Page 30 of Heartwaves

Mae hiredKarizma after Bay Books’s opening weekend.

After the second weekend, she hired Zeke.

Both part-time, and she worried she wouldn’t be able to sustain even those part-time hours after the holiday rush was over. But for now, they were a small team. For now, they helped Mae keep her head above water.

She spent more time in the office than she ever had before, as the days went by. Going over sales and inventory and budgets, schedules and payroll, each day after closing time.

As she had known it would, that day it happened, the desk always made her think of Dell.

She didn’t always remember the details of that day specifically, but rather, the essence of Dell McCleary she missed most. Being alone in her office while the sky turned dark offered an opportunity to truly indulge in these things. His broad shoulders and his soft belly, the weight and reassurance of him. His stubbornness and determination: a person without pretense, a person who needed to get things right. Whether it was crafting bookshelves or trying on the idea of polyamory or taking care of his mother.

She hated how nostalgic and bittersweet it felt, those nights, thinking about Dell. Like he was a thing that had happened to her once, that she might not ever be able to see again.

Still, no matter how many nights went by, he was always there in the office, waiting for her.

That was the thing about love.

No matter how far away they sometimes felt, the ones that mattered never really left you.

Your body remembered the shit that was important.

* * *

In mid-December, Mae received a package from Michigan.

Saw this at a bookstore in Marquette, when I was up visiting an old friend. Made me think of you.

Mae let the note drop to the desk. Lifted the book it had been stuck to.

Tessa Dare. Romancing the Duke.

Jesus hugged her shoulders. See? he whispered. Jesus talked to her all the time, since Dell had been gone. Sometimes she wondered if he talked to her too much. If she was quietly losing her mind.

Maybe she did see. Maybe a mass market paperback always helped.

Maybe it was still hard.

She ran her finger over Dell’s almost illegible handwriting before sliding the paper into the top drawer of the desk, next to her favorite pink pens, and returned to her profit and loss spreadsheet.

* * *

One day, Mae was reading an advanced reader copy of an upcoming release when an old white man walked in. He wore a faded baseball cap and a frown that looked vaguely familiar.

It wasn’t until he brought up a book a short minute later, as if he’d known exactly what he was looking for and didn’t have time to browse for anything else, that she recognized him. Remembered Liv’s quiet laughter on her first full day in town.

Brooks, the writer with the secret pen name.

She examined the book he was purchasing, a new literary hardcover—thank you for your service, Brooks, she almost said—and tried to deduce if it was a clue. Is this you?! No, this book was definitely written by a Black man Mae had seen online a hundred times.

But still. It could be a clue.

She smiled politely, thanked him for visiting Bay Books.

And as soon as he left, she grabbed her phone, laughing as she brought up the group chat.

Until the door jingled again.

And Mae slowly put her phone back down.

He looked a touch different—older, scruffier—than he had in his profile picture. But Mae still recognized him all the same.

“Hi,” she said. It was mid-morning on a Tuesday; there were no other customers to cushion them from each other. After a moment’s hesitation, she added, “Luca.”

“Hi,” he said with an acknowledging nod. “Mae.”

They exchanged small, awkward smiles. He turned toward a bookshelf.

“Let me know if you need anything,” she said. And then she stared at her computer, heart thudding in her chest.

Until Luca brought a Martha Wells to the counter.

She didn’t know how to process that he was just as hot as she’d imagined.

So she simply began ringing him up instead.

“Uh.” He scratched his head, credit card clutched in his other hand. How strange, to feel so close to someone you’d never technically met before. “His mom’s doing okay?” And then, before Mae could respond, “I overheard some people talking in the IGA.”

At once, Mae’s heart stopped thudding. She released a breath. She wanted to hug this man. To invite him out for a beer. They wouldn’t even have to talk. They could just spend time, in that space of understanding, of missing Dell, together.

“Yeah,” she eventually said, voice gentle. “It sounds like she’s doing a lot better.”

Luca nodded. Tucked the book under his arm.

“Hey Luca?” she said, when he was almost to the door. He half turned. “Keep coming in, okay? If you want to.”

He gave her a small smile.

“It is nice, having a bookstore.”

“I hoped it would be.”

With another nod, he was gone.

* * *

A few days before Christmas, Dell called in the morning when Mae was still in bed, barely awake.

“Mae,” he said, voice sounding more urgent than it normally did. Mae shot up from the pillows. Georgia. “I’m so sorry I didn’t do this earlier. But Mae, the store should be yours.”

Mae frowned, staring blurrily at Dell’s bedside clock. Crosby stirred next to her.

“What?”

“12 Main Street. I want to sell it to you. I should have done that first thing, when we—it’s yours anyway.”

The words percolated through Mae’s mind, much slower than she knew they should.

“But it hasn’t been six months yet.”

Dell released a quiet huff on the other end of the line. Mae thought she could hear his smile in it.

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” he said.

And Mae suddenly wanted to cry.

“I’ve never wanted to ask for details about Jesus’s money, but is it enough to buy it outright?”

“No.”

Why was he doing this to her now? Couldn’t he at least have waited for her to be awake to break her heart?

“Okay. We can work out all the details over email, my bank and your bank and the title company and everything; we don’t have to go over it all right now. But I can negotiate on price, if you don’t have enough, after all the repairs and startup costs of the business and everything?—”

“I have enough.”

Mae didn’t need to study her budgets; she’d been studying them for the last four and a half months. It would be disconcerting, giving away half of the rest of the money on a down payment, but to make a mortgage feasible, she knew that was what she had to do. She’d have to be more careful with each purchase, both for the store and for her own life, but maybe it would be good, having some discipline again.

It wasn’t the money she was worried about.

“Okay. I’ll send you some emails, okay? But go ahead and apply for a loan with your bank when you have time.”

“Okay,” she whispered.

“Oh god, it’s still early there. I’m sorry, Mae. Go back to sleep. We’ll talk about it more later, okay?”

Mae nodded, even though Dell couldn’t see her.

“Tell Georgia”—tears filled her eyes—“I said hi.”

“I will.” Another smile in his words. And then, soft: “Good morning, Mae.”

The line went quiet.

She knew this had been what she’d wanted. Back in the beginning. What she’d always wanted.

But it was hard, as she woke another morning in Dell’s bed without Dell, to only see it as a severing.

She knew, on her hard days, that the dogs still tethered Dell to Greyfin Bay. That he’d eventually come back for the dogs, for his house.

But 12 Main Street was the thing that still tethered him to her.

Mae buried her face in Crosby’s fur.

She was finally going to own something.

And she’d never hated anything more.

* * *

As happened with most things, Mae adjusted, inch by inch.

As she had adjusted to opening the store without Dell, as she had adjusted to continuing to run the store after her closest friends had gone back to Portland. As she had adjusted to life without Steve or Jesus. So too did she accept, eventually, her sole ownership of 12 Main.

And from the moment she filled out the loan application, she found herself spending more time upstairs, on the empty second floor, a spattering of her old furniture pushed against a wall. Her original thoughts for it—her own living space, a queer community center—no longer felt exactly right. But she didn’t want it sitting empty anymore. She wanted it to be part of Bay Books.

She wanted it to honor Jesus.

She kept thinking about Robin and the book club ladies. The angsty teenagers who kept showing up in the afternoons, once school was out. She thought about Luca, writing his book.

And as winter turned dark and dreary, the sea beyond the sidewalks of Main Street gray and churning, Mae started a new project, to help find the light. A new space, to help stitch herself together.