Page 19 of The Beach Shack Legacy

“Klein’s Newsstand.” He said it the way you introduce someone. Formally. “Every paper in the county, and four I had shipped in for people who asked. Magazines. Gum. Cold drinks out of a cooler I filled myself off a bag of ice from the market.” The pen was down. “I opened at five. Fishermen first, then the school run, then the men from the yard. By eight I could have your paper in your hand before you got to the step.”

“Five in the morning?”

“Every day but Christmas.” He said it with no weight on it whatsoever. “Best job I ever had.”

“Why’d you stop?”

“Knees. You can’t open at five if you can’t get down the hill at five.” He looked at the crossword without seeing it. “That was the worst day. Not the knee. The stopping.”

Stella wrote that down too.

“That’s the one Dad drove into.”

“Yes, that’s the one your father drove into.”

“He spent the whole summer rebuilding it?”

“Board by board. Margo stood over him with a list.” Bernie’s mouth twitched, almost into a smile. “He was sixteen, and he cried about it, and he will tell you to this day that he did not.”

“Sawdust in his eyes?”

“For three months,” Bernie said.

Stella laughed, and then she looked at the pad, and then she looked back up.

“So who built it? The first time.”

“Richard.”

Stella’s pen stopped.

“Richard built your newsstand?”

“Drew it and built it. I guess technically we did it together. But I handed him things and held the other end of the boards.” Bernie filled in a box on the crossword. “He was better with his hands than anybody gave him credit for. People looked at that man and saw a talker.”

“Nobody ever told me that.”

“Nobody asked.”

She wrote it down, and underlined it, and did not yet know why.

At ten Anna flipped the sign, and the morning found its places—Mrs. Feldstein to table two with the coffee she would defend for the rest of the morning, a pair of tourists at the window table pointing at the surfboards on the wall, Joey meeting the door with his opinions about where people should sit, Tyler’s towel back over his shoulder, Anna calling the first order to nobody in particular the way a bell starts a school day, and Bella stationing herself at the patio door, officially an outdoor cat, already negotiating.

Mrs. Feldstein detoured past the booth on her way to table two and put a folded napkin next to Bernie’s crossword. “My picks.”

“You’re early. My bracket closes this week.” Bernie put the napkin in his shirt pocket without reading it.

“I like to beat the rush.” She went to her table.

Stella looked from the pocket to his face. “Do I want to know what that was?”

“Community engagement.” He picked his pen back up. “Don’t put it in your project.”

She put a small star in the margin so she’d remember to put it in her project. Then she reached into the camera bag on the seat beside her and took out the folder.

“I found something in the trunk. I can’t read it.”

She slid the napkin across the table. Bernie put the pen down and did not pick it up again.