“All the furniture will be secondhand,” she says. “I have the thrift-store magic touch. I was grown in a lab for this. Just point us in the direction of your cleaning supplies.”
Charlie’s eyes return to me, pupils flaring. If I were to look down, I’m confident I’d find my clothes reduced to a pile of ash at my feet. “You won’t even know we’re here,” I manage.
“I doubt that,” he says.
* * *
Another “universal truth” Austen could’ve started Pride and Prejudice with: When you tell yourself not to think about something, it will be all that you can think about.
Thusly, while Libby’s running me ragged cleaning Goode Books, scrubbing scuff marks off the floor, I’m thinking about kissing Charlie. And while I’m reshelving biographies in the newly appointed nonfiction section, I’m actually counting how many times and where I catch him looking at me.
When I’m poring over the new portion of Frigid back in the café, tugging on its plot strings and nudging at its trapdoors, my mind invariably finds its way back to Charlie pinning me against a boulder, his rasp in my ear: It’s hard to think in words right now, Nora.
It’s hard to think, period, unless it’s about the one thing I should not be thinking about.
Even now, walking back into town with Libby for the “secret surprise” she planned for us, I’m only two-thirds present. Determined to wrangle that last third into submission, I ask, “Am I dressed okay?”
Without breaking stride, Libby squeezes my arm. “Perfect. A goddess among mortals.”
I look down at my jeans and yellow silk tank, trying to guess what they might be “perfect” for.
Out of the corner of my eye, I do another quick audit of her body language. I’ve been watching her closely since the weird text from Brendan, but nothing’s seemed amiss.
When we were kids, she used to beg Mrs. Freeman to let her reshelve books, and now her efforts to update Goode Books have turned her into bizarro Belle, right down to singing the “provincial life” song into her broom handle while Charlie shoots me fiery make-it-stop glares.
“I can’t help you,” I finally told him. “I have no jurisdiction here.”
To which Libby yelled from across the shop, “I’m a wild stallion, baby!”
When we finally left for the day, she forced me into Hardy’s cab to scout furniture at every secondhand shop in greater Asheville. Whenever we did find something perfect for the Goode Books café, Libby insisted on 1) haggling and 2) talking to literally everyone, about literally anything.
The work has energized her, whereas I’m fervently hoping tonight’s surprise excursion ends at Sunshine Falls’s lone spa. Though it is called Spaaaahhh, which gives me pause. It’s unclear whether that’s meant to be read as a sigh or a scream. Either the same deranged person owns that, Mug + Shot, and Curl Up N Dye, or there’s something extremely punny in the Sunshine Falls water supply.
Libby passes Spaaaahhh and we round the corner to a wide, pink-brick building with two-story arched windows, a gabled roof, and a bell tower. On one side sits a half-full parking lot, and on the other, a few kids with dirt-smeared knees play kickball in an overgrown baseball diamond with gnats swarming the fence behind home plate.
“Here for the big game?” I ask Libby.
She tugs me up the building’s steps and into a musty lobby. A horde of teens in ballet tights runs past, shrieking and laughing, to race up the stairwell on our right. A half dozen younger kids in colorful leotards are sprawled on the floor wiping down blue gymnastics mats.
Libby says, “I think it’s through there.” We step over and around the tiny gymnasts and turn through another set of doors into a spacious room filled with echoing chatter and folding chairs. To my relief, no one is wearing a leotard, so probably we’re not here for a pregnant gymnastics class, which definitely strikes me as something Libby would sign us up for.
I spot Sally near the front, grabbing an older blond man’s shoulder as she laughs (and, I’m pretty sure, sucks on a vape pen). A few rows behind her are the hip Mug + Shot barista with the septum ring and Amaya, Charlie’s Pretty Bartender Ex.
Libby pulls me into the last row, where we take two seats just as someone pounds a gavel at the front of the room.
There’s a stage there, but the podium sits on the ground, level with the chairs. The woman behind it has the largest, reddest hair I’ve ever seen, the only lights on in the room shining on her like a diffused spotlight.
“Let’s get started, people!” she barks, and the crowd quiets as piano music seeps down from upstairs.
I lean into Libby, hissing, “Did you bring me to a witch trial?”
“The first item we’re considering,” the redhead says, “is a complaint against the business at 1480 Main Street, currently known as Mug and Shot.”
“Wait,” I say. “Are we—”
Libby shushes me just as the barista leaps out of her seat, spinning to a balding man a few seats over. “We’re not changing our name again, Dave!”
“It sounds,” Dave booms, “like a place for vagabonds and criminals!”
“You weren’t happy with Bean to Be Wild—”
“It’s a weak pun,” Dave reasons.
“You threw a fit when we were Some Like It Hot.”
“It’s practically pornographic!”
The redhead pounds the gavel. Amaya pulls the barista back into her seat. “We’ll put it to a vote. All in favor of renaming Mug and Shot.” A few hands go up, Dave’s included. She pounds the gavel again. “Motion dismissed.”
“There is absolutely no way any of this holds up in a court of law,” I whisper, amazed.
“What’d I miss?”
I jump in my seat as Charlie slides into the chair beside me. “Not much. ‘Dave’ simply filed a motion to rename every Peter in town to something less pornographic.”
“Did anyone cry yet?” Charlie asks.
“People cry?” I whisper.
He drops his mouth beside my ear. “Next time try not to look so excited at the thought of misery. It’ll help you blend in better.”
“Considering we’re in the hecklers-only section of the crowd, I’m not all that worried about blending in,” I whisper back. “What are you doing here?”
“My civic duty.”
I fix him with a look.
“There’s a vote my mom’s excited about. I’m nothing but a hand in the air. I’m glad I came now though—I finished the new pages. I’ve got notes.”
I spin toward him, the end of my nose nearly brushing his in the dark. “Already?”
“I think we should try starting the book at Nadine’s accident,” he whispers.
I laugh. Several people in the row in front of us glare at me. Libby smacks me in the boob, and I smile apologetically. When our audience returns to watching the new argument at the front of the room, between a man and woman whose combined age must top two hundred, I face Charlie again, who smirks. “Guess you needed help blending in after all.”
“The accident’s fifty pages in,” I hiss back. “We lose all context.”
“I don’t think we do.” He shakes his head. “I’d like to at least suggest it to Dusty and see what she thinks.”
I shake my head. “She’ll think you hate the first fifty pages of the one hundred she’s sent you.”
“You know how badly I wanted this book,” he says, “just based on those first ten. I simply want it to be its best version, same as you. And Dusty. By the way, what did you think about the cat?”
I worry at my lip and get a shot of pure, undiluted satisfaction at the way he watches the action. I let the pause go longer than is strictly natural. “I’m worried it feels too similar to the dog in Once.”
Charlie blinks. I see the moment he finds his place in the conversation again. “My thoughts exactly.”
“We’d have to see where she plans to take it,” I say.
“We just mention the similarity and let her make the call,” he agrees.
The redhead pounds her gavel, but the old man and woman at the front keep shouting at each other for twenty more seconds. When she finally gets them to stop, they—no joke—nod, take each other’s hands, and head back to their seats together. “This is like something out of Macbeth,” I marvel.