Sunday morning Sydney and RayAnne went to the early service at church so that Sydney could make it to the bookstore before it opened.
The old church was filled to capacity, and there was comfort in being able to pick up the worn hymnal and sing familiar songs.
With the last amen, everyone filed out slowly and orderly from the back to the front.
Sydney waited on RayAnne, who’d decided to try the youth group today instead, smiling as people walked by.
“Mom!” RayAnne ran up to her with a slender freckle-faced girl. “Can I go to Jenny’s today?”
“Sydney?” Diane followed Jenny down the aisle. “We just keep bumping in to each other.”
“Is Jenny your daughter?”
“Yes. What a small world. I guess we were going to connect one way or another with you being back in town. This is great. We’d love to have RayAnne over. Jenny’s been talking about the new girl at school all week.”
“Please, Mom!” RayAnne bounced with excitement.
“You sure it’s no trouble?”
Diane hitched her handbag up on her shoulder. “She can stay for supper.”
RayAnne folded her hands and pressed them beneath her chin. “Please. Please. Ple-ease?”
“Oh, Miss Dramatic here. How can I say no to that?”
The two girls squealed and bounced off to the side in a fit of giggles.
“Thank you, Diane.”
“No problem. My house is girl central these days. I’ll just drop her off at your place when we’re done. Around six-thirty or seven?”
“We’re staying at my grandparents’ old place over on Green Needles Lane.”
“I know exactly where that is. Let me know if there’s anything I can do while y’all are getting settled in. My husband is pretty handy, too.”
“I will. Thank you for inviting her over. Making some friends will surely help make the adjustment easier.”
“Anytime. Trust me, she’s going to love it here. Plus, if she can burn some energy out of Jenny it’ll be a blessing for me, too.” A small boy in a Carolina Panthers sweatshirt broke free from her hold. “Zach, come back here. Do you think we actually had that much energy at some point in our lives?” Zach ran over to the girls and then back to Diane and wrapped himself around her leg.
“I’m pretty sure we did.”
Diane handed her a business card. “Our home number is on there too in case you haven’t gotten it from Bea yet.”
Sydney glanced at the card. Diane’s husband owned the local gas station. “You sure you don’t mind dropping her off? I can pick her up if that’s easier.”
“Not at all. Happy to do it. Tony’s working late. It’ll give me something to do, and get us out of the house.” Diane glanced over at the girls. “They seem to really be hitting it off.”
“Yeah, they do.” Sydney dug into her purse and wrote her number on the back of an old appointment card. “Here’s my number. Since your husband is working late, why don’t you, Jenny and Zach have dinner at our house? I’d love the company, and it would give us a chance to catch up. It’ll make me feel better about you taking RayAnne for the day.”
Diane took the card. “I would love that. The timing couldn’t be more perfect.”
“I’ll see you then.”
She watched as Diane herded the group of kids together and then through the parking lot to her minivan.
Cars were lined up at the traffic light on Main Street. The huge congregation made for a slow exit from the parking lot, so Sydney veered off of her path toward her car and headed toward The Book Bea. It was just a couple blocks away. She’d walk down, and come back and get her car later. The exercise wouldn’t hurt her anyway.
Bea was already in the store when Sydney got there. The aroma of fresh coffee filled the air, and customers were already browsing.
“Am I late?” Sydney asked as she tucked her purse beneath the counter.
“No,” Bea said. “Folks know I sometimes come in early. We’re pretty relaxed about the hours these days.”
“How are you today?” Sydney said to a woman who looked like she’d just come from church, too. “I can help you with that.” Sydney punched the codes and prices into the register for each book. “Did you see there’s a coloring book that goes with this one?”
“No. I didn’t.”
“Would you care to see it?”
“That would be a wonderful addition. Thank you.”
“My pleasure.” Sydney whisked around the counter and picked up a coloring book and a pack of colored pencils. She waved them both in the air as she headed back to the register. “I tried these pencils out the other day. They’re almost like crayons. Really neat. Don’t know if you need them.”
“Thank you. Yes, I’ll take them both.”
Bea looked pleased with the upsell.
A steady stream of customers filled the afternoon. Bea stayed busy at the checkout counter wrapping gifts, and Sydney waited on customers and rang them up.
“Can I help you?” Sydney asked a gentleman wearing a heavy wool coat and carrying a cardboard box.
“Why haven’t we met?” He jostled the package to the crook of his left arm and extended his hand. “Mayor Blevins.”
“The mayor?” Should she curtsy or something? “Hi there. I’m helping Bea out over the holidays. I just moved here.” She motioned over her shoulder. “Well, not here here. Into my grandparents’ old farmhouse on the other side of town.”
“You’re the Rockfords’ granddaughter? I knew you’d come back and take care of that place eventually.”
The words stung a little. It wasn’t like she’d meant to shirk the responsibility that the inheritance had carried with it. She just never really thought much about it once Jon put the kibosh on using it as a vacation retreat.
The mayor looked her up and down. “You favor her. Carmen, that is. I can see it in those laughing blue eyes of yours.”
“Thank you.” Although she’d never seen the resemblance herself. It was hard to think of yourself as looking like an old woman. But her grandmother had been a kind and wonderful lady, so being compared to her was nice.
The mayor’s head swiveled. “This place is really bustling today. I guess I can just give these to you. It’s the song sheets for the town’s caroling night coming up soon. You know about that, right?”
“Oh, great. Yes, we’ve been talking about that.” She took the box. “I can take care of these.”
“The window looks lovely by the way. I guess you had a little hand in that.”
“My daughter and I worked on it together. It was fun, especially once we knew about the song so we could tie the display to the theme.”
“Yes, perfectly!” The mayor edged his way back to the door. “I have several other deliveries to make. Tell Bea we’ll see her at the chamber of commerce meeting next week.” He headed for the door and then spun around. “Oh, and one more thing. Let her know that we have had a resounding number of early ticket purchases this year. Ask her to please double the number of those amazing treats she makes, will you? And ask her to put one aside for me. It’s my favorite stop.”
“Will do.” Sydney said. A line of five people had accrued while she was talking with the mayor. Bea was ringing up customers, but the way she chit-chatted with every single person sure did slow down the progress at checkout.
Sydney walked over and started ringing up customers, letting Bea play hostess and talk folks into letting her wrap the presents for a cash tip in the big, foil-wrapped Folgers’s can on the counter.
Finally, around five-thirty things quieted down. Sydney stepped away from the counter and made two cups of tea.
“Here.” She handed one of them to Bea. “Drink up.”
“Oh, thank you, Sydney.” Bea blew across the rim of her cup and took a sip, one finger still pressed in the center of the bow she’d been finishing up. She quickly swung the ribbon around and up and through and then tightened it. “There you go.”
The wiry boy in front of her grinned. “Thank you, ma’am.”
A dark-haired man with the deepest brown eyes Sydney had ever seen watched the boy from next in line.
“He yours?” Sydney asked.
The man nodded. “Yes. He is.” He laid a stack of books on the counter.
“You must be proud.”
“Oh yeah. Understatement.”
Sydney quickly rang up the books. Two historical fiction novels, the latest bestselling crime fiction, and a coffee table book of military equipment. “You a veteran?”
He looked puzzled. “Oh, the book. No.”
“Gift?”
“No. Seth, my son, he draws. He’s making homemade cards for the troops. He was looking for inspiration.”
“That’s great. We used to do that where I lived. Well, with store-bought cards, but we got a big group of folks together to sign and address them. It’s an awesome tradition.”
“Yeah. Seth’s really been into it.”
“That’s great. Balancing a little creative outlet and the Christmas spirit.”
“Exactly.”
“You know,” Sydney said. “If you wanted to get a group of folks to help you with those, I’m sure we could set up some tables here for one night after work.” Sydney regretted opening her mouth so quickly. The thought had just tumbled right out. It wasn’t her place to offer, but surely Bea wouldn’t mind. “I mean I could talk to Bea for you.”
“Great. I didn’t catch your name.”
“Sydney Ragsdale.”
“Nice to meet you, Sydney. I’m Kevin MacAlee, but everyone calls me Mac. Are you related to Bea? Visiting?”
“Oh, no. Just helping out over the holidays. I’m new to town.”
“Welcome to Hopewell. Good to have some new folks coming into town. I’m sure I’ll see you around.”
And his brown eyes seemed to dance when he talked. How’d he do that? “Yeah. Probably.” She hoped so, and that was completely unexpected. So were the flurries in her stomach right now. “Small town and all.”
“Yeah. Small town.” He signed the credit card slip and then stepped back, bumping into the woman behind him. “Sorry, ma’am. See you, Sydney. Nice meeting you.”
Bea elbowed Sydney. “I see you met Mac. He’s our most eligible bachelor, you know.”
“Oh stop it. Get back to wrapping presents.”
“Hopewell local boy. Went away to college then came right back here to teach.”
“Not interested,” Sydney said, hardly able to hold back the laugh at the ridiculous thought. Exhausted, she walked the last customer to the door herself. If she was this tired, she could only imagine how Bea felt. She flipped the sign on the door to CLOSED. “Wow,” she said. “How do you handle this alone, Bea?”
Bea’s laugh was as soothing as those chimes that hung above the counter. “It’s not this busy all the time. The holiday rush. And quite honestly, I just work at my own pace. If anyone is in a big hurry, they know they can just leave me a list of what they’ve got and come back and settle up later.”
“That seems risky. Do you always get your money?”
“Of course. No one would ever take advantage of me. It’s like family around here, and like you, most of them have been coming here since they were just kids themselves.”
Bea pulled the tray from the register and started separating tickets and money. “Help me tally these up. I think this may have been my best day all year.”
“Sure.” Sydney stacked the tickets and started a tally on the old calculator. The tape unfurled from the top with a chugga-chug-chug every time she hit the plus key.
“I like to close out the register every night if I can. Just helps me stay on top of things. I’m afraid if I get behind I’ll never catch up.”
“Nothing wrong with routine. Especially if it works for you.”
Bea counted coins. “It’s worked for over forty years.”
“I’d say that’s a pretty good track record.”
Sydney finished tallying the tickets, then counted out the money in stacks by denomination, matching her totals to the ones Bea had written on a tablet.
Bea ran a tape against the final numbers, and then pressed the button that fed the paper out. She peered over the top of her glasses as she carefully penciled in the final figures in the old ledger. “Yes! I knew it. My biggest sales day all year. And I have you to thank for it.”
“Me?”
“Yes. Don’t think I didn’t notice how you helped people find little extras to add to their purchase. The coloring books, and I think you may have sold me out of the literary coffee mugs. And if there’s one copy of the latest bestseller by Nicholas Sparks, I’ll be shocked.”
“Well, that’s an awesome book. I read it in one night.”
“You’ve earned your keep. Thank you for happening in my store when you did.”
But it was Sydney who felt like she should be thanking Bea. The last couple days had given her new hope that she could find a way to rebuild a good life with RayAnne, and maybe there was a chance to do that in Hopewell long term. She’d thought it might be a soft landing place just for a little while. She could gain practical work experience to build a résumé so they could move back to Atlanta, where all of RayAnne’s old friends were. And with the passing of time, hopefully Sydney’s friends would have forgotten all the drama between her and Jon. But maybe that wasn’t the only long-term option.
“I think you’ve found your natural gift. You’re great at helping people find what they didn’t even know they wanted.”
“Maybe you’ll keep me on after the holiday and next year will be your best year yet.” She was digging for information. Hoping that what Wes had said had been just a rumor.
“Oh Sydney. I probably should have been more specific when I told you this job was just for the holidays.”
Sydney’s stomach took a backflip. It was true. Here it comes, she thought.
“I’m closing the doors of The Book Bea on New Year’s Eve.”
“But why? I don’t understand. Business is good, and you seem to really love spending time with your customers.”
“I do, but I’m too old to keep this kind of schedule anymore. It’s time.”
Sydney turned away, not wanting to show her disappointment. It was selfish after all. Bea had to be in her late seventies. She deserved the chance to slow down. But this was a good place. And Sydney needed it right now. “The town needs The Book Bea. It’s more than just a store, it’s part of the town’s charm.”
“That’s so sweet of you.”
“What if I help you? I could open and close every day. Or we could adjust the hours to help make it easier for you to work. Or you could have some days off. Maybe you do a short week like hair salons do with the ‘closed on Mondays’ thing.”
“I’ve thought this through. It’s time.”
“Oh, Bea, working here the last couple days has been the best part of my whole year. I really hate to think the store’s not going to be here anymore.”
“It’s more than just me growing old. I’m so behind the times. We need technology to keep up, and I just can’t do it. I don’t have any interest in learning all that new stuff, and I don’t have the money to invest, either. But thank you. You’re going to be the best part of this last season here.”
“What are you doing with the building? I’m assuming you own it. Right?”
“Oh yes. My sweet husband bought it for me as a wedding gift. His family lived here in Hopewell their whole lives. When he brought me here to meet them, this old building was the town library. It was so enchanting.”
Bea looked as if she’d drifted back fifty years in time. “When I saw it I told him that I dreamed of living here. It hadn’t even been for sale at the time, but my sweet Henry was quite persuasive when he wanted to be.”
“He sounds like a very special man.”
“Oh, he was. Spoiled me like crazy.”
“So, you actually lived here at one time.”
“Yes. We’d hoped to fill every single bedroom with a big family. All eight of them. But we were never blessed with any children.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Me too, dear, but in a way every child who passes through those doors is mine. At least they take a little piece of my heart from this store. That’s been enough.”
“Is there a reason you didn’t put this place up for sale? I mean if you’re closing and all.” She realized she might be jinxing herself right out of an opportunity by asking, but she also didn’t want to take advantage of Bea.
“I’d thought I’d sell the business, but there’s no one locally that really loves this place like I do, and it wouldn’t do to bring an outsider in. They wouldn’t understand how things work around here. I’ll probably let the building sit as is for a while until I figure it out. The tenants who rent the three upstairs apartments have all been so good. I hate to turn them out. There aren’t too many places to rent in this town.”
“Hadn’t thought about that, but if you’re willing to let it sit for a while, why not just stay open? I’ll help. I love this place.”
“Maybe I’ll find someone to rent the downstairs out as another shop of some kind.”
“Or maybe as a living space. The kitchen is still in working order, isn’t it?”
“It would take so much work. I can’t even really think about that. I really wish I’d found the right person to take it over from me. Someone like you.”
“I would love to own this place. I don’t know how I could do it, but if you really are thinking to sell The Book Bea, maybe I could buy it.” And there she was again, letting the thoughts in her head roll right out to the universe without a second thought. She didn’t have the means or the experience to run The Book Bea. What was she thinking?
Bea’s face lit up. “I can’t tell you how long I’ve waited in hopes that someone would want to take over my little store. I’ve prayed about it. And I’ve believed that someone was on their way.”
“So many of the independent bookstores have closed back where we lived. It’s hard to see that happen.”
“We’ve remained profitable. That’s not the problem.”
“This place has a wonderful vibe to it. I feel alive when I’m in here. It’s like … like an embrace.”
“Yes.” Bea snapped her fingers in the air. “That’s exactly what I said the first time I saw it. I said Henry, when I walk inside that building I feel like I’m in an embrace so loving that nothing could happen to me. That’s so funny that you used the same word. I felt such a peace come over me when I was here. I still do.”
“I feel it too.”
Sydney didn’t know how she would do it. Or why she’d want to. Owning a business was a big undertaking, and she’d never been impulsive. But the old Sydney was someone she wanted to leave behind. The new Sydney should learn to follow her dreams even if it meant taking a risk. Maybe even build a legacy that she could share with her daughter. A legacy like The Book Bea.
Bea softened for a moment. “I got the feeling you weren’t planning to put roots down here in Hopewell. That this was temporary for you.”
“That’s not my hope, but it is sort of the plan. I promised RayAnne we’d reassess staying in Hopewell after the school year, but it’s not because I don’t want to put roots down. My divorce has made things very complicated.”
“Maybe it doesn’t have to be. Sometimes it’s a lot easier to uncomplicate things than it looks like when you’re sitting in the middle of the mess. Take a step back. Maybe you were meant to stick around.”
“Maybe.” But was she fooling herself?
“Tell you what. I was planning to have someone pick up my entire inventory for a flat rate, just to expedite things. But if you really want to hang out here a little longer, I’ll put that on hold. Then we’ll take this a step at a time.”
“But I can’t make the promise that I’ll stay right now.”
“What if you change your mind-set? Really believe you’ll stay, rather than just hope. And if things don’t work out, then just promise you’ll stick around long enough to help me with the liquidation. Is that a deal?”
Sydney wanted to be able to stay here so badly. Far away from Jon’s stronghold. Raising her daughter in a small town with good people would be a good thing. She’d treasured the time she’d spent here with her grandparents. RayAnne could grow to love it here, too. She felt an excitement she hadn’t felt in a long time.
“Yes. You most certainly have a deal on that.” If she believed it, could it possibly come true? Crazier things had happened. I believe, she thought fervently.
“I’m so proud of you, Sydney. You can do this.”
“I hope I won’t let you down.”
“Hope? You need to substitute every hope with believe.”
She mentally slashed through the word hope and replaced it with believe in all capital letters. “I won’t let you down.”
“That’s better. It’s a big undertaking, but I believe you could do even bigger things with this place than I ever have. The Book Bea has taken good care of me for decades. It would do the same for you.”
Sydney scanned the room. Could this really be hers? As big as it was, it made her feel light and able. “It feels right somehow.”
“There are good things for you in Hopewell.”
“I hope—” She stopped herself. “I’m eager to see what that is.”
“And I’ll always be behind you. So later this week let’s sit down and go through all the ledgers together. You need to know what you’ve got to start with. It will make every little change you make taking my old store into the next generation that much more exciting for you. You will breathe new life into The Book Bea.”
“That’s so sweet of you to say.”
“I’ve made such wonderful friends because of this store. Not just locals, but people who stopped in and paid a visit and then kept in touch. You can’t put a price on that. Friends are the true assets of your life. Not your house or cars or jewelry.”
“You and I will be forever friends,” Sydney said.
“Oh yes. You can count on that. There are other perks to being the owner of the bookstore, too.”
Bea didn’t need to sell Sydney on the idea. She was already fantasizing about it. “I know. It would be like having an unlimited personal book budget. I might have to learn how to read without cracking the spine though.” Wouldn’t that be awesome to have every single story and place right at your fingertips?
“Oh yes. That too, but I was referring to something a little less tangible. Through this store, I know things going on in people’s lives before anyone else does. Sometimes before they even realize it themselves.”
“Gossip?”
“Oh heavens, no. I’d never gossip.”
Sydney tried not to smile, because she was quite certain that she’d call about ninety percent of Bea’s conversations with her customers today just that. Gossip.
“More like being on the inside. When a customer buys a book, fiction or non-fiction, it usually ties to something going on in their lives. It’s like getting a puzzle piece. Not a nice edge or corner piece, though. One of the murky middle ones that takes a while to figure out. It’s like unweaving a mystery. I’ve always been a sucker for a good mystery.”
The only puzzle Sydney wanted to solve right now was how she might be able to take over The Book Bea. Was it a good business decision for her in her new role as a single parent? The ledgers would show her the numbers, but did she really have what it took to run her own business?