The Bookshop on Autumn Lane (13 page)

I tossed the rest of the magazines in a plastic bag. Why was he so interested? That strange feeling of uneasiness returned. Moby and I followed him.

“Just because you offered to help the first day doesn't mean you have to continue helping me clean Books from Hell. It's a beautiful fall day. Perfect for bird-watching and other research.”

“What?” He stood outside and shifted his glasses to his nose absentmindedly. They caught the glare of the sun behind him and for a moment I couldn't see his eyes. “—birds?”

“Yes.”

“They're doing great.” He rubbed his hands together. “Let's tackle the basement.”

“We really don't have to do this.”

He walked around the corner. Leaves crunched under our feet and he found the area where weeds and bushes had grown over a set of faded blue cellar doors. I had forgotten to put my hair up today and the wind blew it around my face. I tried to control it while Kit reached into the bush and forced one side of the cellar door open. Moby jumped back and then moved forward, sniffing the opening.

“This isn't locked?”

I shrugged. “I guess not.”

That seemed to bother him. “Why wouldn't it be locked? Anyone could get in and steal from you.”

“How sad. They might take books.” I said it in a deadpan voice that caused him to look at me sharply.

“You are a smart aleck sometimes, Trudy, you know that?” he said with a frown before turning back to his task.

I grinned and watched his backside as he struggled with the cellar door. I could see the muscles outlined in his broad shoulders and looking lower I was gifted with even more of an eye treat.

I sighed. Here was that feverish feeling again. Maybe he would change his mind about “respect”. I had visions of the two of us wrapped around each other.

“Trudy?” Only the top half of Kit was visible now as he stared at me from several steps down the cellar. “You all right?”

I swallowed. “Fine.” Then I followed him into the recesses of hell.

“It's a huge mess, isn't it?” I asked descending the wooden stairs.

“Well, I guess we should have counted our blessings when we were working upstairs.” He pulled on a string that hung from a lightbulb. I gasped: There was junk everywhere. Old clothes racks, boxes, chairs, tables, and Christmas decorations made with dried pasta.

“It didn't used to look this way.” I don't know how Aunt Gertrude could let things get so bad down here. The washing machine and dryer in the corner looked like they were built when Nixon was still president. All the room needed was a wringer and a crank.

“I guess I'll just keep hand-washing or use the Sit and Spin,” I said. Bummer.

“You're so handy. You could try to fix it.”

“I don't have much experience with washing machines,” I explained.

“Is anybody down there?” I jumped at the sound of Marva's voice.

“Of course there is, Marva, why else would it be open?” another familiar voice said.

Kit ran a hand over his face.

“You never know. The young people around here are always up to no good.”

I made a face at the women who couldn't see us and called, “It's just Trudy, hoping to be up to no good with Kit . . .”

“Up to what?” A thick ankle followed by a thicker set of thighs descended the ladder.

“I don't know if I've ever been down here.” Marva O'Shea reached the bottom of the wooden stairs.

“Sure you have.” Flo's head appeared, outlined by the morning sky at the opening of the cellar. “Remember the year Gertrude was in charge of storing the pop for fish fries at the Elks, Marva?”

Kit was looking at them like they had started speaking in a foreign language.

“Oh, now I remember,” Marva said. “Cripes almighty, but we had to let it de-thaw for hours in the winter. That was the last time we gave her that job. The only people who liked frozen pop in the middle of the winter were the Yoopers.”

“Aren't you a Yooper?” Flo asked Marva.

“No, I'm from Cheboygan.” She held up her hand and pointed to the tip of her index finger.

Kit buried his chin in his neck and peered at me sideways, beseeching me to translate as if the women were speaking in tongues. I grinned. I remembered the Michigan lingo very well and explained it. “
Pop
is soda. The Elks is an organization that has fish fries on Fridays.
De-thaw
is de-ice. And Yoopers are the residents of the Upper Peninsula.”

“And this is Michigan,” said Flo proudly, holding her hand through the doorway. “A mitten.”

Marva ignored us. “I remember being down here. But it didn't look like this at all. I don't understand it. Gertrude was never as messy as all this. Between the bookstore and the cellar, it's like she lost her marbles in the last few years of her life.”

“She never had any mar—”

Kit clapped his hands together and bumped me out of the way. “So, ladies, what can we help you with?”

“We just started working on the house of horrors next door and saw the cellar door open.” Marva lifted several sheets that were covering the clutter. “Oh, this would be perfect for the haunted house. Trudy, could we borrow this?”

“Only if you keep it.”

“And those jars too,” said Flo. “We can try to make something scary look like it's living in them.”

“Maybe there already is something living in them,” I commented.

Marva pulled out an old picture of some long-lost ancestor from the early twentieth century. “Oh, look! This would be perfect over the mantel.”

“We don't have a mantel,” Flo said.

“We can make one.” Marva handed her the picture and the sheets.

“I keep hearing you say we're gonna make stuff, but you have no idea what you're doing and none of the men have time to help,” Flo explained. “Hunting season is right around the corner. Everyone's getting their hunting blinds ready and scouting their trails for bucks.”

Just thinking about it sent a shiver down my spine. Another reason to get out of town before the season ramped up. I remembered very clearly how the center of town looked in hunting season. Deer hung from truck roofs and poles placed in the center of town. From my bedroom window above the store, I could see the bodies swinging in the breeze at night. I had nightmares the entire month of November when I lived in Truhart. And I wasn't even a vegan then. I used to wake up crying, dreaming that it was my mother swinging from the pole. Aunt Gertrude would hush my whimpers from the next room and tell me to go back to sleep. Leo, my big brother, sometimes came in and slept at the foot of my bed when it was bad. He tried to explain that the deer population was out of control and hunting was a form of conservation. But I never understood what he meant.

“Are you all right, Trudy? You look sick.” Kit touched my hand.

I took a deep breath, blocking out the images of Bambi swinging from trees. “I'm sorry, you were talking about a mantel?”

“If we ever get around to it, yes. We have pieces of old mantels, but we need to put them together,” said Marva.

“One of dozens of things we still have to do in the next week,” said Flo.

Kit looked at me with a calculating gleam in his eye while the women named all the projects they still had to tackle before the haunted house opened. “Trudy is excellent with tools and building things, you know.”

A silence descended on the cellar. Marva pushed her glasses higher up on her nose. “Well, this is rather complicated, my lord. It takes more than just someone who likes crafting—”

He interrupted: “She works with stage crews that design sets and engineer lighting.”

Two heads pivoted toward me. Flo and Marva stared at me as if they were reassessing my worth in the world. I climbed over an old chair and made my way to the ladder. Time to escape.

“Trudy?” The question hung in the air. I turned. Marva stood behind me with a half-smile. “Would you be able to help us?”

“Sorry. I have work to do in the bookstore.”

I was met on the top step by Flo. She extended her hand to help me on the last step. “We would be so grateful if you could help us.” A wrinkle at the corner of her mouth deepened as she smiled. “Just a few days? And then we could come over and help you organize the rest of the store. We can help each other.”

“It's almost organized, thanks to Kit.” Why should I feel obligated to help? Most of the women in town didn't even like me. They thought I was stupid.

Kit helped Marva up the stairs with her load. She was amazingly nimble for such a large woman, but she took advantage of his gallantry and held his hand as if he were a flipping duke. Surprisingly, it didn't irritate me as much as it had a few days ago. It was rather endearing to see her giggle at his touch.

“Maybe you need a break from working in the store,” Kit said to me. The meaning behind his words was obvious. He was right. I needed to get away from all the books and do something I enjoyed.

“It's for a good cause. All the proceeds go to our community-center fund. We want to build a place with activities for children and adults alike. There will be a gym and a craft center and a therapy room for some of our special-needs kids. We want to set up educational classes for our four-legged friends, like Moby. We'll have puppy-training classes once we get going.”

“A place for the community to come together,” added Marva.

I brushed imaginary dust off my overalls. “That's a great thing. But I have other problems to deal with.”

Marva turned to me. “Don't be in such a rush to sell to Reeba. Be careful, Trudy. She wants to lowball you and make a hefty profit selling the whole building to that Fribley guy.”

Flo put a hand on Marva's arm and shook her head. “That's not Trudy's problem.”

Her words made me pause. “Is anyone else interested in the building?”

Marva pulled her arm away from Flo. “That's what we're trying to tell you. We are trying to raise enough money to make this a community center.”

“This building?”

“Yes,” both women said at the same time.

“To be honest, we have to start small. Just the grocery store for now. We are renting it for the month. And then we want to set up the Santa's workshop in December. We think we can buy the grocery store by spring. The long-term plan is for us to purchase both stores. If we can keep Fribley from getting his hands on your store we might have a chance. He wants both properties together. That's like selling out half of Main Street. We already have some donations. If we can raise just a little more we can start with the grocery store and
then
the bookshop. Turn this whole block into the kind of place Truhart needs. Don't you see?” Marva pushed her glasses up her nose with a fierce jerk.

Flo sighed. “If this place ends up like Reeba wants, all we will get is a bunch of pawnshops and adult stores and God knows what else. It would be another nail on the coffin of our town.”

“And that's scarier than a house of horrors!” Marva said.

I did not care. I did not care. If I said it to myself it would be true. But still . . . “Just how much money have you raised?” I asked.

Marva mumbled something.

“What?” I couldn't hear what she said.

Flo started to speak and then shut her mouth. I looked at both of them. “That bad?”

“We have almost twenty-five-hundred dollars! I know it isn't much. But we'll have so much more if we can get this haunted house going.”

Kit put his hands in his pockets and shook his head. “It really would be a great project. I wish I could help you. But I have two left thumbs.”

Moby tipped the scales. He had been lying down at the entrance to the cellar, lazily enjoying the cool morning air. But on cue, he nudged my hand and wagged his tail. I had been thinking about the fact that I didn't have a home for him. I should put a flyer up at the Family Fare.

A community with dog classes would be a good thing. Maybe they could hold classes in animal cruelty during hunting season too. And host an animal-adoption event.

“I'll tell you what,” I said. “I'm not going to budge on my selling price for the store. If someone is willing to pay it, then I sell. But I can help you with this haunted house.”

Kit grinned. I could see the little gears moving in his academic mind. He was pleased.

“Deal,” said Flo. She held out her hand again. I took it and realized that, for the first time, this crappy little town and I were going to be on the same side.

Marva and Flo followed me into the bookstore, telling me all about their plans for the haunted house. When we entered the back of the store we skirted the piles Kit and I had categorized.

I joked about the mess. “Maybe the ghosts want a few books.”

Florence pulled something out of a book mountain. “Oh, it's Ray Bradbury! I loved
Something Wicked This Way Comes
.”

“I did too. Have you read
The Martian Chronicles
?” asked Kit.

Flo's eyes lit up. “Of course! But I thought you would be more into someone like Thomas Hardy or E. M. Forster.”

“Way too stodgy.” He shook his head and bent down to explain. “Trudy here says no one will care about these books.”

She clutched one to her chest. “Really?”

I did not like his argument “Take what you want now. It will make for fewer books to throw in the trash.”

“No. Don't throw them away.” Flo's eyes were wide in panic.

Marva dug into a pile and pulled out her own favorites. They included several cookbooks from at least fifty years ago. Kit gave me an I-told-you-so look.