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Dedication

For my grandmothers. I miss you.

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER ONE

The bus abandoned Ava on the outskirts of LitenVärld’s vast parking lot, nearly three-quarters of a mile from the doors. The box store stuck out like a giant square pimple on the landscape, which had been scraped into gently undulating drifts of snow by February’s wind. Ava marched grimly toward the exterior, painted a cheery sky-blue and sunflower-yellow. The parking lot was mostly empty; it was a Tuesday and the weather was shit. Who would want to go shopping today?

“Fucking Derek,” she muttered into the wind, cursing the coworker who’d called in sick. If the world were even the slightest bit fair, she’d be home in bed, alternating Netflix binges with long intermissions to listen to Florence and the Machine and actively feel like shit. That’s what she wanted from her days off: equal time to nourish her heartbreak and distract from it. That’s all she’d been doing since she broke up with Jules, three days before.

LitenVärld was the bastard offspring of more popular big box stores, hanging in the margins between home goods giants and minimalist furniture mavens. It compromised between clean Scandinavian design and bougie Americana by selling furnishings that displayed neither virtue. Instead of sections, the store ushered shoppers through an upsetting and uncoordinated procession of themed showrooms, which bounced from baroque to postmodern design. The showrooms sat next to each other uneasily, like habitats in a hyper-condensed zoo. Here was the habitat for the Pan-Asian Appropriating White Yoga Instructor, complete with tatami mats and a statue of Shiva; next to it huddled the Edgelord Rockabilly Dorm Room, with black leather futon and Quentin Tarantino posters.

Ava made her way to Her Majesty’s Romper Room, a princess-themed play area, which had a doorway to the break room and time clock. It gave Ava a headache if she paid too much attention as she walked through the store, even using the shortcuts only staff knew about. The best she could do was to shut off her peripheral vision and focus only on her goal.