Fifteenth Summer

A mile later I stood in front of the Bluepointe Public Library, sighing wearily.

I’d been coming to this library since I was a kid, but every summer it was freshly disappointing.

I wanted all libraries to be made of ivy-covered stone bricks, with tall, arched windows and creaky wooden floorboards. I wanted quiet, romantic staircases and window seats where you could read all day.

Bluepointe’s library had none of these things. It was a squat single story, and it was made of sand-colored concrete that left scratches on your skin if you brushed up against it. The floors were covered in forest-green carpeting.

But the worst part about this library was its hours, in that there were hardly any of them. The place seemed to be open about four hours each morning. This being the afternoon, it was locked up tight.

I shoved my hands into the pockets of my cutoffs and found a couple scraps of paper I’d scribbled on in the car, as well as a wad of crumpled dollar bills that I’d forgotten about. I’d stuffed the money into my pocket that morning, thinking I’d want it for snacks on the road. But there are only so many stale corn nuts a girl can take, so I’d never used it.

I decided that if I couldn’t get myself a book, at least I could get something cold to drink. The wooded road that led from the cottage to town had been shady and breezy, but now the sun felt scorchingly strong.

I headed for Main Street.

This was the one part of Bluepointe that looked just like it should. The storefronts all had big plate-glass windows and striped awnings, and above them were loft apartments owned by artists who hung burlap curtains in the windows and made sure everyone had a good view of their easels.

The first shop I passed was Ben Franklin, a this-and-that store that sold dusty stuff that wasn’t supposed to exist anymore, like quilting supplies and shower caps and rainbow-colored glue that you could blow into balloons with a little red straw.

I smiled at the inflatable rafts, buckets, and shovels in the window. The store had the exact same display every summer. Each year it just grew more yellowed and saggy.

I also loved Estelle’s, the art gallery a few doors down.

All the artists in town sold their stuff at Estelle’s, except for the rotating roster of people that Estelle had decided to feud with. That was her thing. She loved to throw people out of the gallery, shaking her fist at them and making a big scene.

Today on the sidewalk in front of Estelle’s, I spotted the Pop Guy and his gleaming silver freezer on wheels, complete with a rainbow-striped beach umbrella.

Unlike the Bluepointe librarians, the Pop Guy was always around. His frozen pops were famous for sounding weird but turning out to be delicious.

Perfect. By then I was parched.

But when I alighted in front of the Pop Guy’s chalkboard menu, my heart sank a little bit.

BALSAMIC STRAWBERRY, GRAPEFRUIT MINT, AND LEMON ROSEMARY.

What was with all the herbs? I’m sure my parents would have swooned over these flavors, but to me they sounded like the names on bars of soap. I steeled myself for another bummer, until I came to the last item on the menu. Then I grinned.

“Raspberry Limeade,” I said with relief. I handed him a few bills and said, “I’ll have one of those, please.”

“Nice safe choice there,” the Pop Guy muttered as he dug into his steamy freezer. I would have been stung, but the Pop Guy was also famous for being a cranky food snob, so I just ducked my head to pull off the cellophane wrapper, and headed off.

Before I could get very far, though, the Pop Guy called after me, completely ignoring a cozy-looking couple who looked like they’d been just about to order.

“Hey, I’ve seen you here before, yeah?” he said. “I recognize that hair of yours. Been a while.”

I nodded.

“Been a year,” I said.

I thought back to the fourteen-year-old me the Pop Guy remembered.

That version of myself wouldn’t have even caught the Pop Guy’s dis. The insult would have skimmed over her head—most stuff that adults said did. The fourteen-year-old me had also been wearing her first underwire bra. She’d worn way too much frosty lip gloss, and she’d wanted nothing more than to have a sleepover with Emma every Saturday night.

And it had never occurred to her that her grandmother wouldn’t be around forever, or at least until she was very old herself.

To the fifteen-year-old me, that fourteen-year-old seemed really, really young.

I did still like her taste in frozen treats, though. My herb-free pop was fabulous—almost as good as a dunk in Lake Michigan.

I strolled slowly up the sidewalk, pausing to peek into each familiar shop.

But then, on the corner of Main and Althorp, I spotted something that almost made me drop my pop in the gutter. Across the street, next door to Mel & Mel’s Coffee Shop, where I’d been eating pie since I was a toddler, was something new.

There was never anything new in Bluepointe.

The sign over the door said DOG EAR in a funky typewriter font. Next to the name was a cartoon of a floppy-eared Labrador retriever. The dog was resting its chin on its front paws while it gazed at—

This was the part where I really did drop my pop, right onto my flip-flopped toes.

The dog was reading a book.

Which meant not only was there a new shop in Bluepointe, but it was my favorite kind of shop ever—the kind that sold books.





As I race-walked across the street, pausing only to shake the sticky raspberry juice from my feet, I tried to lower my expectations.

It could be a new age bookstore, I told myself. All crystals and tarot cards and self-help books.

Or worse, I bet it’s a pet store, with an entire Dog Whisperer book section and toy poodle outfits and liver-flavored cupcakes.

I arrived at the bookstore and plunged through the door with so much breathless drama that the little bell on the door clanged. I could feel a dozen heads turn toward me.

“Welcome to Dog Ear!” said a woman behind the counter. She had long, gray-streaked hair that looked soft and pretty instead of scraggly and old. She looked small behind the stacks of books on the corner of the L-shaped counter. Propped against these stacks were little cards with paragraphs written in pink, orange, and lime-green ink.

“Grab something to read and a cookie,” the woman told me with a warm, deeply dimpled smile. “We’ve got vanilla wafers today.”

She gestured toward a lounge in the back corner of the shop. Two people were already there, tucked into a faded blue couch, absorbed in books. At their feet was a huge black Labrador retriever. It must have been the dog on the sign. One of the readers, a woman in cuffed denim cutoffs just like mine, had her bare feet propped on the dog’s ample back as if he were no more than a furry ottoman. She popped one vanilla wafer into her mouth and tossed another to the dog, who gulped it down with a loud smack.

On the lemon-yellow wall overlooking this little lounge was a gallery of amazingly detailed posters, each advertising a book signing and featuring a mash note from the author.

To the best little bookstore in town! And I’m not just saying that because you’re the only bookstore in town . . . .

Tell E.B. he owes me my sandwich back. XOXO . . .

On the opposite side of the store, tucked behind a few rows of turquoise bookshelves, was a children’s area enclosed by a tiny white picket fence. It had a fluffy green shag rug and beanbag chairs, plus a bright-red train engine, the perfect size for a toddler to climb into.

String after string of fairy lights swagged from the ceiling. Between the light strands dangled random stuff like a cardboard moon, a Chinese lantern, and a disco ball.

Normally I would have fallen on the bookshelves like a bear just out of hibernation. But I found that I couldn’t quite move. Because when you walk into the bookstore you’ve always fantasized about but never thought could exist in real life, it kind of throws you. Some irrational part of me thought if I went any farther, or touched anything, it would all vaporize and I’d wake up from a dream.

When the woman at the counter started to look concerned, I did take a few stumbling steps forward.

I picked up one of the index cards propped against the books on the counter. Next to the book’s title, someone had written: A-minus. As you know, I rarely give out such a high grade. I read this book when I was recovering from a breakup. Yes, I know all of you were rooting for the breakup. Don’t gloat, people. Anyway, next time somebody stomps on your heart, you should read this book. You’ll hate the lead character for being much prettier than you, but you’ll forgive her when she fails to make tenure at her hoity-toity liberal arts college.

“Everyone who works here writes up little book reviews,” the woman at the counter said, interrupting me. “That one’s by Isobel. She’s not here right now, so I can tell you . . .”

She shifted to a stage whisper.

“She’s a bit of an oversharer.”

I laughed.

“Good books will do that to you,” I said.

“Oh, honey,” the woman said, “Isobel doesn’t need a good book to tell us the most appalling things about her personal life. She’ll read the weather report and start spilling her guts.”

This woman was talking to me in that frank way that middle-aged people only talked to other middle-aged people. Which made me feel both proud and paranoid. This couldn’t all be for real, could it?

“Who are you?” I blurted. “I mean, um, when did this store open? It wasn’t here the last time I was in Bluepointe.”

“Do you like it?” the woman said with a conspiratorial grin. “Good, ’cause it’s mine! Well, my husband’s and mine, but I do more of the day-to-day because he’s a professor in Chicago. We’re nearing our one-year birthday.”

“I like it,” I said as I continued to take it all in. Outside the kids’ picket fence was a tall refrigerator box painted purple and labeled THE PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH. And next to the couch, where you’d think there’d be an end table or something, there was a basket of yo-yos. Not shrink-wrapped yo-yos for sale. Just loose, mismatched yo-yos, their strings trailing over the basket’s edge. Clearly the Dog Ear owners believed that shopping for books just naturally led to the urge to yo-yo.

“I like it a lot,” I breathed.

“Well, go get you some cookies, then, before E.B. eats them all,” the woman said. “Yesterday we had Fig Newtons, and he did not like those at all, so he’s playing catch-up.”

She craned her neck to address the dog, who was still sprawled beneath the feet of the reader.

“Aren’t you, ya big fatty?” the owner cooed.

The reader with her feet on E.B. gasped.

“Don’t you listen to Stella,” she told the dog, feeding him another cookie. “There’s just more of you to love.”

Stella rolled her eyes and said to me, “He looks more like Wilbur the pig than a dog. That’s why we named him after E. B. White.”

While I laughed, Stella turned to the girl on the couch. “Darby, are you going to buy that book ever, or just come here every day to read it?”

The woman grinned and said, “I’ll take option B.”

Stella laughed and shrugged, as if to say, Fine with me.

Best. Bookstore. Ever.

I finally found the strength to drift over to the YA section. Refreshingly, it was placed smack-dab in the middle of the store, instead of tucked into some shadowy corner in the back. I rounded the aqua bookcase, almost licking my lips in anticipation of all the pretty book jackets arrayed on the shelves like candy.

I stopped short when I saw that somebody else was in the aisle.

Not just any somebody. A boy. A boy so tall and long-limbed that his slouch against the bookshelf make him look like the letter C. A boy with fair skin, and a perfect nose and neatly shorn brown hair.

A very cute boy.

He was squinting at the cover of a paperback, but when I took a few steps down the aisle, he looked up at me. I saw a flash in his eyes. They were brown—the exact same brown of my favorite velvet chair at Granly’s cottage. They had long lashes and thick brows the same wet-sand color as his buzz-cut hair.

The pretty brown eyes glanced back at his book for a moment, then quickly snapped right back to me. Now they were widened in an expression that seemed a little stunned.

This, of course, caused me to catch my breath and spin around to face the bookshelf.

That was a double take, I thought. It was definitely a real-live double take! For . . . me? For me!

A feeling of both giddiness and panic bubbled inside me. Hoping my face wasn’t turning bright red, I bent toward the bookshelf and pretended to search for a particular title. Meanwhile, I could feel the boy staring at me.

My hand floated up to my ponytail, which felt like it had frizzed into a giant puffball in the heat. I twirled a lock of hair nervously around my finger.

He was still looking, I could tell.

For maybe the first time in my life, I wished I were a stereotypical redhead, all sassy and impulsive. I’d swing myself around and stare right back at him. My dark blue eyes would crackle impishly, and my smile would be twisty and mischievous, just like the redheads I’d read about in books but had never actually met in real life.

Of course, even those redheads might have hesitated if they’d just emerged from a three-day road trip, plus a crying jag, with barely a glance in the mirror. My sleeveless red-checked shirt, which had surely been cutely crisp and picnicky when it was first made in the 1970s, was now faded and wrinkly and had a permanent ballpoint pen stain near one of the buttons. The Revlon Red polish on my toenails was chipped, and for all I knew I had a raspberry limeade drip on my face.

I skimmed my fingertips across my chin, feeling for stickiness. Then I tapped at the corners of my mouth to make sure there were no raspberry remnants there.

Since I seemed to be drip-free, I shot the boy a sidelong glance.

He was still looking at me.

And now he was saying something to me.

“There’s nothing on your face, you know,” the boy said in a low, somewhat raspy voice.

It took a second for me to realize what he’d said and what it meant. Clearly my attempt at a subtle chin check had been anything but subtle.

“What?” I blurted.

“It looked like you were wondering if you had something on your face,” he said. “Maybe mayonnaise. You know, from the coffee shop? I just thought I’d let you know, there’s not.”

“Oh,” I said. “Um, thanks. I wasn’t at the coffee shop.”

“Oh, okay,” he said.

We looked at each other blankly for a moment before I blurted, “Besides, I’m not so into mayo. I’m more of a mustard girl.”

I cringed. What was that? Please tell me I’m not talking to this boy about condiments!

But the boy nodded as if this were a perfectly normal thing to say to a cute person of the opposite sex. Who knew? Maybe it was. Maybe I should ask him what kind of stuff he put on his ham sandwiches.

Then I imagined those words coming out of my mouth, and I clamped my lips shut to make certain that they didn’t.

The boy returned to his book, which gave me the chance to stare at him. He looked so different from most of the boys I knew. They were always swinging their hair out of their eyes with swoops of their heads, something that I hadn’t realized I found annoying until just now. This boy’s hair was sleek and neat and allowed a view of his very nice forehead.

Wait a minute, I thought. There’s no such thing as a nice forehead. Foreheads aren’t nice or not-nice. They’re just . . . foreheads. What kind of weirdo admires a guy’s forehead of all things? What does that mean?

But I think I already knew.

It meant that I had been struck with an instantaneous crush—a crush that was possibly mutual (there’d been that double take, after all) but just as possibly not.

I tried to think of something to say. Something breezy and bright that had nothing to do with ham sandwiches. Of course, my mind was blank—except for the part that was consumed with this boy’s long fingers and his stylish Euro sneakers and (still!) his forehead.

So I just watched in silence as he turned to a wheeled cart behind him. It was stacked neatly with paperbacks. I assumed that Stella, the store owner, had left them there so she could shelve them later.

The boy took a silver pen off the cart.

It hovered over the front cover of his book.

I felt myself tense. What was he doing? Was he going to write something on the book cover?

Only when I heard the sound of paper tearing did I realize that he was doing something even worse. He was slicing the cover off the book! The pen was not a pen. It was an X-Acto knife!

Maybe Stella didn’t mind if customers read her books without buying them or got vanilla wafer crumbs in the bindings. But even she wouldn’t stand for this, would she?

“What are you doing!” I cried, grabbing the boy’s wrist.

Now it was his turn to be shocked.

“I’m doing my job,” he said. “What are you doing?”

I realized I was still clutching his wrist. It felt satiny smooth and warm. I dropped his arm like it had burned me.

“What kind of job involves slashing a book cover?” I demanded. “What did that book ever to do you?”

That’s when something weird happened.

Weird in a wonderful way.

The boy smiled.

His teeth were very white and straight, except for one crooked eyetooth. Each of his cheeks had a dimple in it.

“It’s nothing personal against the book,” he said. “It’s just being remaindered. These all are.”

The boy gestured at the cart full of paperbacks.

“Remaindered?” I asked. “What’s that?”

“They’re not selling,” he explained. “So we return them to the publisher. But it’s too expensive to ship back the whole book, so we just send them the cover and recycle the rest of the book.”

“Oh,” I said, feeling stupid and sad all at once. I eyed the cart full of books.

“You’re going to slice up all those books?” I said. “How can you stand it?”

“They’re not selling,” the boy repeated with a shrug. “If we don’t get rid of the ones that won’t sell, we won’t have room for the books that will.”

I plucked a tomato-red paperback off the cart.

“Waiter, There’s Soup in My Fly,” I read.

“Fly-fishing humor,” the boy said with a sorrowful shake of his head.

“Well, I don’t know why that’s not selling,” I said sarcastically. I reached for another book.

“My Life as a Cat Lady,” I read with a shudder.

“I’m telling you,” the boy said. With one hand he reached out to take the book from me. With the other he held up his X-Acto knife.

“No,” I protested, plunking the book back onto the cart. “How can you kill off all those innocent cats?”

“Well, we are dog people here,” the boy said, glancing toward the lounge, where E.B. was wetly gobbling another vanilla wafer. The boy rolled his eyes and shook his head.

But he also smiled, and those dimples showed up again.

My stomach fluttered. I hoped he couldn’t tell. Quickly I bent down so I could peer more closely at the books on the cart—and hide my face from him.

One paperback was sunset orange. I pulled it out.

“Coconut Dreams by Veronica Gardner,” I said. “That sounds beachy to me. I’ll take it.”

The boy laughed.

“You’re not actually buying that,” he declared.

“I’m rescuing it,” I said, hugging the book to my chest. “This book does not deserve to die.”

“Do you even know what it’s about?” he said.

I glanced at the back of the book.

“It’s a dollar ninety-nine on clearance,” I said, eyeing the red sale sticker. “Ooh, and it’s YA! That’s a good start. Let’s see . . .”

I began to read the description on the back cover aloud.

“ ‘Nicole can’t believe her parents have shipped her off to camp for the summer. Even if the camp is on a tropical island—’ ”

I paused to snort.

“Sounds deep,” the boy said, prompting me to read on.

“ ‘Nicole is super-mad about it. What about hanging out at the mall with her friends? What about her job at the frozen yogurt shop? She’ll miss all the parties and all the fun, which is just what Nicole’s parents want! At first Camp Coconut is awful—early wake-up calls, catch-your-own-fish breakfasts, a monsoon—’ ”

“A monsoon!” the boy and I blurted out together.

“Okay, safe to say that’s a stretch,” I said with a giggle.

“ ‘But then,’ ” I read on, “ ‘everything changes. Nicole meets a local boy named Kai. Their summer love blooms like a coconut flower, but like the tide, Nicole knows it can never last.’ ”

This was the part where I was supposed to groan and make a joke about two bad similes in one sentence.

But instead my throat seemed to close up as I realized something—

I was reading to my new crush from a summer romance novel. It was about as subtle as my sticky-chin check.

Okay, I told myself. I tried to take a deep breath without appearing to take a deep breath. Maybe he’s not making the connection. He’s a boy, and lots of boys are clueless. Or maybe he isn’t clueless but he just doesn’t associate me with a summer romance at all.

How could I figure out which one it was? And how could I also find out his name, his age, and whether he’d been on Team Peeta or Team Gale? (Either one was fine, as long as he’d never been on Team Edward or Team Jacob.)

When you were in a bookstore, those were perfectly legitimate things to ask, right? So why was I still speechless?

We were just verging on an awkward silence when Stella’s voice rang out from the front of the store.

“Josh, honey? You back there?”

The boy looked up at the ceiling and sighed quietly before calling out, “Yeah?”

I felt that little flutter in my stomach again.

His name is Josh.

Then the boy spoke again. “What is it, Mom?”

This time my eyebrows shot up.

His name is Josh and his parents own the bookstore of my dreams.

It seemed so perfect that I couldn’t help but grin. My smile was unguarded, uncomplicated, and delighted. I did not have this sort of smile very often. It felt a lot like the smile that had been on Josh’s face a moment ago.

Luckily, Josh was listening to his mother and not looking at me while I grinned like a big goofball. I only half-heard the question she asked him—something I didn’t understand about a packing slip and a ship date.

Whatever it was, it seemed to bring Josh back to the serious worker-bee place he’d been before we’d started talking.

“It’s in the office file cabinet, third drawer down in the back,” Josh called. Then he added, in a mumble, “Where it was the last time you asked.”

He stared at the X-Acto knife in his hand for a moment. I could tell he wasn’t seeing it, though. His eyes were foggy and distant, and they were definitely not too happy.

Then he seemed to remember I was there and looked at me. He pointed at the book in my hand.

“So, are you buying that or not?” he asked gruffly. He was suddenly impatient to get rid of me so he could get back to his book destruction.

And just as suddenly my rescue of Coconut Dreams didn’t seem cute, clever, and boy-impressing. It was silly, a waste of Josh’s apparently very valuable time.

I wondered if I’d been mistaken about his double take. And maybe we hadn’t just had an amazingly easy and fun conversation about his cart full of doomed books. Maybe I’d imagined all that, and in fact I was just another annoying customer at Josh’s annoying summer job.

So now what was I supposed to do? Put the book back and skulk away? If I did, I’d have to sidle past Josh in the narrow aisle. Twice. It’d be much quicker to just make a dash for the front desk.

So I nodded at Josh.

“I’ll take the book,” I said quietly.

“Fine,” he said, looking stony. “I’ll ring it up for you.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “Your mom can do it.”

Josh shrugged—looking a little sulky—and turned back to his cart.

I headed back up the aisle toward the front desk. Just before I emerged from the stacks, I heard the awful sound—rrriiiiip—of another book cover getting slashed.

I couldn’t meet Stella’s eyes as I handed her Coconut Dreams.

“Well!” she said brightly. I nodded sympathetically. What else could you say to such a pathetic purchase? I could have told her the book was supposed to have been a joke between me and her son, but now the joke had fizzled and it was just a cheesy book on clearance that I was buying before I made a quick getaway. But that seemed like a lot to explain, so I just stayed silent.

Why, I asked myself mournfully for the hundredth time, did I take my e-reader into the shower?

“So that’s a dollar ninety-nine,” Stella said. I handed over two of my precious dollar bills, then dug into my pocket for the tax.

“No tax, sweetie,” Stella said. “After all, that book was headed for the shredder. You rescued it!”

“That’s what I said,” I said. She grinned at me, and I half-smiled back, feeling a little less mortified.

“Okay,” I sighed. “Well . . .”

I cast a glance back toward the stacks, where Josh was still hidden. Suddenly I felt a rush of tears swell behind my eyes.

How had this gone so wrong? I wanted to linger in Dog Ear. I wanted to slowly browse the stacks, then take a tall bundle of books over to the lounge. I’d flop into that cracked-leather chair, where I’d skim through six different first chapters while nibbling vanilla wafers. Then I’d buy myself a good book and take it straight to the beach.

But instead I’d met Josh, and somehow we’d gone from flirting to flame-out in less than five minutes. I was too mortified to stay. I had to slink out of Dog Ear, with a lame book, to boot.

It just wasn’t fair.

I turned back to Stella to thank her for ringing me up, but she was peering with concern into the lounge.

“E.B.,” she said with a warning tone.

The dog lifted one eyebrow at her and whimpered.

“Oh, no,” Stella cried. “E.B., hold on, boy!”

She swooped down to reach for something under the counter. When she came up, she was holding a leash.

Now the dog let out a loud, rumbling groan.

“Noooo, E.B.!” Stella cried. She raced over and grabbed the dog by the collar. She clicked on the leash and hustled E.B. to the door.

“You know you shouldn’t eat so many cookies,” she scolded.

I clapped a hand over my mouth to keep from laughing out loud as Stella hustled her rotund black Lab through the door.

But a moment later I felt a presence behind me, and my urge to laugh faded.

It was him. I just knew it.

I paused for a moment before turning around. I inhaled sharply.

You know how some people’s looks change once you get to know them? Unattractive people become better-looking when you find out how funny and smart they are. And gorgeous people can turn ugly if you find out they’re evil inside.

Well, now that I’d seen Josh’s surly, sullen side . . . that didn’t happen at all. He was somehow cuter than ever. Which is really annoying in a boy who’s made you feel like an ass (even if he did make me feel pretty amazing first).

“E.B. has a touch of irritable bowel syndrome,” Josh explained.

“Am I supposed to laugh at that?” I asked.

“No,” Josh said simply. “It’s not a joke. It’s really gross, actually.”

That, of course, made me want to laugh. So now Josh was making me feel like an immature ass.

“Well, I hope he feels better. See ya,” I said. Of course, I didn’t plan to see Josh. I was already wondering how I could find out his work schedule—so I could be sure to avoid him.

“Look at this,” Josh said, thrusting a book toward me. It sounded a lot like an order.

“Excuse me?” I said. I raised one eyebrow, which was a skill I’d learned recently. I’d had a lot of time to practice it during the drive from California.

It worked. Josh looked quite squirmy.

“I mean, well, I think you might like this book,” he said more quietly. When I didn’t take it from him, he put it on the counter next to me. I glanced at it only long enough to see that the cover was still intact. It had a photo that looked blue and watery.

“Listen, Coconut Dreams is not my usual kind of book,” I said. “If this is anything like that, I think I’ll pass.”

“It’s not, I swear,” Josh said. “Look, it’s not even on clearance.”

I gave him a look that I hoped was deeply skeptical, and picked up the book.

I loved the look of the cover. It was an undulating underwater photo. In the turquoise water you could just make out a glimmer of fish scales, a shadowy, slender arm, and one swishy coil of red hair.

Beyond the Beneath, the book was called, and oh, did I want to flip through it and find out if the words were as flowy and beautiful as that cover. But I wasn’t about to tell Josh that. He’d already gotten me all confused with his mixed signals and his cuteness. Plus, I only had five bucks left in my pocket, so I couldn’t afford the book anyway. I was going to make my escape while I could.

“I don’t think so,” I said, trying to sound breezy. I tossed the book back onto the counter. “But thanks.”

“Oh, okay,” Josh said. He dug his hands into his pockets and looked away, the way I always did when I was disappointed.

I’m sure that’s not it, I told myself. That’s probably just where he keeps his extra X-Acto knife blades.

Josh seemed to have spotted something behind the counter. I followed his gaze to the receipt paper trailing out of the cash register. It had a bright pink stripe running along it.

“Oh, man,” he muttered. “She never remembers to change the tape.”

He ducked around the end of the counter and started extracting the paper roll from the register, scowling as the thing seemed to evade his grasp.

“Weird,” I said.

Josh stopped fiddling with the receipt tape and looked at me.

“What’s weird?” he demanded.

“I think it would be a dream to work in a bookstore,” I said, “and you don’t seem to like it at all.”

“I like it—” Josh started to say, sounding super-defensive. He stopped himself and frowned in thought. “It’s not that I don’t like it. It’s just that, when people open a bookstore, they think it’s going to be all, you know, books.”

“Isn’t it?” I asked.

“Well, yeah,” Josh said, “but it’s also receipt tape. And packing slips and book orders and remembering to pay the air-conditioning bill.”

“But you don’t have to worry about that,” I scoffed. “I mean, you’re . . .”

“Fifteen?” Josh said. “Yeah, well, you don’t have to have a driver’s license to pay the air-conditioning bill. You just have to have a tolerance for really boring chores.”

At that moment he looked a lot older than a boy my age.

Even though, I couldn’t help noting, he was a boy my age. Not college age or even my sisters’ age.

I don’t know why that mattered to me, though. Who cared if he was age-appropriate? Yes, he was really, really good-looking. And mature. And for about three minutes it had seemed like he thought I was pretty intriguing too.

But now I didn’t know what to think about this boy. How could I have anything in common with someone who found a bookstore—this bookstore—as uninspiring as receipt tape?

And how, I wondered as I walked out the door, could I possibly feel worse leaving Dog Ear than I had before entering it?