Page 36 of Beachfront Pages

"There he is, indeed." Hal picked the book up and turned it over with real tenderness. "Donna read the library copy already. Couldn't wait. But it's not the same as having your own. She likes them on the shelf. All in a row."

"Mm."

"Don't 'mm' me. You've rung up worse than this and you know it." Hal dug for his wallet, then stopped, like he'd remembered the better part of why he'd come. "Now. Hold on. I brought you something."

He reached into the canvas bag on his shoulder and came out with a paperback. Old. The spine creased white in a dozen places, the corners gone soft. He laid it on the counter the way a man lays down a winning card.

Marty looked at it. F. L. Maxwell. The first one. The very first Hank Carson.

"No," Marty said.

"Yes." Hal pushed it an inch toward him. "Here's the first Maxwell book. Read it. You'll love it. I promise."

"Hal."

"You've been turning your nose up at this man for as long as I've come in here." Hal had his finger on the cover now, pinning it to the counter. "And I've decided I'm tired of it. This is my own copy. Read it. If you hate it, you bring it back and I'll never say another word about it." He cocked his head. "But you won't hate it."

Marty did not pick it up. "I have a stack by my bed I haven't gotten to. A new translation of a Hungarian novelist who⁠—"

"I don't care about your Hungarian." Hal was grinning, but he meant it under the grin. "Forty-one years married, Marty. You learn a person can be wrong about a thing for a long time and still be a good person. I figure that's you and Maxwell. Take the book. You're a reader. Be a reader."

There wasn't a graceful way out of it. Marty picked the book up. It was warm from the bag, soft as a much-loved thing. "I'll look at it."

"You'll read it." Hal put his money on the counter and tucked the new one under his arm. "And then you'll order me whatever comes next, and you'll do it without that face. Tell me you can read this for what it is."

"I read everything for what it is."

"You read everything for what it isn't." Hal put his hat back on. "That's your whole trouble. Oh, and Donna says hello."

"Tell her hello back." Marty nodded. "Enjoy the book, Hal."

"You too." Hal pointed at the paperback in Marty's hand on his way out. "That one. I mean it."

Marty closed up slowly, the way he always did. He counted the drawer, though there wasn't much to count. He squared the chairs nobody had sat in. He left the paperback on the counter where he could keep an eye on it, as if it might do something.

Then he stepped out the front door and into the thick evening air. He pulled the door closed behind him.

"Closing up?"

Sally Morris stood on the walk with a bag of groceries on her hip and her store keys still in her hand. The Bayview was two doors down, and Sally had a way of being wherever a conversation might break out. She'd locked her own door for the night and clearly wasn't in a hurry to get home.

"That's the idea." Marty checked the handle out of habit. "You're out late."

"Inventory. Don't get me started on inventory." She shifted the bag. "I saw your light on and thought I'd say hello. How's business?"

"We're still here."

"You always say that."

"It's always true." He came down off the step. The harbor smelled of salt, diesel, and somebody's grill going somewhere down the wharf. "Long as I can say it, I figure I'm ahead."

Sally smiled at that, then tilted her head in a way he'd learned to be wary of. "Can I ask you something, and you don't bite my head off?"

"You're going to ask either way."

"That's true too." She hitched the bag higher. "Your writer. Fiona. From the lighthouse."

"She's not my writer. And what about her?"