Maya wanted to be helpful, but she also secretly loved being the only person in the shop. She liked to pretend the shop was hers, that she’d handpicked all the items to sell, chosen the paint colors for the wall, and hung the driftwood chandelier over the cash register herself. The truth was she was an eighteen-year-old girl with no family, a tiny rented room that smelled like shrimp, and a likely future of living paycheck to paycheck, but she loved to pretend she was capable enough to own and run her own business. To show the world she could do something with herself, could be someone though no one had ever believed in her. Well, except for her grandmother. And these two sisters.

The UPS man showed up at eight thirty. Maya signed for the delivery, opened the boxes, and walked around searching for the perfect place to display the books. As she moved through the shop, she trailed her fingers over rolled tea towels, delicate silver and mother-of-pearl jewelry, the sisters’ clay pinch pots, and Trudy’s mixed-media sculptures. Finally she found the perfect spot for the cookbooks, right next to the oyster shell–handled cheese spreaders and hand-turned wooden spoons. After that, she grabbed a broom and dustcloth and got to work.

Violet arrived at ten, just as Maya was propping the Open sign in the window.

“It looks nice in here.” Violet slid her purse under the counter and tucked her hair behind her ear. Today she wore a khaki skirt, Chaco sandals, and a lilac button-down shirt. “Did you move some things around?”

“Just a little.” Maya eyed Violet, trying to determine if she was annoyed or pleased. “I can move it all back if you want.” She’d rotated a shelf of pottery toward the side wall to make room for the table holding the new cookbooks and kitchen utensils. Though the sisters tended to keep things the same, it made sense to Maya to move things around occasionally. Not so much that it confused regular customers but just enough to keep things feeling fresh. Maya had so many ideas for the shop, but she wanted to tread lightly.

“No, I think it’s nice.” Violet slowly scanned the shop. “Change isn’t always a bad thing, is it?”

Running the shop required a whole lot more physical work than Maya had realized, and she sometimes wondered how Violet and Trudy had managed it for so long, just the two of them. Trudy often seemed strong enough to do the work of two people, but the truth was, neither of the two sisters was young enough to continue going at the pace they’d been working at for years.

Maya had only been at the shop for a month, but she loved every minute of it. She loved working side by side with Trudy as they tried shell after shell, feather after feather, to see where each abandoned item belonged in a particular piece of art. She enjoyed hand-selling particular items she’d purchase if she had enough extra money to buy something other than food and necessities. She loved feeling like a part of this vibrant little community. She even loved the mundane responsibilities like sweeping the floors, breaking down boxes, cleaning the huge front windows, and shutting down the register after closing time. And it was only then, late in the evening when the waning sunlight was amber and the shadows were long, or here in the dewy early morning sunshine, that she dared to imagine herself at the helm.