Page 3 of Library or Lattes?

I always got the same feeling when I read Mom’s words. It was like I was in on some secret, just for us.

Pop was up earlier than me the next morning.

He greeted me with his usual smile, the one that creased his eyes and filled me with warmth. “Morning, sweetheart. Coffee?”

“Sure, thanks. Did you get it fixed? The roof?”

Pop didn’t answer for a second. “Oh … Yeah, I did. That leak. It was a tricky one.” He handed me my favorite mug and said, “I’ll head back there at some point to check on it, then off to Mrs. Burrows …”

“Again?”

“The cat …” Pop sighed.

“She needs to get some kind of tracking device on that animal.”

“I know, I know, Willa, but what can I do? I’m Oak Falls’s most handsome fix-it guy. It’s hard to keep up with the demand.”

I sucked air through my teeth. “I don’t know, I bet Mr. H was a total catch in his day.”

Mr. Holland was the OG fix-it guy in Oak Falls, but he was about ninety now, refused to retire, and took months to get anything done. Pop did most of his work these days.

“I’ll tell him you said that.” Pop laughed and I remembered something. “At least there’s one good thing about Mrs. Burrows. Banana cream pie?”

Mrs. Burrows always paid Pop in pie instead of actual money. So old and so sweet and so completely Oak Falls.

“I do love that pie,” he said. “I’ll do what I have to do.”

I saluted him, then noticed him staring at me, with that expression.

“What? Is there something on my face? I told Lennie to stop bringing that weird blue candy.”

Pop laughed. “No, no. You just looked so much like her for a second.”

I loved it when he said I looked like Mom. Same hair, same wide smile and freckles on our noses. Even though it was Pop who had the Irish blood, it was me and Mom who’d fit right in on the Emerald Isle.

I picked out a black hoodie that made my hair look even more fiery than it was, and threw on my brown plaid jacket and green scarf before walking out the door into the golden morning light.

It was a four-block walk to work. Five minutes. Ten minutes if I took it slowly, which I did today. It felt like Oak Falls had been named after just how beautiful it looked in this one season. The streets were lined with oak trees turning bronze and rust, sugar maples blazing scarlet and gold, and deep burgundy dogwood trees. The air had that crisp, clean smell, like the start of something new. And it was all more beautiful at sunrise, when the light broke over the horizon and set everything on fire. The leaves on the sidewalk glowed like stained glass in yellow, orange, and amber. Like the whole of Oak Falls was painted in watercolors. I loved my walk to work.

I waved at Mrs. Lovell, walking her giant Saint Bernard. I used to be scared of Troy until I stopped to chat one day and found out what a softy he was. Even softer and slower now that he was older.

Mr. Barkley was sweeping the street outside the hardware store.

“Hi there, Willa, tell your pop the Hawks are looking sharp for Friday night.”

“I will, Mr. B. Go Hawks,” I said, smiling. Pop had all the sports-loving genes in our house. I needed to practice being enthusiastic if Lennie and I were actually going to a game.

I kicked my sneaker through a pile of leaves under a lamppost with Mrs. Burrows’s missing cat poster on it. Then I pulled my jacket around me and kept on walking, inhaling the earthy smell of the leaves.

One more moment of calm before the storm of the Little Acorn coffee shop.

The bell dinged as I walked in, and there was Geoff, the owner, a gentle man with the sparkliest eyes I’d ever seen. He was in the middle of his morning routine, a routine I could picture with my eyes closed. Flipping chairs off the tables, checking the register, turning on the coffee machine and nodding with approval when it hissed to life. Everything in the same order, every day. In fact, apart from the decorations that I insisted we put up in every season, I don’t think the coffee shop ever changed. Not since Pop took me and Lennie to get muffins after school when we were little.

My decorations were a work of art, even if I said so myself. String lights crisscrossed the ceiling, and each table had a bit of holiday cheer. There were Mason jars with tea lights, dried-out oak leaves, and jars of acorns. Plus the cutest little ceramic mini-pumpkins by the counter, and a chalkboard sign saying HAPPY FALL Y‘ALL, which I’d spent ages hand-lettering.

“Good morning, Willa. Ready for a new weekend? These tourists, they just keep coming. I think there are even more than there were in the summer. I wonder if they’re staying for the festival, but … would it be terrible if I said I hope not?” Geoff lowered his voice. He acted like he was overwhelmed, but that couldn’t possibly be the truth. I’d seen him clean up the shop after a summer flood without so much as breaking a sweat. Sometimes I thought he pretended to be struggling for my benefit, just so I could feel more helpful.

I laughed. “Think of it this way, Geoff—it’s great for business.” But he was right, there’d been way more people in town since Oak Falls had been included in a glam travel blogger’s “New England Towns Not to Miss This Fall” piece. And within an hour, the coffee shop was hopping.