major or minor.
But Sweetwater Peak was popular for fishing and wildlife tourism in the summer months.
The Sweetwater River was half fresh water and half salt water, and even though not many species of fish had been able to adapt, there was one specific one—the melancholia trout—that thrived in the river’s divide and stayed there instead of draining into the lake.
The seemingly unlimited amounts of the trout attracted lots of visitors to the area, which resulted in decent foot traffic for the store.
But in the winter, that foot traffic became virtually nonexistent.
I’d spent my whole life hearing my parents say We just need to make it through this winter, every winter.
They had gotten by on selling stuff on eBay for years.
The vintage and antiques community there was strong.
But I had a vision for housing most of the e-commerce on our own site.
I also worked on improving Toades’s Search Engine Optimization, and now it makes up a lot more of our business than it used to.
I prioritized pop culture items on the site because it was easy to target collectors with ads and marketing emails.
Most of our online customers, though, were repeats.
We had a good reputation, and we generally turned over online items quickly.
My mom also had a few customers that she would source items for—things like gothic revival furniture or preserved concert ticket stubs and posters, but I took the lead on the relationship management and getting their items to them.
I had taken my parents’ anxiety every winter and turned the business around. Maybe we weren’t insanely profitable or successful, but we were stable.
At least…we used to be.
“There were also some Depression glass and some Pyrex stuff. Mostly just costume jewelry and coins otherwise.”
“Make sure you sort out the coins,” my mom said. “I’ll take a look at them later.”
“Will do,” I said. I was already putting them in a jar for her.