I also sell coffee, hot and rich, and the special delicious types: mochas and lattes with whipped cream and frothiness. I sell giant chocolate chip cookies, the size of a kid’s face; banana and pumpkin bread; scones and “clotted cream”; and pie, when the fruit is fresh. I buy everything from the bakery down the street, owned by Bettina, a longtime friend of my mother and aunts.

I sell my mother’s bouquets. The ones that are labeled, in scrawling black calligraphy, “A Woman’s Power Is Nothing to Mess With, So Don’t Mess With Me,” and “Ladies Need Luck and Wine,” and “Play Naughty More, Fret Less” sell quickly.

I sell my aunt Camellia’s lotions and potions with names like Lavender Lust, Tulip Tootles, Daffodil Delights, Sexy Snowdrops, and Shasta Daisy Shenanigans.

I sell my aunt Iris’s photographs of oddly interesting/sometimes creepy/always gorgeous flowers. Sometimes they seem to be rather phallic to me, or representative of a vagina, but people love them.

People come in to buy books and to sit down for tea or coffee and treats in the café area.

It’s a medium-large bookstore. The outside has an old-fashioned, traditional, two-story appearance, yellow with white trim, a picture window where Ghost often sits and watches people walk by, and two faux white pillars by the door.

Inside, the walls are a light yellow and all the bookshelves are white. I have a floor-to-ceiling wall of windows in the back that overlook Whale Bay in North Sound. In the café, there are tables of all colors and shapes and sizes—light blue, yellow, pink, sage green, and purple. I have two long rectangle tables, both painted red, and we pull them together for book clubs and when people come here in groups.

There’s also a deck, which people love to sit on so they can watch the ocean, the seagulls, the whales, and any other wildlife that pops its head up.

The ceiling is high, with bare wood rafters. I’ve hung three huge chandeliers for some fancy bling, all bought when part of an old home fell down in a windstorm and the ninety-year-old owner decided to move because he had fallen back in love with his ex-wife who lived in Anchorage.

I have also hung colorful umbrellas upside down. One wall has white wallpaper with yellow roses because I love roses and need them at home and work. The floors are the original wood and creaky. I will never change them. This building was one of the first built on the island, over one hundred years ago. It was a feed and grain store. It was also a saloon at one time, with a part-time hooker in the upstairs bedroom, and then it was an Italian restaurant that went belly-up. The food was awful.

Upstairs there is a children’s book loft on one side, and on the other side is my office, a staff room, and a supply room.

My shop is in the middle of a string of shops on the main street of our town, called Chrysanthemum Way. We cater to the tourists from June to October. It gets quiet around here from November to May, so I work even harder to get the locals in, not only on our island but from the other three islands, during that time. Ways to get people in? Book clubs.