chapter Six
It was with a surprisingly illicit thrill that I left the store with Owen that afternoon. This was strictly business, but it felt like a first date—a first date with someone I’d had a crush on for ages, which was really weird, since I’d only just met him. I was back to feeling like there was music playing in the background, which made me question my sanity. I didn’t think most people went through life with a personal movie soundtrack playing in their heads. I hadn’t even turned on the radio that morning, so I wasn’t sure where the insidious tune had come from. Maybe from the store’s background music?
When we hit the first coffee dealer, the smell of coffee was so strong it nearly knocked me off my feet—in a good way. “I think I’m getting a contact caffeine buzz,” I whispered to Owen.
He grinned in response, a smile that lit up his eyes and made my knees go wobbly. He was so very adorable. And he was my boss, I reminded myself firmly. Plus, I had a boyfriend who had brought up the subject of marriage. Wobbling was out of the question. “I may not sleep for a week,” Owen said, “which is good because right now, I don’t have time to sleep.”
The coffee expert at this place took his work very seriously. I felt like I was at a snooty wine tasting and being encouraged to find hints of oak or lemon in the wine, only he was asking us to discern flavors of earth and spices in the coffee. The one time Owen and I dared to glance at each other, we both nearly spit out our coffee from laughing. I didn’t know the finer points of coffee, just what I liked and didn’t, and that I didn’t like supposedly gourmet coffee that tasted like it had been scraped up from the bottom of the coffeepot after sitting for a day or two. This stuff was definitely an improvement over what we’d been serving, but I wasn’t sold on it. Luckily, we still had two more places to go.
The rest of the afternoon seemed to go by in a blur—or in a series of quick scenes, all with that music playing in the background. We tasted coffee, made faces, laughed, and compared notes, and all the while, we really seemed to be bonding. I still didn’t know much about him as a person, but I knew he was nice, funny, smart enough to retain a lot of information, and he really cared about what he was doing.
As we headed back to the store from the last coffee vendor, both of us vibrating a little from the caffeine overdose, I dared to ask him, “Why did you decide to buy a bookstore? Isn’t that the worst possible business to get into these days?”
He thought about the question for long enough that I wondered if I’d been out of line to ask it, and then he said, “I’m not so sure I did it because of the business. It’s more like historical preservation, like one of those old-fashioned farms kids can visit to learn about the way life used to be.”
“So kids can take a field trip and we can show them these things called books that their grandparents used to read?”
He laughed. “Something like that, but it would be even better if I can do it well enough to make it cool again, even if it is in a retro sense. I can’t beat the convenience of buying books online, but maybe I can make it an enjoyable enough experience to lure people in from time to time.”
“You’re a romantic!” I said, then wished I hadn’t. That was probably being a little forward with my boss.
If he thought so, he didn’t show it. He nodded thoughtfully, then said, “Maybe I am. I don’t know that I’ve ever found the perfect bookstore, but I have one in my head, the kind of place where you browse for hours. You stumble upon a book you never would have known to search for online, and it ends up becoming your new favorite book and favorite author. You sit in a cozy nook and read for a while until you know you have to take it home, but you can’t wait to read more, so you buy the book and then get a cup of coffee and read even more, still sitting in the store.”
“And outside it’s raining, so it’s the perfect day to spend the whole afternoon in a bookstore,” I said wistfully. I’d had the same fantasy before I actually went to work in a bookstore.
He turned to me. “How did you know about the rain?”
“It’s always raining when I imagine myself in a bookstore. Unless it’s near Christmas. Then it’s snowing.”
“Maybe I should add weather control to my business plan,” he said. “If I could make it rain or snow on cue, I might get a lot more customers.”
There was something about what he’d said that gave me the strangest feeling of déjà vu, like I could imagine him making it snow, and the image was so vivid that it was like a memory. I glanced at him to find that he was looking at me, a little crease forming between his eyes from his quizzical expression. I got the impression that he’d imagined the same thing.
Then both of us shook it off. “Thanks for coming along today,” he said briskly. “I think we agreed on our top three choices, so now we’ll see what kind of proposals they offer us. Next we’ll tackle the bakery items.”
“I think the ones we’re getting wouldn’t be so bad if we got them fresh.”
“But it might be worthwhile to shake them up by considering other vendors. Then we might start getting fresher stuff.” We reached the store, and he stopped at the door to say, “Well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow. Have a good time tonight.”
“Tonight?” I asked, then I remembered my date with Josh. “Oh, yeah, right, dinner. And I’d better get going or I’ll be late. See you tomorrow.” I hurried away before I’d be tempted to tell him my plans had fallen through and I’d love to have dinner with him.
*
As I rushed to dinner, I hoped seeing Josh would remind me of why I wanted to be there. But when I saw him, the anticipated frisson didn’t materialize. It was like he was nothing more to me than a random stranger who happened to arrive at the restaurant at the same time I did. I supposed he was cute enough—not a heartthrob, but was I the kind of girl who could expect to land a heartthrob? He was essentially the male version of me, the boy next door who probably got the “you’re such a nice guy and good friend, like a brother” speech a lot. That made us the perfect match. I knew he’d be reliable and would never stray. What more could I really want?
I had to work up a delighted smile as I approached him in the restaurant foyer. To help with the effort, I thought back to when we first met, but the memory was hazy. How had we met? Come to think of it, I could barely remember spending time with him. There were vague images, like a dream or something I’d watched on TV. They didn’t feel real. He didn’t seem to notice that I’d frozen instead of greeting him with any enthusiasm. He crossed the gap between us, kissed me dutifully and said, “Mmm, you smell like coffee.”
I raised my arm to sniff my sleeve. “Do I? Ugh. It probably permeates my whole body. Believe it or not, after today, I’m not sure I want to go near another cup of coffee ever again.”
“No, it’s good,” he said with a laugh. “I like the smell of coffee. Rough day slaving over the coffeepot and espresso machine?”
“No, not really,” I had to admit. “My new boss dragged me with him to evaluate new coffee vendors, and that meant tasting a lot of coffee. I didn’t know there were so many kinds, and that’s not even getting into the fancy flavors.” I made it sound like a chore, but I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had that much fun. I just didn’t want to tell my boyfriend that, and then I felt weird for wanting to hide that from him. “The new owner wants to really upgrade our coffee shop, and the first thing that needs to change is the coffee.”
“It is nasty.”
I bristled at that. It was one thing for me to say it, but I rather resented him saying that about my work. It was irrational, I knew, but I couldn’t help it. “I may not sleep for a week after all the coffee I had today,” I said, forcing myself not to frown, and then I realized I was quoting Owen’s quip.
“So, decaf with dessert tonight?”
“Even that might be too much.”
“Then maybe some wine will counteract it.”
When we were seated at our table, I had the strangest feeling that I was sitting across from a stranger. I knew we’d been dating for months, but this felt like a first date—the awkward kind of first date where you can’t think of anything to talk about because you don’t know enough about each other to even start a conversation and asking questions to get to know each other feels like an interrogation.
“What’s the new boss like?” he asked me.
I wasn’t sure how to answer, even though it was an obvious topic for discussion, because I was afraid I’d gush. “He seems pretty cool,” I said with what I hoped looked like a casual shrug. “He’s got a lot of ideas about making bookstores interesting, something people will leave their computers to visit.”
“Ah, an old fogy, I take it. None of those newfangled e-books for him.” He laughed, and I fought back my irritation and my urge to jump to Owen’s defense.
“Actually, he’s pretty young—around thirty, I’d say. But he is kind of old-fashioned, in a good way. I like his vision of bookstores, and he’s asked me to help with some advertising and marketing strategy.”
“That should be good for your résumé. Instead of having wasted the past year in a retail job, you can now call it a job within your field.”
I bristled again, but crumbled a roll from the bread basket instead of saying anything. “If I get to do interesting stuff, I may want to stay,” I said. “I’m not crazy about pouring coffee, but if I get to help on the business side of things, it might become a job worth sticking around for. I really seem to have clicked with Owen.”
He choked on the sip of wine he’d just taken, then had a brief coughing fit. “Sorry, that went down the wrong way,” he said.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” But there was an angry, alarmed look to his eyes that I found oddly chilling. Was he jealous of a boss I’d barely mentioned? I’d worked so hard to talk about Owen in a neutral way. Maybe I’d overdone it to the point it looked like I was hiding something.
He barely spoke through the rest of dinner, and his mind seemed to be elsewhere, like he was mentally cooking up some scheme. It was so unlike him that I was worried, but I got the impression that asking him what was wrong wouldn’t go over well. I would have begged off of dessert and said I needed to get home, but he did it before I could. He didn’t even walk me home. He merely gave me a perfunctory kiss at the restaurant door and hurried away, like he was late for a meeting. And to think, I’d given up dinner with Owen for that very unsatisfactory date.
*
Before I even had my apron on the next morning, Florence demanded, “I want to know the whole story.”
“Josh didn’t propose last night. In fact, he got weird and called for the check before I was even done eating and then hurried away like he had to catch the last train home.”
She waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, who cares about Josh. What about spending all afternoon with that cutie-pie boss? I’m sensing a real connection between you two.”
“He’s just using me as a coffee taster, like he thinks that serving so much of it and being willing to admit that what we serve is awful makes me an expert.”
“That’s all, huh?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “Didn’t you say he wanted to pick your brain for advertising ideas?”
“Well, yeah, but he hasn’t done so yet, so there’s nothing to tell you.”
“And you two didn’t talk about anything but coffee all afternoon?”
“I did find out what his vision for the store is. He’s kind of a romantic about bookselling.”
“Oooh, you said romantic,” she teased.
“No, he’s just got this idea of the perfect rainy day spent browsing a bookstore, and he wants to give that to people.”
“Oh, a perfect rainy day spent browsing a bookstore? Now, where have I heard that before? It sounds like you two were made for each other.”
I knew I was supposed to bashfully protest, but I paused thoughtfully and said, “It does feel like I’ve known him a lot longer than I have. I guess I just feel comfortable with him.”
“So you won’t be circling any classified ads anytime soon.”
“If I can help relaunch this store, then that gives me something for my résumé, and that will improve my job-hunting odds, so it’s in my best interest to hold off on the job hunt for a while.” I slammed the bakery case shut to emphasize that the conversation was over.
It didn’t deter her. She merely changed the subject. “Now, what about what happened with Josh?”
“Nothing happened with Josh.”
“That’s what I meant. Doesn’t sound like much of a date.”
“It doesn’t have to be champagne and rose petals every time we get together.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Is it ever champagne and rose petals with him?”
Again, I had the weirdest feeling that I didn’t know. I had a couple of memories of previous dates with him, but they were isolated incidents, not woven into any larger tapestry. “Let’s face it, I’m not exactly a champagne and rose petals type. I’m more milk and cookies.”
“If he’s cookies, then it’s the kind we sell here. By the way, we had some leftover sugar cookies yesterday, so I finally got that table by the stairs to stop wobbling.”
I felt obligated to defend my boyfriend, even though my heart wasn’t really in it. Putting my hands on my hips, I asked, “Do you have a problem with Josh? Last time I checked, you weren’t dating him.”
“But why are you dating him? You don’t have to settle. There are other fish in the sea. Namely our new boss, Mr. Blue Eyes.”
I couldn’t meet her eyes because then she’d see that I didn’t know. This was all so confusing. I blamed it on a restless night full of crazy dreams in which I’d been chased by magical monsters with a dark-haired, blue-eyed man at my side. Oh no, I’d been dreaming about my boss, I thought, stifling a groan. That had the potential for serious awkwardness.
*
Owen came up to the café after lunch, carrying a stack of binders and a couple of legal pads. “I thought we could go over some marketing ideas, if you’ve got the time,” he said. “We can do it here, and that way you can help if you’re needed in the café.”
“Sure,” I said, hoping I wasn’t blushing. Florence’s wink didn’t help matters. I shot her a glare as I followed Owen to the largest unoccupied table, where he set down his binders and pulled out a chair for me.
After we’d taken seats next to each other, he opened one of the binders and outlined his business plan in more detail than he’d gone into in the all-hands meeting. Then he said, “What I want to do is get the word out about how enjoyable it will be to browse for books here, that sense of discovery from finding something unexpected that you wouldn’t have known to go looking for.”
I almost forgot to think about what he was saying, I was so entranced by the way he said it. His eyes sparkled and he became animated as he described his vision. I’d teased him about being a romantic, but he really did have a passion for what he was doing. I couldn’t help but wonder if that passion carried over to other aspects of his life, and then I had to bury my face in the binder to hide my flaming cheeks. Fantasizing about my boss during a meeting was a new low for me.
“We’ll need to draw people into the store so they can discover it for themselves,” I said, my voice sounding a little too loud and too high. I fought to get it under control. “When you say it, shelving books in different sections doesn’t sound particularly sexy. But when people see it while browsing, they’re sure to see how different it is. We’ll need events.” I mused for a moment, thinking back to my school days when we’d done a class project along these lines. “I know!” I said, looking up. “We’ll have a book scavenger hunt! Have a grand reopening party, and one of the activities will be a book scavenger hunt where people have a list of books to find on the shelves. Since what you want to do is more intuitive than the strict chain-store rules, people will see how easy it is to find books.”
“That’s brilliant!” he said, scribbling notes on a legal pad. “I love it. It’s the kind of thing that should get some word of mouth going. And we’ll have refreshments from our new, improved café.”
We then brainstormed more ideas for the event and how to promote it, and I felt myself shaking off the rust from going so long without working in my field. We were really on a roll and laughing about some ridiculous idea I’d just thrown out when a voice said, “Wow, you’re having fun at work.”
I looked up to see Josh standing at the end of the table. “Oh, hi!” I said. “What brings you here?”
He bent to kiss my cheek. “Just stopping by to see my girl. Do you have a moment to talk?”
I glanced at Owen, who said, “This looks like a good time for a break.”
Belatedly, I remembered my manners. “Owen, this is my boyfriend, Josh. Josh, Owen is the new owner.” I didn’t know which one of them to watch as they greeted each other, but since I figured I’d know what Josh felt soon enough, I focused on Owen. He seemed perfectly open and friendly toward Josh. I’d have had to stretch to detect even the slightest hint of jealousy. Maybe this was all about business, after all.
Josh, on the other hand, had found his inner caveman. I didn’t have to look at him to know he was unhappy. I could feel the tension and dislike radiating off of him. That was weird. I’d never known him to be the jealous type. Then again, I’d never given him anything to be jealous of. At least, I didn’t remember doing so in the vague haze of memories of our relationship.
Owen excused himself, taking out his cell phone, as if he planned to use the break to check messages and return calls. I pretended not to notice Josh’s animosity and said, “Wow, a daytime visit! I feel so special.”
“That’s your new boss?”
“Yeah. He’s got some good ideas. He might even manage to make this place work.” I followed his angry gaze toward Owen, who was on the phone at the other end of the store. “Did he beat you up in high school, or something?”
He blinked back to me. “What?”
“You seem to have taken an instantaneous dislike to my new boss. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were jealous.”
He opened his mouth, closed it, and shook his head, like he was trying to clear it, then he pulled out the chair at the end of the table and sat. “It has nothing to do with him,” he said, not very convincingly. “It’s just that I thought you were finally going to get out of this place and stop treading water with your career, and now he comes along and makes you actually want to keep working here. He’s sidetracking you.”
“You know, it wasn’t too long ago that you were suggesting I just give it all up and let you take care of me,” I pointed out, trying to keep a light, teasing tone in my voice. I tensed anyway, like his answer would be a critical turning point in my life.
“Only because I was trying to take the pressure off. Sometimes I think you sabotage yourself, like you’re afraid of success.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, like he was trying to center himself. “But that’s actually not why I’m here. I wanted to apologize for last night. I left pretty abruptly, which must have given you a terrible impression. The truth is, I suddenly wasn’t feeling too well and wanted to get home as soon as possible, and it was the sort of thing I didn’t want to bring up in a restaurant, if you know what I mean. It wasn’t about you, and I didn’t want you thinking I’d rushed off angry.” He chuckled and added, “Though I guess me showing up here and having a testosterone explosion around your boss probably didn’t help matters.”
I immediately felt bad for having wondered about him. “Oh, that’s okay,” I said. “You meant well. And I hope you’re feeling better.”
“Tons better. I think something I ate didn’t agree with me. You didn’t get sick, did you? It felt like food poisoning.”
“No, I was fine.”
“Then maybe it was a bug, and I hope I didn’t give it to you. Can I make it up to you tonight?”
“How about tomorrow night? You probably ought to make sure you’re better, and I already told Florence I’d go to a movie with her tonight.”
He’d tensed when I declined, but relaxed and grinned when I mentioned Florence. He looked across the room toward her, caught her eye, grinned, and waved. Anyone who saw her friendly response would never guess that she spent most of her time trying to talk me into dating someone else. I was watching her, so I barely noticed out of the corner of my eye when he nodded ever so slightly to her, like he was sending a signal. Her smile faded and she looked much more serious—like a totally different person—when she nodded in response. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have thought they were conspiring against me.