And then the final item on the list and the most immediate: Bring Libby as much happiness as possible right now. Make her feel safe enough to open up to me.

My shoulders drop back into place. My lungs relax. Now that I know what’s wrong, I can fix it.

“You know you can tell me anything,” I say. “Right?”

Libby looks up from the mayo-ketchup mixture we’ve been dipping our Poppa Squat’s fries in and snorts. “Dude,” she says flatly. “Not this again. Focus on your own life, Sissy.”

Rather than throwing a barb back, I let it go. “What’s next on the list?”

She relaxes. “I’m glad you asked, because I have an amazing idea.”

“How many times do I have to tell you?” I say. “A water park made out of alcohol is not a good idea.”

“Agree to disagree.” She swipes her hands together, dusting the salt off her fingertips. “But that’s not what I’m talking about. I figured out how to save the bookstore.”

“How many bronze statues can one town square have?”

“A ball,” Libby says. “A Blue Moon Ball. Like in Once.”

I feel my brow creasing. “Is there even a blue moon this month?”

“Not the point.”

“Right, because the point is . . .”

“A huge fundraising opportunity!” she says. “Sally knows someone who owns an events company. He can get us a dance floor and a sound system, and then we get volunteers to decorate and bring pies for a bake sale. We do the whole thing out in the town square, just like in the book.”

“This is a lot of work,” I say hesitantly.

“We won’t be doing it alone,” she insists. “Sally already put out calls to everyone in her wine exchange, and Amaya will work the bar, and Gertie—”

“The anarchist barista?” I clarify.

“—offered to make flyers for us to spread around Asheville. Mug and Shot will turn into a pop-up soda fountain. Plus they already have a liquor license, so they can do a couple of hard soda drinks. Half the town’s already on board.” She snatches my hand against the sticky bar. “It’ll be a piece of cake. A piece of pie, really. The only thing is . . .”

“Uh-oh,” I say at her wince.

“It’s fine if we can’t make it happen!” she says quickly. “But Sally and I thought it would be cool to do a virtual Q and A with Dusty. And then maybe have some signed stock on hand, for her to promote. Only if she wouldn’t mind! And only if you don’t mind asking her.”

She presses her palms together, begging or praying.

“This is how you want to spend the next two weeks?” I say, skeptical. “Not resting? Not reading and watching movies and lying out in the sun?”

“Desperately.”

Whether it’s a distraction or a way for her to exercise control or a chance to try a new life, this is what she wants, so this is what she gets.

“I’ll ask Dusty.”

Libby throws her arms around my neck, kissing my head a dozen times over. “We’re doing it! We’re saving a local business.”

I’m not convinced, but she’s happy, and Libby’s happiness has always been my drug of choice.

OceanofPDF.com

24

OF COURSE, OF course!” Dusty says, in her Dusty way, at once a bit hyperactive and vaguely spacey. “I’d love to help, Nora. But . . . I’ve never actually been to Sunshine Falls. I just happened to drive through, years ago.”

“Well, the people here love your book,” I say. I glance back toward the side of the cottage, where Libby’s stretched out on a picnic blanket, sunning herself whilst eavesdropping. She flashes me two encouraging thumbs up, and I clear my throat into the phone and go on. “The whole town has these plaques about different parts of the story. It’s really cute.”

“Really cute?” She repeats these words with awe. Probably because they sound like an ancient Latin curse coming out of my mouth.

My voice wrenches higher. “Yep!”

I feel out of sorts, asking a client for a favor, especially since it requires admitting I am here, working in person with Charlie.

Dusty is shocked to hear I’ve left the city, and when I explain I came here with my sister, she is nearly as shocked to learn I have a sibling.

As it turns out, all my longest-standing client really knows about me is I never leave New York and I’m always reachable by phone.

So after some backstory, I fill her in on the plight of Goode Books and lay out the plan for the fundraiser: an online book club with Dusty herself, open to any and all who order a book from the shop.

“It’s an hour of my life,” she says. “I think I can make it work. For the world’s best agent.”

“Have I told you lately you’re my favorite client?” I say.

“You’ve never told me that,” she replies. “But you have sent me some very expensive champagne over the years, so I figured.”

“When edits for Frigid are done, I’m sending you a swimming pool of champagne.”

Libby straightens up on her blanket and points a finger at me. SEE? ALCOHOL WATER PARK, she mouths victoriously, then pitches herself onto her feet and thunders inside to call Sally with the good news.

Yesterday I broke down and texted Brendan to ask if something was going on between them, and he simply didn’t reply, but I’m trying not to focus on that.

“Can I ask you something, Dusty?” I say.

“Of course! Ask away,” she says.

“Why Sunshine Falls?”

She stops and thinks. “I guess,” she says, “it just seemed like the kind of place that might look one way on the outside, and be something totally different once you got to know it. Like if you had the patience to take the time to understand it, it might be something beautiful.”

Sally, Gertie, Amaya, and a slew of other semi-familiar faces are in and out of the shop over the next few days, prepping for the ball. Finally I’m able to concentrate on my work. Libby, meanwhile, is at the center of the planning whirlwind, constantly coming and going, loudly taking phone calls until other customers’ disgruntled looks send her into an apology tailspin on her way out the door.

Charlie and I mostly only work over email. If we’re in the same room for too long, I’m positive that Libby—and maybe even Sally—will know exactly what’s going on, and complicated will be here fast.

I’ve been taking Libby’s disapproval of Charlie at her word, but now a part of me wonders if it’s something else. If me using the dating apps was a sort of soft launch for her, just to see what’s out there. Either way, I don’t need to put this fling on display when she’s dealing with her own relationship’s implosion.

My stomach roils every time I let myself think about it, but honestly, Charlie’s and my email correspondence is the picture of professionalism. Our texts are not, and sometimes I have to sneak out of Libby’s pop-up war room in the café to read them someplace where no one can see me flush.

Half the time Charlie intercepts me, and we sneak around the shop, stealing seconds alone wherever we can get them. The bathroom hallway. The children’s book room. The dead end in the nonfiction aisle. Places where we’re out of sight, but still have to be nearly silent. Once he pulls me through the back door into the alleyway behind the shop, and we have our hands on each other before the door swings shut.