Valerie asks if I need to grab my bags, but I tell her I’m too tired to go to my car tonight. I’m exhausted enough to dread walking up the grand staircase, but Valerie walks past it to the far left corner of the store. There’s an elevator I only half noticed earlier. It doesn’t smell like elevators usually smell. This one smells like flowers and has piano music pouring from nonscratchy hidden speakers. There is a label next to the third-floor button that says, “Private Residence,” and a handwritten sticky note next to it that says, “Enter at your own risk. Dementors on duty.”

The ride to the third floor is short, but I have time to examine the numerous flyers stuck to the walls. Author events, cookbook signings, a dueling piano competition, and a summer bazaar benefiting the library of an elementary school. All are advertised on various colors of luminescent copy paper, all claiming to be held at a place called A Measure of Prose, with the exception of the bazaar, which simply states “Valerie’s.”

“A Measure of Prose?” I ask.

Valerie, who is cleaning her glasses on a lacy handkerchief I didn’t see her extract, nods absently.

“The official name of the shop, dear. Though everyone calls it Val’s for short.”

Another bit of gravel sticks in the sole of my foot. Jenna loved places with quirky monikers or multiple names. It was one of the few times our roles were reversed; I found it inefficient, but she found it charming. Is this yet another reason she sent me here, to a bookstore that uses its unofficial name for its official postage stickers?

The elevator dings a greeting and opens to a small entryway that holds a fake spiral-shaped plant in a blue pot, a welcome mat with chickens pecking on the words “Home Sweet Home,” and a tiny framed picture of a wheelbarrow on the wall. Valerie pulls a long chain from inside her shirt and uses the key at its end to unlock the door.

We are deposited directly into a small sitting area with matching furniture and a coffee table, which looks far less cozy than the inviting living room of the store. It looks more like hotel decor, except the ceiling is slanted to a point, and I’ve never seen a hotel room with a private elevator.

Valerie removes the rings from each of her fingers and lifts the necklaces from around her head with no less grace than a prima ballerina, setting them in a series of colored trays on a tall table before showing me to my room. There is a queen-size four-poster bed with thick midnight-blue curtains, an armoire, and a small sink in the corner, with no attached bathroom. The sink is rather an eyesore, jutting out near the bedside table.