Page 8 of The Sandy Page Bookshop

Eudora

The heavy oak library doors creaked as Eudora let herself into the vestibule.

Eldredge Library was such an architectural treasure, it took her breath away each time.

From the rich quarter oak panels and cornices to the bronze finishes to the stained glass windows and ornamental fireplace, stepping into the Romanesque revival–style library always made Eudora feel like she was stepping back in time.

But today there was another pressing matter taking her breath away: the anxiety she’d walked with here since she left Alfred and her house.

All because of what she’d promised her daughter, Caroline, she would do: the book club meeting.

That morning, she’d woken with dread in her stomach. It wasn’t about the reading; she’d gotten the book and finished it well in advance. Kristin Hannah’s The Women had proven a compelling selection. The dread came from having to attend the meeting.

Her whole life Eudora had not been a particularly shy person.

Anxiety was a term oft overused in her opinion.

Everyone had anxiety these days, it seemed.

Financial anxiety. Political anxiety. Body-image anxiety.

Social anxiety. Lord knew, there were plenty of good reasons for it in this crazy world Eudora often felt she no longer recognized.

When her anxiety began, she initially chalked it up to a preference for her own company and the comforts of home.

She’d lost her husband. She was of a certain age.

Those seemed like explanations enough. Eudora was retired, having put in a good thirty-seven years in the local high school as a guidance counselor.

She knew what real anxiety was, having spent all those years counseling teens experiencing some of the worst life events.

Broken homes. Body dysmorphia. Substance abuse.

That was just skimming the surface. As her career progressed, so too, did the issues her students dealt with.

By the time she retired, it could not have come soon enough.

Eudora hung on as long as she did because she loved those kids so much.

They needed her, and she would not turn her back.

But she began to feel ill-equipped to help them.

Their struggles were so much sharper, the stakes so much higher.

When she’d started as a school counselor, bullying meant someone taking your lunch money or teasing you in the back of the bus.

By the time she’d retired, bullying meant someone anonymously altering your image online and sending it out in a mass pornographic text to every kid in the school.

It was unfathomable the things kids these days had to contend with.

It was too much for her students. It ended up being too much for her, too.

Now, standing in the library as she had promised Caroline, Eudora tried to steady the pounding of her heart and headed for the circulation desk.

A pleasant woman directed her to the reading room in the rear.

“Aren’t you lucky,” she said, nodding at the book in Eudora’s hand.

“I wish I could join this meeting! What did you think of it?”

“Exceptional,” Eudora said, clutching the book more tightly.

It was early, and every chair in the semicircle was empty.

How she wished there were rows so she could sit in the back.

Eudora chose a seat in the middle and fixed her gaze on the high ceilings and beautiful stained glass windows.

Something about being here made her think of the high school.

It had been eight years since she’d retired.

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d spoken to any of her old colleagues.

Such a strange thing after thirty-seven years on the job.

At first she used to get together with all the other retirees for lunch.

They’d always meet at the same spot, the Wayside Inn on Main Street.

It was fun, trading stories about what everyone was up to: new grandchildren, European travel.

One of the men, Albert, a retired math teacher, had shocked them all by opening one of those axe-throwing bars with his son outside Boston.

It was exciting seeing everyone outside of the faculty lounge, once their natural habitat.

Who knew that Arlene Burnett, the unsmiling gym teacher, would join a karaoke club?

Or that shy Sheldon Smith, the history teacher, would publish a juicy romance novel?

At times it seemed like a competition to see who was living retirement to the fullest. For her part, Eudora and Milton had taken an Alaskan cruise and toured the battlefields of Gettysburg.

They’d visited his sister, Blanche, in Dallas and welcomed two grandchildren.

But she never felt like her stories were half as riveting as others’, and it made her wonder if she was doing retirement wrong.

Eventually the retiree lunches thinned out.

Some of her colleagues moved south. Some got sick.

One passed away. Eudora didn’t love the reminders of their increasing age; the men got fat, the women shrank.

The longer they were away from the high school, the less Eudora felt she had in common with any of them.

But there was one former student that kept her bound to the group: Shelby Smalls.

Shelby Smalls first came to Eudora’s attention through Art Halloran.

As her world history teacher, Art noticed that Shelby was missing classes and reported this.

On the occasions when she did show up, he said she seemed on edge.

Arlene, the gym teacher, once caught Shelby hiding in the defunct shower stalls in the girl’s locker room during lunch.

Calls were placed home and Shelby ended up sitting across from Eudora one rainy spring afternoon.

All of the kids Eudora saw in her counseling office had some level of risk assigned to them, whether it was academic or otherwise.

As far as she could tell, Shelby was exceptionally bright; as evidenced by her high standardized test scores.

There did not appear to be any substance use going on.

No obvious domestic disturbances at home.

But looking across her desk that day as the rain played against the window, Eudora thought Shelby looked like one of the most worrying cases ever to come through her door.

Her eyes were full of a sadness Eudora had not seen before. The girl actually looked frightened.

At first she did not want to talk to Eudora.

Her replies to questions were one word: No, she did not belong to any clubs or sports teams. No, she did not have a favorite class.

When Eudora asked Shelby about her friends, she could not name a single one.

The only interest she seemed to have was sketching in her notebook and avoiding eye contact.

When Eudora stole a peek at her page, it was clear the girl was remarkably talented.

“Can I go now?” Shelby asked, finally.

Eudora had one more question. “Honey, I can see you aren’t comfortable talking to me. And I can tell you really don’t want to be here.”

Shelby made a face and kept sketching. Eudora could not give in. Teachers were concerned. Eudora was concerned. If she was going to help the girl she needed to learn something about Shelby.

She paused, trying to think of a question that might shed some light. “Where would you rather be right now?”

For the first time Shelby looked Eudora straight in the eye. “Dead,” she said.

In the end, Shelby Smalls would leave her teachers, counselors, and school administrators asking themselves for the rest of their careers what they could have done differently.

It was the main reason Eudora had stayed in touch with her colleagues after retiring.

Despite the painful reminder each time she saw them, she held on to hope that one of them might have a scrap of information—some small crumb of evidence that all these years later Shelby was okay.

Because to this day, what happened to Shelby Smalls was a weight they carried together.

The door to the reading room opened, startling Eudora from her memories.

It was time for the book club meeting to start.

Eudora recognized none of the attendees.

She smiled at the red-haired woman who took a seat beside her, but she was too busy talking to someone to notice.

The woman was dressed in a brightly printed pink seashell top and white capri pants, very fresh and summery.

Eudora glanced down at her sensible white sneakers worn out from walks with Albert.

Then at her faded jeans and brown top. Perhaps she should have picked out something nicer.

“I’m telling you,” the red-haired woman went on, “she’s planning to open in just two weeks.

Can you imagine? Given the state that place is in?

” She was addressing another woman, dressed in similar attire with a blue-and-white turtle print.

(What did Caroline call it? Coastal Grandma?) “But you gotta give it to her, it took chutzpah to call the owner and get him to agree to it. Captain Harding’s house has been a town wart for years . ”

Eudora perked up. The captain’s house, as it was fondly still called by locals, was a source of much community upset.

The antique beauty was located on a scenic street in town that ran along Chatham Harbor and Lighthouse Beach.

Though it was surrounded by stately neighborhood homes, the poor house had been falling into disrepair for years.

It had long been one of Eudora and Milton’s favorite places, back when it was an inn.

They celebrated many anniversary dinners by the dining room fireplace and attended more than a few Christmas parties there over the years.

For them, there were many memories tucked in those rooms. “If we only had a million dollars,” Milton used to say.

“More like five million,” Eudora used to correct him. It was true, but they held out hope someone with a big heart and deep pockets would resurrect the sad old place.

Now, the blue-and-white turtle woman sat down beside the seashell woman. “I heard she got a one year lease! That poor girl doesn’t realize it’s going to take that long just to get the place up and running.”

“She’s in over her head.”

“I heard the historic district is getting involved.”

“She’ll have her hands full with zoning.”

“I heard the neighbors are not happy.”

“The location is lovely, but it’s hardly commercial,” the seashell woman went on.

“Not exactly walking distance from Main Street.”

“She’ll never get foot traffic.”

“Or locals. There’s no parking.”

“That’s why the art gallery died.”

“And the general store, before it.”

“Mm-hmm. Won’t last.”

Eudora was intrigued. Someone was looking to take on the house!

Originally, the Captain Harding house had been a sea captain’s lavish home, built for his wife and five daughters.

After his death, as local legend had it, the wife and daughters were left penniless and turned it into a bed-and-breakfast to survive.

In later years, it was sold to a family who ran a general store on the first floor.

The proprietor passed it down to his grandson who later moved out of the area, renting it out to various retail tenants who came and went.

The most recent owner was reportedly a global marketing manager from Los Angeles who’d hoped to tear it down and rebuild a summer house, but the historic commission and zoning boards had forbidden it.

He’d given up the fight and apparently lost interest. According to the rumor mill he had so many other vacation properties across the country, it was no dent in his purse.

And so Captain Harding’s house sat empty and unmaintained year after year.

The historical society and community were helpless to try to raise the funds to purchase it, as the property alone was worth so much.

But as the town held their breath waiting for someone to save it, the front porch sank.

The paint peeled. Neighbors claimed they could see racoons scuttling through the parlor room windows at dusk like they were attending a party.

“Excuse me,” Eudora said, praying she didn’t seem like an eavesdropper, but really, the redhead was a human megaphone. “I couldn’t help but overhear you mentioning Captain Harding’s house?”

Both women’s heads snapped in her direction like they were surprised to see her. “Did you hear? Some out-of-towner wants to open a shop.”

“How wonderful!” Eudora said, before thinking.

Both women made a face.

“I’ve always loved that house,” Eudora admitted. “It’s such a community gem. Maybe this woman will bring it back to life.”

The turtle lady shrugged. “Maybe, but…”

“It’s been tried before,” the seashell lady interrupted. “Too much work. Too much capital. Too many restrictions.”

Eudora kept her mouth shut. The historic commission restrictions were the only thing saving that house, despite its poor condition.

“Personally, I think the town should’ve let the new owner do what he wanted. The poor neighbors in their beautiful homes have to look at that monstrosity. Tear it down. Start fresh.”

The book club librarian had joined them and was just taking her seat, as the seashell and turtle ladies continued their banter in strained whispers.

Eudora didn’t hear what else they had to say.

Her heart was pounding too hard. Only this time, it wasn’t a panic attack.

Book tucked under her arm, she’d already left the reading room.

By the time the book club was underway, Eudora Shipman was halfway down Main Street.