Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Hadley
Whit wants to meet me at The Story Jar to discuss the business. He’s the executor for my grandma, so he’s supposed to help me through the transition of ownership.
As soon as I enter the small children’s bookstore, a quiet sense of nostalgia and coming home settles over me. Suddenly I’m back to being seven years old, wandering around, picking up books and reading instead of helping my grandma restock or reshelve the books.
How many stories have I lost myself in under this roof?
Somewhere in these aisles is where I first learned that if you open the right book, you can disappear into another world, another life.
She’s still got the giant fake tree in the corner, where she would do story time every Saturday and two afternoons during the week.
The rug with small circles for people to sit on is there, but more times than not, the kids would be shoulder to shoulder to hear her read a story about a train determined to make it over the mountain, a monster afraid of the dark, or a princess who refused to wait for a prince.
“Hadley.” Vera comes out of the backroom with an arm full of books. “Congratulations. I hear she’s yours now.”
I soak in the space one more time, unable to believe that it’s actually mine. Or almost mine. “Well, not yet.” It won’t be mine until after a year, and even then, I’m not sure I deserve it.
“Oh yes, well, your grandmother could be a little old-fashioned at times.” She laughs and puts the books down, opening her arms as she breaks the distance between us. “But it will be yours. I’m sure of it.”
I cling to Vera, almost as though holding my grandma’s dearest friend is an extension of her. “I should’ve been here.” Tears fill my eyes.
“Nonsense. She always bragged about you to all the children. Her granddaughter who was living a million stories as she traveled the world.” She pulls back and holds my upper arms, staring into my eyes.
“Stop the tears. She’d be mad at you for being upset.
She lived a good life. Said so ten times a day every day.
” She hugs me one more time before she steps away as if washing her hands of my guilt.
Picking up the stack of the books, she takes them to the window and arranges the display. I’d walk over to help her, but I’d only be in the way. There’s a lot I still need to learn around here to really take it over.
“It looks exactly the same. Vera…” I say, seeing how she’s been here all these years. She loves this store as much as I do.
She must hear something in my voice because she glances up but shakes her head. “No. I’m much too old. This place needs some youth injected into it.”
Guilt hits me deep in my belly. “Are you sure?”
“Positive. But I’m here at your disposal.” She goes back to fixing the display, and I watch her, hoping to learn.
“Thank you.”
“Of course, dear.”
Whit waves through the window and comes through the door. His messenger bag is slung crossways over his chest, and he’s wearing a suit because I’m pretty sure my brother’s closet only contains rows of suits. But he also has three coffees and a bag of bagels from Hero’s Coffee Bar.
“Look at you, you hero.” I snatch the brown bag out of his hand.
“I figured we’d start today off on a good note.” He smiles and places the coffees on the counter, next to the vintage national cash register that’s only there for show. “Vera, how are things?”
They share a look I can’t decipher, one of those silent exchanges that never means anything good.
“Well, Pete finally peed this morning, so that’s good news.”
“Oh Pete! How is he?” I ask.
Whit shakes his head slightly behind Vera’s back.
“He’s great,” Vera says, looking ecstatic.
Whit cringes.
“Still kickin’ at twenty-one.” Vera smiles and goes behind the counter, writing something on a note.
“Whoa, is that a record?”
“Let’s get started, Hadley. I have to get to work.” Whit moves toward the hallway.
“No. Thirty-eight. I think Pete is going to beat it, though.” Vera doesn’t glance up.
Whit shakes his head again. “Vera, we’ll be in the office if you need us.” He takes out a coffee and places it on the counter. “Cream, no sugar. And—” He pulls out a bagel. “Plain bagel with sriracha cream cheese.”
“You’re the best. You’re so lucky to have such a sweet brother. Brea had good sense to snatch you up when she did.” Vera wastes no time in unwrapping her bagel and taking a big bite out of it.
I smile and grab my bag, eager to figure out my future. Taking the coffees and bag of bagels, I head to my grandmother’s office in the back of the store.
Once we’re down the hallway, I lower my voice. “Pete is still alive?”
Whit nods. “And we’re not going to see Pete’s name in the Guinness Book of Records for the longest lifespan of a cat.
He’s blind in one eye and lost a leg last year when he got out on the fire escape.
Plus, he’s got some kidney thing going on now.
Hence the whole peeing thing. Honestly, I thought Grandma would have outlived him. ”
I cringe because it’s going to kill Vera when Pete passes.
The minute I open the door with bold letters reading OFFICE and a bumper sticker that says, “If You Don’t Read, We Can’t Be Friends,” I stop, taking in her space. Grief locks my chest, and a heavy weight presses down on my shoulders.
I expect to see her here, glasses sliding down her nose while she reads the first page of every new book that comes into the store.
The books she usually reads are stacked on a bookshelf. Props also line the shelves—a princess crown, a glittery fairy wand, a dragon mask, and a floppy wizard hat.
“Walk in, Hadley. I’m starving,” Whit says behind me, interrupting the memory I’m desperate to be transported to.
I absentmindedly place the coffees and the bagels on her desk and look at the wall of postcards I’ve sent her throughout the years. I run my hand down them, a map of everywhere I’ve gone since graduating college and becoming the Hargrove family misfit.
“She loved receiving them. Would always tell me where you were like I didn’t know.” Grandma’s chair creaks when Whit sits down and takes the lid off his coffee, blowing on it. He leaves the lid on the desk and opens his bagel.
“I should’ve come home last month. Had I—”
“None of us could have guessed.” He hands me my bagel, and I sit on the upholstered chair with a book of fabric patterns strewn across it, opening up the parchment paper. “She was proud of you.”
“So proud she put a stipulation in her will that I have to get married and stay in Chicago to own the bookstore?” I quirk my eyebrow.
He sighs. “It’s more about the bookstore than you. She was afraid of this place being swallowed up by one of the big stores or that someone would sell to the highest bidder. I’m not gonna lie, Hadley, I know you want this place, but you might not after you look at the P&L reports.”
I drop my bagel. “It’s the most magical place in this city.”
He sighs again, leaning back in the chair and sipping his coffee. Whit might tolerate and love me, but my dreams will never be the same as his. He likes stability and routines.
“It’s a children’s bookstore that charges twice the price of the big box stores. I told her to sell it five years ago.”
“Whit!” My mouth drops open.
When did he turn into such an adult? His hair is a little thinner on top and his stomach a little more extended. He looks just like I remember our dad looking before he left. Come to think about it, Whit is probably his age.
He places his coffee on the desk and pulls a paper out of his messenger bag, handing it to me. “She’s been in the red for the past two years. Her personal money kept this place afloat.”
My gut twists as I stare at all the red on the spreadsheet.
When I look up, Whit nods, taking a bite of his bagel. He finishes chewing. “Sorry. I know this place has sentimental memories for you, but it’s never going to make money, Had. Maybe you just let it go.”
He continues to eat his bagel and sip his coffee while I examine the spreadsheet. Dread seeps in deeper the longer I read through the statements. How can someone like me, who has never owned a business, turn this around?
Money was never the reason I wanted the bookstore, but I also don’t have the disposable income to keep it afloat out of love.
Poor Pete and his kidney medicine are reliant on me being able to pay Vera. She’s not the only employee here either.
Is Whit right?
I don’t even have any husband prospects unless I put an ad in the newspaper and promise them… what? A failing bookstore he could own jointly with me?
Still…
“But Whit, it’s our family’s.”
“And it’s dying. You could sell it. Grandma owns the building, so—”
“But Vera lives upstairs. We’d be kicking her out too.”
“I’m not saying it’s easy, but we can’t just keep pumping money into something that’s essentially a hobby. There’s a provision in the will, and Grandma set some money aside to keep this place running for a while, but after that…”
“But I thought Edmund said if I don’t want it, he’ll find a reputable buyer? For the business.”
He cocks his eyebrow at me. “We both know that the paperwork will promise that it remains a bookstore for however many years, but there’s no way you can lock someone into keeping a business that’s failing.”
“But—”
“I understand Grandma wanting it to live on, but…” He shakes his head. “It’s a sinking ship.”
My head is shaking before he finishes his sentence. “I can’t, Whit. I can’t do that to her.” I lean back and cross my legs, dropping the paper on the bookshelf, my eyes snagging on The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, as if my grandmother placed it there for me.
“Then you have to find yourself a husband. With deep pockets.” Whit crunches his parchment paper in a ball and tosses it into the trash can like a basketball.
The chair creaks again as he stands and grabs his coffee.
“Just think about it, Hadley. I know you love this place, but staying here in Chicago—is that what you really want? You’ve never been one—” He shakes his head.
I’m not surprised that he’s doubting me now. The rest of my family has probably made him defect from Team Hadley after I treated Chicago like a revolving door. I’ve given him no reason to think I can do this. That I’ll stick around.
At this point, I’m not sure I even have faith in myself.
“I gotta get to work, but give it some time. Think about it. There’s no stipulation on the timeframe—”
“Except my year doesn’t start until I marry.”
A fun fact Edmund Mills filled me in on when my family was leaving and he asked me to stay back a second. Which means it’s more than a year now because what kind of man will marry me without knowing me?
He turns to face me when he reaches the door.
“Unfortunately, yes. I think it was her way of keeping you here.” His eyes zero in on the wall behind me, the one with all the postcards, then his gaze finds me.
“There’s only one sensible decision here, Had.
Don’t feel guilty for making a decision that’s good for you. ”
He walks out and yelps. “Oh, hey Honor.”
“Whit,” she says, sliding by him into the office doorway.
“I’m glad you’re here. Talk some sense into her.” Whit waves and walks away.
Honor watches him go and then fans herself. “It’s official. I’m into dad bods.”
“Gross. I hate how you’re always crushing on my brother.”
Honor sits where Whit just was and crosses her legs. “It’s like mandatory to have a crush on your best friend’s older brother.”
I roll my eyes. She always wanted to go to his swim meets and stuff.
“Anyway, I see now is not the time to say, with some Rogaine, Whit hasn’t changed a bit.” She crosses her legs and looks me up and down. “How is it going?”
I blow out a breath and cross my legs, picking up part of my bagel and handing it over to Honor. “Whit wants me to give up on the bookstore. He thinks it’s failing and I should let it go.”
Her smile dims, and she puts the bagel on the desk. “And what do you want to do?”
“I want to keep it.”
“And that means you have to find someone to marry you?”
I nod.
“That’s completely feasible. Any guy would be lucky to marry you.”
I laugh. “Sure, should I just go down to Saffire with a sign around my neck saying Marry me?”
“Well, in all truth, you’d have to say Marry me and I’ll sleep with you. More enticing. They get something from it.”
I take a bite of my bagel, the only thing good in my life right now. “Whit says it’s failing, and I don’t think he believes I can bring it back.”
“I love the man, but let’s be honest, he has no va-va-voom.”
“Va-va-voom?”
“You know, not a lot of passion. He seems like a guy who would get all hot on doing your taxes.”
“Honor, you should know that your childhood crush is not an accountant.”
She shrugs. “Take Whit and his spreadsheets and numbers out of it. What does Hadley want to do?”
I continue to eat my bagel, and she eats my other half, moaning and saying how much she misses Hero’s Bagels since she’s stuck out in the burbs.
“I think I want it.” I dig out my grandma’s letter from my bag. “She left me a letter, and I haven’t been able to read it. Maybe that’s my answer.”
She stares at the letter, giving me a soft smile. “There you go.” She stands. “I need to go catch up with Vera, but I’m just out there if you need me.” She pats my leg and walks to the door.
The door shuts and I push my bagel away, digging my grandma’s letter out of my bag.
I’ve waited long enough to find out what she wrote me, hating the thought that they’re the last words I’ll ever hear from her.
I run my finger under the sealed flap and take a deep breath, ready to find out why the woman I’ve looked up to my entire life is tying me to Chicago whether I’m ready for it or not.