Page 78 of Upstate

“I just want to go home, thanks.”

“Well, the power’s back on, so I expect your house’ll be nice and warm by now. I already talked to Lucinda to let her know you’re all right, and Warren Ferguson called asking after you. Here, I ran your things through the wash.” Nancy hands me a clean bundle of clothes, then pauses in the doorway. “There wasn’t time for putting on masks when we brought you home, but you ought to know Joe’s had issues with his heart, and my blood pressure’s a problem, so we’re mighty careful about Covid.”

“Thanks, Nancy. I guess I’ll keep to myself for a couple of weeks, just in case.”

“Whatever you think.” A horn honks outside. “That’ll be Joe back from plowing your driveway.”

It’s evening now. Ridgetop Road has been cleared by the county, both lanes open, the snowbanks along the shoulders six feet high. Joe and I don’t say much, but the silence between us feels easy. He pulls up to my house, puts the engine in neutral, comes around to help me down from the cab. I see he’s not only plowed my long driveway but continued on to the workshop, too, and shoveled the walk to my front door.

“Thank you, Joe, for everything.”

“That’s what people do around here,” Joe says. “We look out for each other.”

I know this is both true and a lie. Just last year, a man in the next village over from Schuywich shot a Black teenager dead for simply knocking on his door, lost and looking for directions. I’m pretty sure me being white plays a part in Joe placing me in the category of people to be looked out for. On the other hand, I’m certain he’d bend over backward to help Lucinda, or Aisha, for that matter, though perhaps their familiarity makes them the exception to an unspoken rule?

Stop, I tell myself. If there’s anything this day has taught me, it’s that there are things beyond my understanding. My only wish, as I watch Joe back down the drive, is that someone had taken the gun away from his brother all those years ago.

I step into a warm house, the thermostat set at seventy degrees—my first hint that Wren’s been here. The second is the fridge full of fresh groceries. The third is a pot of Mrs. Ferguson’s garlic potato soup on the stove, the fourth an open bottle of wine on the kitchen island. I pour a glass and scroll through the messages on my resurrected phone. Wren, asking where I am and if I’m all right. Lucinda, checking in. And there, from back in September, the message I sent Sam telling him to stay away.

Upset as I was about our kiss, I can’t blame Sam for not knowing about David. I’m the one who didn’t want to be seen as a widow. Well, I got what I asked for, I guess, and then some. I swipe away my messages without sending a text. There might come a day when it won’t feel like cheating to let a man’s lips touch mine, but that day seems a long way off. I’m in no rush. If there is to be a next time, I want to wait until I have a whole heart to give.

The phone vibrates in my hand. I panic for a second, thinking it’s Sam, but no, Wren wants to FaceTime. I take a breath before answering. Wren and Eric and Mrs. Ferguson, too, crowd the screen, wanting to hear the whole story. I tell them about my cell phone and the battery on my computer, about the snow and the cold and the frozen lamb. I consider fudging my lie about visiting friends in Vermont by saying I came back a few days early, but really, what’s the point?

“I shouldn’t have pretended to be away,” I say simply. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t ever do that again, okay?” Wren says. “We were worried sick.”

“I won’t.” I place my hand on my heart like I’m pledging allegiance. “I promise.”

“Make sure you eat that soup while it’s hot,” Mrs. Ferguson commands. “You had a close call today.”

“There’s a lot of that going around,” says Wren, looking lovingly at Eric.

“Close calls,” Eric agrees, “and saving graces, too.”

Chapter 38

“A Woman’s Place” by Evelyn Cabot

Mademoiselle, April 1975

As I get ready to roll open the doors of Red Barn Books for an eighth summer season, I’m taking a moment to look back on my accomplishments while acknowledging my mistakes. Those of you who’ve been with me from the beginning may recall how an unused space, a promise of free books, and the prospect of cheap shelves somehow inspired me to start a business. I didn’t have much of a plan back then, but I had a diploma from Bennington, experience in the marines, and plenty of bylines to my name. How hard could it be, I asked myself, to sell someone a book?

Turns out, entrepreneurship is akin to taking the final exam for a class you never attended, with unpredictable questions and shifting topics that are impossible to study for. The basic principles of bookkeeping and management can be learned by anyone with a brain and a library card, but even a college education can’t fully prepare a person for the hundreds of problems that arise when building a business, be it a bookshop owned by a sole proprietor or a factory employing thousands.

In retail, where the entirety of your profit lies in the slim margin between what you paid for a thing and what you can sell it for, atmosphere matters as much as product. At first, I saw my barn mostly as a warehouse for the books I stocked. I quickly learned that customers expect a store to provide them with more than items to buy. Shopping for books should be an experience. A shop like mine, so far from the beaten path, needs to be a worthy destination as well. It was only after I put more work into displays and signage, set up a cozy children’s section, and curated specialty collections of rare volumes and local history that my business became a success.

It helps that my idea of success is simple: to enjoy what I’m doing while making enough money to live on. By this definition, Red Barn Books has exceeded my wildest expectations. I still feel a thrill when I’m called to clear out someone’s hoard of books, keen to see what treasures I might unearth. I get a kick out of negotiating with sellers who think they can pull the wool over my eyes — eyes that have been honed by experience and study. I’m infinitely curious about the strangers who wander into my shop, lured by the signs I’ve staked along the state road or the advertisements I’ve placed in various newspapers or simply by word of mouth. I love when friends show up and customers return and children chart their growth on the beam I’ve dedicated to their measurements. The incessant correspondence inherent in the book trade has given me friends around the globe. My membership in the American Booksellers Association offers me entrée into a community of like-minded idealists who believe in the value of the written word, not to mention a group rate on health insurance.

Now, I’ll be honest with you: My idea of “enough to live on” probably differs substantially from yours. I have no children depending on me, no ailing parents or disabled spouse to support. My grocery expenses are kept in check by garden-grown vegetables and hunted venison and a feisty flock of chickens that provides both eggs for my breakfast and soup for my supper. Having purchased my house for cash, I need not budget for a mortgage. All I expect is that, after accounting for my expenses, the bookshop yields enough profit to cover my bills and keep me clothed and set a few coins aside for the future. I don’t travel the world or attend glittering parties or dress in the latest fashions. A day of dollar bets at the Saratoga Race Course counts as a splurge. But when I balance my books at the end of the year, no matter how small the number written in black, it never fails to add up in my favor.

Like anyone starting a business, I’ve made my share of mistakes along the way. Inventory management is a perpetual thorn in my side. Customer service is a skill I’m still developing. Pricing books too high has led to lost sales; pricing them too low has led to lost profits. The problem for women in business is that when we step into realms where men have kept the field of play largely (if not entirely) to themselves, our mistakes are held up as examples of our innate unfitness for whatever vocation we’ve dared attempt. But everyone makes mistakes — a fact that businessmen, with their bankruptcies and broken monopolies and bribery scandals, know all too well. Richard Nixon’s corruption sent him slinking off in disgrace from the highest office in our land, but I’ve not seen a single headline declare men in general unfit for the presidency.

The qualities essential to an entrepreneur — flexibility, curiosity, the ability to learn on the fly — females have in abundance. The missing ingredient is the confidence to view our mistakes as opportunities for growth rather than reasons to quit. Not only is confidence where men have us bested, it seems to me men wield their confidence as a cudgel to keep us women in our place. Take this example from George Hecht’s 1955 pamphlet “Notes on the Modern Bookshop,” in which he declared, “If there were a successful formula for the buying of books, a man could make himself a fortune, even in the book business, where few fortunes are made.” On the surface, Hecht is admitting bookselling is a risky business for anyone who tries it. Notice, though, his use of “a man” to sideline the very notion that a bookshop might belong to a woman. Antifeminists might counter that Hecht meant his use of “man” to include all mankind, which is the grammatical excuse we’re given for women being left out of such universal proclamations. But women spend our entire lives reading ourselves into sentences from which we’re excluded. It takes a toll on our self-esteem, doesn’t it?

It may seem a silly little thing at which to take umbrage, but the women’s liberation movement has opened our eyes to all the ways, from the tiny to the terrifying, that patriarchy holds us back. Throughout my life, my confidence has gotten me labeled brash and bossy — as well as that other “b” word best applied to breeding dogs. I tend to put confident women in two categories: those who had encouraging kin who fostered their self-worth, and those who learned the hard way how to stick up for themselves. I’m in the latter camp myself, but whether a woman is on her own or lucky enough to have friends and family to buoy her up, she deserves to reach her full potential just as much as any man.

This summer, to coincide with 1975 being International Women’s Year, the United Nations will hold the first world conference on the status of women. While delegates meet in Mexico to bring about an end to gender discrimination and discuss how women can promote global development and strengthen world peace, I’ll be here, queen bee of my little corner of upstate New York. As different as our situations and circumstances may be, I hope you find the confidence to build something for yourself, whether that’s a career or a business or a flourishing family of your own. You’re certain to make mistakes along the way. You might even fail in the end. But unless you give it a try, you’ll never know the satisfaction of success.