“Danish,” said Myrna, waving her brown bag so that it made a rustling, crinkling sound. “Cheese Danish.”
“You enjoy,” said Imogen, enjoying the casual exchange herself.
“Always do.” Myrna headed straight for the only chair in the gardening section.
There was such a vibe to the mornings at Wild Nights. It was a quiet kind of bustle. The people in the store really wanted to be there—either for the quiet as they browsed or to pick up a specific book—and there was something so calm and industrious about the store and its customers right around nine o’clock.
As she passed by the checkout stand, Little Miss Perfect called out to Imogen. “Are you all right?” She had one of those worried creases in the middle of her eyebrows, like she cared a lot and wanted to help.
Imogen didn’t need her help, thank you very much. She didn’t need anyone’s help. And right now she was just floating around the store, making sure people were finding what they were looking for. “I’m fine.”
But, of course, Little Miss Perfect couldn’t just leave it at that. No, she was committed to rooting out uncomfortable truths. “Are you sure? I just know that Daniella can be, well—not always kind. And. I just thought I’d ask.”
“You’ve asked,” said Imogen.
“Oh,” said Little Miss Perfect. The crease between her forehead fell along with her expression. “Did she say anything? When you were in the office, I mean.”
Was that a trick question? “She said lots of things. Most of them not worth repeating.”
But Little Miss Perfect was only half listening. Not like her at all, if Imogen thought about it. “But did she say anything else?”
“About what?” asked Imogen.
“About the store closing or about the numbers being fine after she checked them?”
Imogen stared for a full minute. She couldn’t quite find the words. Eventually, she went with, “What?”
“Oh no, she didn’t mention it. Look, I’m sure it’s nothing. Daniella thought the store was closing. So she went to go check the numbers. I just thought, if she called you in, it’s probably fine, right?”
Everything was so far from fine that Imogen did the only thing she could think of in the circumstance. She turned around and fled.
Imogen went to the side door by the manga section and kicked it open. She slapped at her neck, knowing a mosquito bite was imminent. Then Imogen pulled out her phone. She’d tucked it into her boots, all the better to hide it from Jo, who would confiscate their phones if she caught them on one during work.
It was the only way that being at work was worse than being at school.
Imogen opened up her feed and began scrolling. It was a compilation—friends and bands and a few robotics and history accounts. Oh, and the poetry accounts. Against her will, really, Imogen had inherited that from her mother—her love of verse.
Imogen devoured it all.
The newfangled stuff, the sketches and drawings. The empowered women of color. The sad faces with blackout text. The self-care poetry. The reposts of Mary Oliver quotes over stock photos and memes. But Imogen’s favorite was anachronisticblonde. She did little doodles, like the new stuff, but she mostly did sonnets and odes and fragments of what could be a compiled epic. She wasn’t the biggest or the most influential account that Imogen followed by a long shot, but there was something so raw and real about her work that Imogen thought it was only a matter of time before her account blew up.
The latest poem was at the top of her feed—In truth the sun does not rise—that was what Imogen needed. She felt it, down to her bones. Imogen hovered on that image, never liking anachronisticblonde’s poems but always stopping to read. The algorithm must have known this about Imogen—that she was a grade A lurker.
Imogen couldn’t believe that Wild Nights was closing. She didn’t want to believe it. But she thought about Eli’s jitters, and she thought about Cool Girl’s extra snippiness, and Imogen just couldn’t reassure herself on this point that she must have misunderstood or that Little Miss Perfect must have misunderstood.
And then other worries came rolling in. Where would Charlene get her regular feminist fix from? Where would Myrna go with her morning pastry? There were other regulars, too. The young mother—Imogen didn’t know her name, but she had to be just out of college—who was sitting reading business books while her child read picture books out loud. Or the woman who came in every week looking for a selection for her book club.
It wasn’t just that Imogen would be out of a job. It was that these people belonged here and they were about to be unceremoniously cut away from a place that they had each made a little bit their own.
That’s when the side door to the alleyway opened and Jo came barging out of it. There was no getting out of this one. Imogen had no time to stuff her phone back into her boots.
“Oh, thank you so much. Love a new phone to add to my collection.” Jo grabbed it out of Imogen’s hands. “Nice haircut, by the way.”
“Wait—” But it was too late. Any response that Imogen could have come up with was cut short by a truck driving through the back alley where they both stood, leaning against the outside wall. A delivery truck. Imogen thought it was going to rumble on through, but then she heard that horrible, squeaking brake sound that delivery trucks make, and she knew that they were going to drop off boxes.
Fantastic. Imogen hated having to do the heavy lifting part of her job. Everyone at the bookstore did. She was a bookstore employee. That had to be the literal definition of an indoor cat.
“Delivery for Jo Rivas?” The delivery driver had jumped out of the truck and was handing Jo one of those tablets that looked like an old graphing calculator, only these came with tiny plastic pens that never worked and were attached for recipients to sign across the window-box screen.
“It’s not Tuesday.” Jo shook her head, like she couldn’t believe the delivery driver was standing there. “And I didn’t order anything.”
“Look, I got a delivery. Are you gonna take it or not?” The delivery driver put a hand on her hip.
Jo shook her head in resignation, then signed for the packages using the back of a pen that she took out of her pocket. The delivery driver grabbed a box out of the truck and started stacking it onto a dolly. Once she had a good stack, she wheeled the packages into the store.
The puzzlement didn’t leave Jo’s face.
And that’s when the gears in Imogen’s mind started working. A shipment arrived that Jo didn’t expect. Daniella was pissed about the discrepancy. And Eli was twitchy, nervous, and willing to go deal with Daniella when she was pissed. Imogen was starting to get a picture of what was happening, and not one bit of it looked good for Eli. Maybe Wild Nights Bookstore hadn’t been closing.
Maybe Eli was the reason they were going under.
Jo looked up at Imogen. “Look, I better get in there and see what all of this is about. Daniella is probably running the numbers. I’m sure she’ll get to the bottom of this in no time.”
And for some reason—despite the fact that Eli had a record and the fact that Imogen hated Cool Girl and would have loved to watch her sweat under the pressure of Jo’s potential interrogation—Imogen blurted out the one thing she knew would stop Jo cold in her tracks.