“The question is,” she said to Laura, who was trying not to look at Liz, who was making faces behind Nina’s back, “whether you should subalphabetize books by their title, having already alphabetized them by author, or”—and she stressed this—“if you should suborganize by date of publication so people can read them in order.”

Liz gave up making faces and said bluntly, “Neither. You should shelve them with the author’s other books and not worry beyond that.” She had decades more experience than Nina, and occasionally brought it to bear. “What about authors who write a series but occasionally write a stand-alone?”

Nina was ready. “You shelve the series in order, and the stand-alones separately.”

“So you ignore the date of publication?”

“Yes, in that case.”

Liz’s expression made it clear she thought Nina was nuts. “So what about, for example, the Who Was? series?” This was a long-running series of nonfiction children’s books, covering historical figures and events, places of interest, and natural phenomena. Liz pulled one at random from a nearby shelf: Who Was Alexander Hamilton? “Am I supposed to shelve these in historical order? What about the What Was–es? How do I shelve those? Do volcanoes go next to hurricanes, or next to mountains?” She plucked another volume in the same series and waved it. “What about Where Is–es? Do I provide a map? They publish two dozen books in the series every year, they’ve been going for nearly twenty years, and they’ll never stop because history keeps on happening!” Liz looked triumphant as she held up the two books with their bobble-headed portraits of Hamilton and—incongruously—Elton John. “What do I do with these, Nina Hill?”

Nina looked at her and opened her mouth and closed it a few times. Then she shrugged. “This is why you’re in charge of children’s books.”

Laura started to back out of the store: This was clearly an argument with a lot of legs, and both women seemed to be enjoying the debate rather than trying to win. She was familiar with this kind of argument; she’d had a very similar one with Bob the previous evening about the placement of outfielders. Her parents had one about talon evolution that no one else understood but that broke out anytime either of them had more than one glass of wine. And those were the arguments about relatively neutral topics; most families have several long-running, highly personal arguments . . . She wondered what the fight between Asher and Sarah had really been about.

“Wait!” said Nina, who had excellent peripheral vision and could see her slinking away. “You remember the trivia thing is this Friday, right?”

“Yes,” said Laura. “I’m going to read widely at the library, I promise.”

“Good,” said Nina. “No pressure. It will be fun. Unless we lose.”

“No pressure then.”

“None at all.”

•   •   •