When we reach the back corner of the bookstore where the Dirty Birds—the name they chose for their book club—meet on the second Wednesday of every month, they’re cackling just like their name would suggest. Copies of whatever romance novel they decided to read this month are sitting on the coffee table and each woman is in her unofficial-official chair. None of the chairs are the same. Gran and I would take weekly trips to the flea market, and she’d treat me to a fancy coffee and pastry before we’d spend hours wandering around, hoping to find the next treasure to grace her store. It took us months before we found all seven chairs that now occupy the nook portion of the Book Nook. I sanded and painted them all a creamy shade of mint while Gran sewed cushions to top them.

Now when I look at the chairs filled with all her friends, laughing and chatting like she imagined, I struggle to remember the joy we had creating them. All I see is the empty seventh seat.

Her seat.

“Did you finally read this month’s book?” Collette, the most crass of the Dirty Birds, narrows her eyes when I sit. Her hair is dyed a bright red that turns a little orange and always clashes with her red lipstick.

“You know I didn’t.” I’ve never participated in a book club and I never will. Once I watched the movie instead but was shamed so intensely for it, I avoided them for a week. The Dirty Birds are vicious.

“You do know you own a bookstore now,” she reminds me, as if I’ve thought of anything else since the lawyers read Gran’s will all those months ago. “You have to read books. You can’t keep this place running if you don’t know the products.”

“Geez, Collette, give the girl a break. She just inherited the place!” Sweet Beth sticks up for me. “Not even you could read all the time when you were working. Just because you’re retired now doesn’t mean she can do whatever you think she should be doing.”

I want to high-five Beth, but I resist when Collette’s knowing glare cuts my way.

“Fine,” she mumbles, leaning back into her seat. “But you’re going to need to start reading something. You can’t own a bookstore and hate books!”

She’s not wrong. This is why I thought Gran was only leaving me her necklace I loved so much.

My fingers drift to the pendant always resting on my chest. She still left me the necklace; it’s just that now it feels more like an apology than a gift. Especially since she left me to fight off her son too.

“I’ll figure it out.” I wave off her concern, sounding much less worried than I actually am. “What book are you reading this time?”