Сьюзен Виггз - The Lost and Found Bookshop

“You’re proving my point. Why would I get into a relationship that’s probably going to fail?” She shuddered, shying away from a feeling of terrible vulnerability. Was that what had kept her mother alone all her life? Fear? Doubt? Lack of trust that hurt was not just around the corner?

She now understood Blythe’s devotion to the store. Unlike men, books were easy. They filled you with all the emotions in the world—joy, dread, fear, hurt, gratification—and then they came to an end. People were different. Unpredictable. Impossible to manage.

“Because it might not fail,” Tess pointed out. “And trust me, the right relationship makes everything better.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

Tess studied the poster announcing the Trevor Dashwood event. “Maybe keep him in mind, too.”

There was no denying that Trevor was the full package—talent, looks, charm. Natalie didn’t wake up in the morning still dreaming about the kiss they’d shared. But it was just one kiss, and they were new, and maybe she shouldn’t jump to conclusions. About either guy.

“He’s keeping me very busy. The event is out of control. Sold out, as a matter of fact.”

“Glad I got tickets early. The kids are totally excited. And is he still Mr. Wonderful?”

“Are you kidding? Of course.” She told Tess about the sunset cruise, and their upcoming dinner at Rendez-Vous in Napa. He was taking her there after the book signing.

“Okay, now I want to date him.”

“Very funny.” Natalie handed her the wrapped books. “Listen, I’m happy for you and your sister, getting to know your father. Good luck, okay?”

After Tess left, Natalie was swept into the whirlwind that was Trevor Dashwood. The phone started ringing, Bertie and Cleo showed up, and she had to attend to the myriad little details of the upcoming event. Even with Trevor’s expert planner, they had to roll up their sleeves and work together. “The Flip Side with Trevor Dashwood” was spinning into madness. The Unitarian church on the corner was the chosen venue, and Natalie, Cleo, and Bertie were happily inundated with preorders and special requests.

Through it all, Trevor truly was Mr. Wonderful, enlisting an army of help from his publisher. His publicist set up an interview with Bay Area Life Magazine . There would be a print article and a video companion piece. A reporter, photographer, and videographer would be coming to the bookstore that evening.

Natalie kept checking the clock, obsessively tidying up the store, wondering what they would ask her and hoping she wouldn’t come off sounding weird or phony. Trevor showed up early with a gift that made her nearly faint with gratitude—a wardrobe, hair, and makeup stylist.

“How did you know?” she said, unable to keep from smiling.

“A little Bertie told me.” Trevor acknowledged him with a nod.

“Bertie and Cleo are amazing,” she said, and for a moment, emotion overtook her. “I love you guys,” she said. “When I was working at the wine place, I never had coworkers I could say that to.”

The stylist was named Shelly, and she was ultracool, with an asymmetric pixie haircut and a tattoo on her clavicle. Even better, she had a great eye and skills honed, she said, by working behind the scenes at Disneyland as a stylist for the princess attraction. She picked out a fitted navy top, dark wash jeans, and wedge sandals—nothing too busy for the camera, she explained. Spotting Blythe’s jewelry box, she rummaged around and found a lime-green bangle and a pair of gold hoop earrings.

Natalie hadn’t yet tackled the jewelry box. Its contents, though not valuable, evoked all sorts of memories. Through the years, her mom’s admirers had gifted her with any number of baubles. She even remembered the guy who had given Blythe the hoops. Langdon somebody, a poet who had a beard and smelled of French cigarettes. Mom had met him when his publisher set up a poetry reading in the bookstore. Natalie had been in middle school and was helping at the cash register during the event. She remembered thinking it was her lucky night, because a group of students from Greenhill Prep showed up. Natalie had just begun thinking about boys as something other than an alien life-form. Every Sunday, she studied the Pink Pages in the paper and dreamed about going to a concert with a boy, maybe having her first kiss while Counting Crows were playing at Slim’s.

The clean-cut, straight-arrow guys and blond-ponytailed girls from Greenhill had intrigued her. She even caught the attention of one of the boys, a kid with perfect teeth and a twinkle in his eye. He sat in one of the metal folding chairs in the back and patted the empty seat beside him.

She had practically floated as she went to sit next to the boy. “I’m Natalie,” she said. “I work here.”

“Prescott,” he’d said, and she wasn’t sure if that was his first or last name. Rich kids tended to have first names that sounded like last names.

“You like poetry?” she asked.

“Nah. Our English Nine teacher said we’d get extra credit if we came.”

Natalie’s mom introduced the poet, supposedly one of the most gifted protégés of Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the pride of the Bay Area. He sure seemed to be channeling Ferlinghetti with that beard and bowler hat.

The boy named Prescott took notes in a theme book with a marbled cover. Tucked between the pages was a brochure from Mr. Lee’s Driving School—that was the place where everyone learned to drive. Everyone except probably Natalie. Even though driving was a few years away, her mom was already warning her that there was no point in taking driving lessons because number one, they didn’t have a car, and number two, driving in the city was impossible anyway.

Prescott noticed her looking and drew a little thumbs-up next to the brochure. Then in the margin of the page, he wrote, What’s your number?

Natalie nearly fainted, but she grabbed his pencil and wrote it on the page next to her name. When the author started reading, the poem seemed kind of low-key, a collection of images about trains and tunnels. Then she heard one too many references to grinding gears and thrusting pistons and a woman outlining her moist mouth with a lipsicle . . . and that was when the elbow jabs and snickers started. Most of the subsequent poems were filled with further obvious references. Natalie’s cheeks and ears caught fire, and she slumped in her chair, feeling trapped in a vortex of the poet’s loud, gruff voice and the hisses of suppressed amusement from the high school kids. When the guy recited a piece about going to the zoo and seeing a gorilla eating a raw hot dog, she nearly melted into a pool of mortification.

During a pause in the presentation, the earnest adults sitting in the front of the room started a discussion, and Prescott asked her what school she went to.

“St. Dymphna’s,” she whispered. It wasn’t as prestigious as Greenhill. “Maybe I’ll go to Greenhill for high school,” she added. Yeah, right. If she asked to go to Greenhill, her mom would say they Couldn’t Afford It, which was her answer to pretty much everything.

“You’re not in high school?” Prescott asked. He looked down at the number she had neatly penciled in his notebook. “Maybe I’ll call you in a few years, then.”

Natalie tried to force herself to die right then and there. When that failed, she slunk away, exiting through the stockroom and up the back steps to the apartment. Grandy and May were watching Northern Exposure . When Mom came up later, Natalie pounced. “That guy was totally weird, Mom. Those poems about churning and burning . . . geez.”

Her mother had laughed, her big blustery laugh that everybody loved. Instead of kicking off her shoes and shrugging out of her work clothes, she took a coat from the closet. Her good cherry-red one from I. Magnin. “Those are my favorite parts. He’s not weird. I think he’s nice.”