“Anyway, let’s go,” she says. “Goode Books isn’t going to save itself. Goode Books aren’t going to save themselves? Whatever. You get it.”
I type out a quick reply to Brendan. Everything’s good. She says she’ll call you later. He answers immediately with a smiley face and a thumbs-up.
Everything’s fine. I’m here. I’m focused. I’ll fix it.
* * *
I would like to say that, having realized everything at stake on this trip, the spell of Charlie Lastra instantly lifted. Instead, every time his eyes cut from Libby to me, there’s a flash in his irises that makes me wonder how long it would take to peel off my clothes.
“You want,” he drawls, eyes back on my sister, “to give Goode Books a makeover?”
“We’re giving it a head-to-toe revitalization.” Libby’s fingertips press together in excitement. Her skin is sun-kissed and the bags beneath her eyes are almost entirely gone. She looks not only rested but downright exhilarated by the opportunity to mop a dusty bookstore.
Charlie leans into the counter. “This is for the list?” His eyes tick toward mine, flashing again. My body reacts like he’s touching me. Our gazes hold, the corner of his mouth curving like, I know what you’re thinking.
“He knows about the list?” Libby asks, then, to Charlie, “You know about the list?”
He faces her again, rubs his jaw. “We don’t have a budget for ‘revitalization.’ ”
“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!”