Chapter 25 #2
“This is why you’re paid minimum wage,” he lectured. “And why you couldn’t get a real job and are stuck working on your feet.”
I’d dealt with my fair share of Karens and Brads back in Tennessee. I knew how to diffuse rudeness with that Southern politeness, but I had a feeling that wouldn’t work too well here.
“Did you need help finding a book?”
“Yeah, about five minutes ago.” He scoffed. “You’re obviously not qualified—”
“Hey,” Jack snapped. He shut his book and tossed it down on the desk. “If you don’t have a title in mind, you can just leave.”
The man spluttered. “You can’t talk to me like that.”
“I can talk to you however I want.” Jack stabbed a finger in the air my way. “You can’t talk to him like that. Say your title or leave.”
“Fine. A Tale of Two Cities.”
Jack didn’t even look down at the keyboard as he hit a bunch of random keys. He tsked. “Too bad. We’re all out. Better luck at the Barnes & Noble in Union Square.”
With that, Jack snatched his book back up and settled back onto the chair. The man stared at me in disbelief and I simply shrugged, as confused as he was. He stalked off without another word and I turned to Jack.
“I don’t need a lecture on how I shouldn’t send customers to a different—”
“Thank you,” I interrupted him.
“Oh. Don’t mention it,” he muttered.
“Really, you didn’t have to do that.”
Jack closed his book, gently this time. “Look, I know my reputation here. And I’m serious when I say don’t mention it because I’ll deny it until my grave. But I’ve worked here longer than Ella.”
Well, duh.
“I knew her when she was a little girl. A lot of us old-timers, like David and Mabel and me, have watched her grow up here and watched her love for the store grow and grow. And there’s an unspoken agreement that we’d do anything for her.”
I nodded in understanding. I felt that way, too.
“Because to us, she was the daughter Leo never had.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
“If I remember Ella, then I remember you, too, Henry,” Jack said, his voice gruff. “You crashed a cart into me once.”
Even though I’d remembered Jack (from perhaps a few nightmares as a kid), I didn’t really expect him to remember me.
When my dad was alive, I’d spend Saturday mornings in the store with him until my mom picked me up.
Before the store was open, I was small enough for him to place me on the cart and push me around.
A few times I’d run into shelves, but I crashed into Jack and he nearly fell over.
He was carrying a stack of books and they all toppled to the ground.
I don’t remember much, but he snapped at my dad while I hopped off the cart to hide behind him.
“I didn’t realize you remembered me.”
“You haven’t been here in years,” he said. “But you have Leo’s eyes. He would mention you sometimes. Say his grandson would’ve liked a certain book or that you won a football game. I always wondered if I had scared you off.”
I shook my head immediately. “No, Jack. That wasn’t it.”
“My point is we protect our own here. We were all Leo’s and Ella is ours. You are still, too.”
With that, he opened his book and continued to read.
My throat tightened. It had been so long since I belonged somewhere like this.
Football teams were the closest I’d gotten to a sense of community, but I’d spent so many years feeling desperately sad with no idea what to do about it.
Too scared to make any sort of real connection because the idea of losing anything would send me into an aching spiral.
I had some casual friends and even girlfriends over the years, but it was scary to open myself up that way. All of it felt surface, except with Charlie and now Ella. I’d been a listener in those relationships, but never a sharer.
I’d been too aware of the hole in my life, without a real idea of how to fill it. Now that I had this new sense of belonging, I was desperate to keep it this way.
“Thank you,” I said again, sincerely.
“And we’ve been reading your emails,” Jack said. “And everyone wants you and Ella to get together and I’m not going to let some asshole customer scare you away from her.”
“We’re just friends,” I said immediately. “There’s nothing going on there.”
“I heard about the one-night stand.”
My eyes widened. “Excuse me?”
“Hi.” I jumped at the sound of Ella’s voice, turning around. She was smiling brightly at me and the image of her tousled hair and swollen lips flashed in my brain. “Thanks for covering with Jack. We figured out a lot for the fair.”
“N-no problem,” I stuttered, trying to collect my cool and push away the idea of a one-night stand with Ella. Because I certainly didn’t want just one night with her. “Glad to help out.”
She held out a piece of paper and said, “What do you think about a field trip?”
I gently took it from her. “What’s all this?”
“We came up with a list of things we need to buy to start designing. Ren’s already got everything sketched on paper, but the sooner we get the supplies, the sooner we can do the actual work.”
I scanned the list, racking up the bill in my head. The book fair wouldn’t be cheap—sometimes you had to spend money to make money, but this was on the edge of our budget. Not many sponsorships had come through, and without them, I worried we’d dig ourselves into a hole.
I glanced up at Ella as she tucked her hair behind her ears. For the first time in a long time, Ella seemed happy. Every laugh and smile had been tinted in the shade of grief, but the closer we got to the fair, the more color came back into her face.
“Sure thing. You want to go now?”
“Jack, you okay to stay here—”
“I can’t listen to him say ‘howdy’ to another customer. Please. Take him.”
As Ella and I made our way out of the store, she said, “Ray of sunshine, right?”
I shrugged. “He’s not so bad.”
She stared at me. “Wow. People from the South really are nice.”
As we walked over to a hardware store on Sixth Avenue, Ella explained all the different aspects of the fair they had planned in their brainstorming session.
“What do you think?” she asked eagerly. I opened my mouth to respond, but she quickly cut me off.
“And I know what you’re going to say: ‘Ella, this is too much money.’ ” She deepened her voice, her eyebrows drawn down.
“ ‘Ella, the point is to raise money, not spend it. Don’t you think this will cost too much? Don’t you think—’ ”
When we stopped at a crosswalk, I covered her mouth with my hand. She looked up at me with her big doe eyes as I said, “Carmella, I love it.”
I removed my hand from her mouth and she said, “Really?” She smiled when I nodded, bouncing eagerly. “Henry, we’re doing it. We’re saving the store.”
“I knew you would.”
“We,” she insisted. “We are.”
We smiled at each other like idiots and I had to keep myself from blurting out, Do you think of the kiss, too? Does it consume your every thought, too?
I liked her so much, every little thing about her. I felt it all over in the most bittersweet, swing for the fences, risk it all kind of way. Goodbye would wreck me.
“Hey, what’re you doing Sunday? Maybe we could do something else to make you fall in love with New York.”
I winced. “Charlie’s been begging me to have another man date.” She raised her eyebrows at this and I said, “And I’m not allowed to decline because then I’m participating in toxic masculinity culture.”
Ella barked out a laugh. “Call it off. Tell him we’re hanging out.”
“I don’t think you know how persuasive Charlie is.”
“C’mon, Henry. This is a city worth falling in love with. You can’t do it all from your apartment.”
And Ella was a girl worth falling in love with. How could I say no to her?
“Fine,” I said. “But I had something in mind that I wanted to show you.”
And her smile made it all worth it.