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Downstairs is Mrs. O’Reilly, a buxom African American woman whose husband, Mr. O’Reilly, runs a bar over on the next block.
“Zoey.”
She marches up to the counter, a powerhouse in a cap that perpetually sits over her setting hair.
“Dark chocolate with white chocolate chunks and pecans, and a slice of hibiscus lemon drizzle cake.”
“I didn’t come for that!” She puts her bag immediately in her handbag and nabs the extra cookie I set on a plate for her. “Declan is beside himself.”
Declan—or Mr. O’Reilly—is always like that, according to her. He’s the most mild mannered and even keeled man I’ve met, but she loves a touch of drama in her life so I indulge. “Oh no.” I select another slice of cake and a cookie and bag those. “To calm his nerves.”
“You’re a good girl. No, he’s worried about what this construction will do to business. It’s already down with the closures and people having to move out.” Her voice drops to a loud whisper. “Apparently, people don’t want to spend money on drinks because they’re worried about finding something affordable, you hear me?”
“If I have my way, there won’t be people moving. I’m staying.”
She pats my hand. “You don’t have to tell me. But the rest? They’re weak.” She practically quivers with outrage.
“If the worst happens, O’Reilly’s is going to be just fine. Construction crews love a drink after work.”
She sighs and devours her cookie, then eyes the rest behind the counter. “I hope you’re right. Now, if the worst happens, come work your baking witchcraft at the bar.”
“I said I’ll bake for you when I have time,” I say.
“You got a lot going on here.” She looks about.
I set the espresso machine up for two cups, and then I pack the rarely used single cup section and set that, too. “Anytime you need help, Mrs. O, you ask.”
“I just came by to let you know the trains are all screwy today, so don’t you go nowhere, you hear? You could get stuck in that devil place.”
“Manhattan?”
“Yes.”
I bite my lip to stop laughing. I don’t know what happened to her in Manhattan, but she despises it. “Oh, your LaWanda Stevens are in.”
“New?”
“At secondhand neighbor prices. As well as some of the ones you mentioned a while ago you haven’t read.”
She’s off, powering down the romance section. “Now these are what I’m talking about! Books about real women. With curves. Ooh, he’s handsome.”
The men on the covers are always handsome. And LaWanda romances are about women like her and she loves them. She told me she hates the ones about blondes built like twigs who’d break in a soft breeze, and I don’t think she was talking about the heroines.
She returns with a pile of books and I bag and ring them up. “Ten dollars.”
“Do you know,” she says, fishing out a bunch of ones, “there’s a dreamboat stacking books back down that aisle.”
It’s her low, conspiratorial voice, so I’m positive Magnus heard every word.
Her gaze is back on the cookies and I give her a cup of espresso with copious cream and five sugars—it’s definitely more sugar and cream than caffeine and another cookie. “It might storm, too.”
She says this like that’s what we’ve been talking about and Magnus comes over.
There’s a look in his dark onyx eyes that makes my stomach perform complicated flip flops as he does so, but then he smiles a little hesitantly and my dumb heart flutters because he looks slightly lost and sheepish.
“I’ve finished the books.”
“Mrs. O’Reilly, this is Magnus. Magnus, Mrs. O’Reilly. I just hired him.”
