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“Thanks.” I’m sweaty and sticky and a little dizzy, too. That granola bar is all I’ve eaten today. “I should get ready to open the bookshop.”
“How about I walk you back, then I’ll drive up the road to check the last boundary marker? I’ll send your certification in the mail once I’ve got everything squared away.”
“Great, Sam, thanks.”
The sun beats down as we cut across the pasture. I worry, at first, about all the bees, but they’re too focused on loading up their fuzzy legs with pollen to bother us. As we near the green pond, Sam slows his steps and says, “Isn’t that gorgeous.”
“It is pretty, isn’t it?”
He walks up to the pond’s edge. “Spring fed, I bet, on a bed of limestone. If I didn’t have an appointment in Ticonderoga this afternoon, I’d ask if I could jump in right now.”
“Jump in there?” It hasn’t occurred to me that the home to croaking frogs and the occasional heron could serve as a swimming hole. “Wouldn’t it be cold?”
“Absolutely.” A wide grin transforms Sam’s face into a joyous sight. “There’s nothing as invigorating as a cold plunge. You should try it sometime.”
I’m about to tell him my cold showers provide more than enough invigoration when a brown snake slithers up the bank to sun itself on a rock. I scramble back, startled. Sam leans in for a look.
“That’s a northern water snake. Nonvenomous, nothing to worry about.”
“Easy for you to say.” It’s one thing to encounter a sluggish snake on dry land; the idea of floating alongside one sends a shiver down my spine.
“I suppose it is,” Sam admits. We walk on, the red barn soon coming into view. “Hey, can I see your bookstore before I go?”
“Sure.” For the first time this morning, I take the lead, heading past the lower barn and up to the shop’s entrance. Rolling open the door, I appreciate his expression of wonder as he steps inside.
“That is a shit ton of books, Audrey.”
“More like ten tons,” I say, reaching around the door frame to switch on the string lights.
“And I thought your land was a lot to manage,” he says. “You’re starting a business, too?”
“It’s not much of a business yet,” I admit. “So far, the barn’s more like a warehouse than a store.”
“I don’t know anything about retail, obviously,” Sam says, “but part of my job is helping homesteaders develop a business plan. There’s so much to do when you’re starting up, it helps to divide your tasks by season. Figuring out what can wait for winter is just as important as working full out through the summer. You know the old adage?”
“What’s that?”
He smiles as if giving the punch line to a joke. “You gotta make hay while the sun shines.”
I roll my eyes. “That’s just a cliché.”
“Maybe, but there’s truth behind those agricultural clichés, isn’t there? Whenever someone uses ‘carrots and sticks’ I think about motivating a stubborn mule from both ends.”
The funny image pops into my mind clear as a cartoon. “I never pictured that one before.”
“Well, I’ll leave you to it.” Stepping out of the barn, he makes an awkward gesture halfway between a wave and a salute. “Nice to meet you, Audrey.”
“You too, Sam, and thanks again.”
After grabbing some breakfast and changing into a sundress, I go back to the barn, where I spend the next four hours adding seven titles to my online storefront. Stretching my stiff neck, I wonder if Sam had a point about hay and sunshine. Rhonda said Evelyn did all her mail-order business in the winter. Have I been going about this whole thing backward?
I’m about to go make myself an afternoon coffee when I hear a car pull up. A few minutes later, a middle-aged couple and three young people I assume are their children appear in the barn’s doorway.
“Oh, I’m so glad you’re open!” the older woman says, pulling on a mask. “I wasn’t sure with Covid and all. We were talking about how we ought to catch up on our reading, as long as we’re stuck at home.”
The pandemic has sparked a renewed interest in books, but I don’t understand how that led them to my closed shop in Schuywich. “How did you find me?”
“Paul’s got an infallible sense of direction,” she says, looking to her husband.
