Page 38 of The Faceoff

I think about shelving.

I'm extremely good at shelving.

Chapter 7

Beau

The bell over the door rings its off-key note as it swings shut behind us, and Mormor is already moving toward the counter, and Sloane is already gone — peeled off toward a hook on the wall where she takes down an apron and ties it on with the quick, unthinking motions of someone who has done it a thousand times.

I stand near the door for a second and take in the shop.

It hasn’t changed. It never changes. That’s the point of it. Same crooked shelves, same hardwood floors gone soft in the middle, same smell — paper and coffee and the dust of a place that’s been the same place for forty years. Mormor’s been running Margaret’s Books since before my mom could drive. I learned to read in here.

I learned to not be able to read in here too, technically. But that’s not a thing I think about.

“Sit,” Mormor says, pointing at the stool behind the counter. “You look thin.”

“I’m not thin.”

“You look like you’re not eating.”

“I ate a full pan of pasta last night.”

“That’s not eating, that’s a single event.” She’s pulling the reading glasses out of her hair, settling them on her nose, looking at me over the top of them in the way she’s looked at me my whole life. “Sit down. Tell me about the shoulder.”

I run a hand through my hair. “The shoulder’s fine, Mormor.”

“Beau.”

“It’s fine.”

She doesn’t say anything. She just holds the look, which is worse than saying something, and I sit on the stool because the alternative is standing here losing a staring contest to an eighty-two-year-old woman, which I have never once won.

“It’s a little stiff,” I tell her. “From March. It’s getting better.”

“Have you seen the trainer?”

“It’s preseason. There’s no point bothering the trainer over something that’s getting better on its own.”

“Mm.” She files this. She’s going to come back to it. We both know she’s going to come back to it. “Your mother says you didn’t go to the specialist she found you over the summer.”

“I went to a specialist.”

“You went to a different specialist. A worse one. Closer to campus.” She eyes the Roastery cup in my hand, the one I’ve been carrying since the walk over. “You and your fancy coffee. There’s a perfectly good kettle right here. She worries, you know.”

“I know.”

“She worries because you don’t tell anyone anything.” This said lightly, as she straightens a stack of bookmarks on the counter. “You get it from your father. He sat through an entire dinner with a broken finger once and didn’t mention it until I noticed he was eating left-handed.”

I huff a laugh. “That sounds like Dad.”

“It sounds like both of you.”

Across the shop, Sloane is restocking a low shelf, her back to us, working steadily. She’s not listening. Or she’s pretending not to listen, which from a theater major is probably a refined skill. Either way she’s giving us the kind of privacy you give people when you’ve decided their conversation isn’t yours, and I find I’m aware of where she is in the room in a way I don’t examine.

Mormor leans against the counter, crosses her arms, and looks at me with an expression I recognize and have been dreading since the sidewalk.

“So.”