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I stood in stunned silence, not sure what to say.
“I had a bit of a breakthrough at our counseling session after my last conversation with you, and I realized I had been pretty unfair to you… about a lot of things, but especially about this internship. Just because your dreams are different from my dreams—our dreams—doesn’t mean they’re wrong.”
“So, you’re closing the store because I might not come back to take it over?” I asked, my fingers curling over the phone, like the tighter my grip on this piece of metal, the tighter my grip on my changing reality would remain.
“No,” my dad said, sounding just as tired as my mom. “We’re closing the store because we have to. Maybe if we hadn’t resisted change, if we had invested in new technology or systems like you had suggested, things would be different.”
“What the breakthrough helped us, well me, realize,” my mom continued, “was while it would be an end of an era for our family, it would also free you up to do more, be more, than a family-run store in a small town.”
“But what about a buyer? What about it becoming another family’s dream?”
“We’ve put out some feelers. There are no bites. And we just don’t have the capital to keep it afloat in the interim.”
I paused. “The Bookstore Future Fund, they could?—”
“You know as well as we do that you can only apply to the fund once every five years, Charlotte,” Mom said gently.
“This isn’t what I wanted”—a sob sounded in my throat—“I need you to know that.”
“We do,” my mom said. “And we’re sorry to tell you on a day with your… friend’s family, but we wanted to be sure you knew when you headed into that conversation about what your future with the IBA looked like.”
“Thank you,” I said, wiping my eyes. “I should probably get back soon. You guys enjoy dinner from Joe’s and I’ll talk to you soon, okay?”
“Sounds good. We love you, Charlotte,” my dad said.
“And we’ll expect you for the opening shift on December 16th. We have one more holiday season left in us,” my mom said, sounding much more like her hardass self than the post-therapy woman I had been talking to for the past ten minutes.
I laughed a watery laugh. “I’m looking forward to it. Hopefully, I haven’t forgotten how to run the register.”
We hung up after that and I leaned on the railing, trying to process everything they had just told me.
I heard the door behind me open, feeling Hayden’s presence with me on the balcony.
“Dinner’s almost ready, and I thought you might want your coat. You’ve been out here a while,” he said, draping my coat over my shoulders. I looked over at him, and his eyes widened, taking in what I assumed were red-rimmed eyes and wet cheeks. “Oh, babe, what’s wrong? Are they mad you’re not there?”
“My parents are in therapy,” I started, laughing a little at how different the conversation we had was from other conversations during my adult life. “But, in more groundbreaking news, they’re closing the store.”
“Oh, baby, I’m so sorry,” Hayden said, gathering me into his arms, causing tears to drip down my face anew. “Did they say why?”
“What I was always afraid of. They just can’t keep up without upgrading their technology, and now it’s too late.”
“How did they seem?” he asked, his arm rubbing circles on my back.
“Did they blame me for leaving and therefore causing them to close? No, which, if not for the therapy, I would have expected them to. I’m still sort of waiting for that to happen. They were supportive of me pursuing where I could take my career with the Independent Bookstore Alliance. It was… a little surreal.”
“So, how are you?” he said, stacking his chin on top of my head.
“I’m a little in shock. You know, I’m not really sure what I thought would happen to the store. I knew I didn’t want to run it right now, but selfishly, I always wanted it to be there. To know I could fall back on it.”
“You’re not going to have to fall back on anything. Your star is just beginning to rise,” Hayden said with deep sincerity, making me pull back and meet his eyes.
I rose a hand to cup his cheek. “Thank you,” I said, infusing the words with as much feeling and gratefulness as I could muster.
The door opened again. Hunter stuck his head out. “Yo, lovebirds, we’re ready to eat.”
Hayden huffed out an annoyed breath and turned to admonish his twin, but I put pressure on his arm to stop him. “It’s okay,” I said to him softly. Louder, I said, “I’m starving, let’s eat.” I wiped my fingers under my eyes and over my cheeks, hoping to hide any evidence of the tears. It would take some time to sort through all my feelings surrounding the idea that Ridge Reads wouldn’t exist anymore, but those feelings would keep. It was time to eat Thanksgiving dinner with my boyfriend—definitely my boyfriend—and his family.
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