“Okay, I get it. You don’t know where the book came from. Sorry I asked.” I say this with a pointed tone I hope Alex interprets as You’re hiding something, but I’ll play nice and not bring it up in front of your mom. “But can you point me in the direction of a hotel? I’ll be here for a few days.”

Alex says, “The ones in town will be booked up with summer travelers,” right as Valerie says, “Nonsense. You can stay here. My personal apartments are on the third floor. It’s the least I can do, after your trouble with Wally and”—she shoots a look at Alex that could melt flesh from bone—“my son.”

“But Mom—”

“No more buts, Alexander, I mean it. And where is that boy? I know he didn’t feed Walter, but did he ever go retrieve that package I sent him to the post office for?”

Alex grows very still. I watch, feeling out of place and forgotten in this conversational detour, as he slowly shuts his eyes and lets out a lot of air from his pursed lips before answering, “No. I did.”

Alex shoots me a look of dread as Valerie’s perfect posture grows rigid.

“So, he refused to go to the post office, did he?” Valerie’s voice has gone from benevolent queen to warlord in an instant. “And you just closed up the café to run and do his part for him?”

“I was only gone a minute. Nobody noticed—” Alex starts, but he is quickly cut off.

“It isn’t about the package, Alex. That boy needs to learn he can hide from the world and his books and his problems but he can’t hide from Valerie Stroudsburg.”

She already has one hand resting on the bannister to the stairs when Alex, exasperated, moans, “Your knees, Mom. Remember what Dr. Krown said about taking the elevator.”

She turns around and glares in such a way that even I want to cower, but Alex only throws up his hands in a surprisingly dramatic gesture and says, “Fine. But remember that I’m the one who has to live with him, not you.”

When she’s halfway up the stairs, Alex turns to me and sighs, a look of resignation on his face.

“It’s my roommate. He and I share a house down the street. He’s not very good with people. My mom is … well, she’s trying to change that.”

“Does he work in the bookstore, too?”

Alex looks at me hard, like he would shove me out of the store if he could, but since he can’t, he’s going to level with me against his will. “No. He’s a writer.”

“Why are you saying it like that? Does he write embarrassing advice columns for the paper or something?”