“Are you kidding? Of course.” She told Tess about the sunset cruise, and their upcoming dinner at Rendez-Vous in Napa. He was taking her there after the book signing.

“Okay, now I want to date him.”

“Very funny.” Natalie handed her the wrapped books. “Listen, I’m happy for you and your sister, getting to know your father. Good luck, okay?”

After Tess left, Natalie was swept into the whirlwind that was Trevor Dashwood. The phone started ringing, Bertie and Cleo showed up, and she had to attend to the myriad little details of the upcoming event. Even with Trevor’s expert planner, they had to roll up their sleeves and work together. “The Flip Side with Trevor Dashwood” was spinning into madness. The Unitarian church on the corner was the chosen venue, and Natalie, Cleo, and Bertie were happily inundated with preorders and special requests.

Through it all, Trevor truly was Mr. Wonderful, enlisting an army of help from his publisher. His publicist set up an interview with Bay Area Life Magazine. There would be a print article and a video companion piece. A reporter, photographer, and videographer would be coming to the bookstore that evening.

Natalie kept checking the clock, obsessively tidying up the store, wondering what they would ask her and hoping she wouldn’t come off sounding weird or phony. Trevor showed up early with a gift that made her nearly faint with gratitude—a wardrobe, hair, and makeup stylist.

“How did you know?” she said, unable to keep from smiling.

“A little Bertie told me.” Trevor acknowledged him with a nod.

“Bertie and Cleo are amazing,” she said, and for a moment, emotion overtook her. “I love you guys,” she said. “When I was working at the wine place, I never had coworkers I could say that to.”

The stylist was named Shelly, and she was ultracool, with an asymmetric pixie haircut and a tattoo on her clavicle. Even better, she had a great eye and skills honed, she said, by working behind the scenes at Disneyland as a stylist for the princess attraction. She picked out a fitted navy top, dark wash jeans, and wedge sandals—nothing too busy for the camera, she explained. Spotting Blythe’s jewelry box, she rummaged around and found a lime-green bangle and a pair of gold hoop earrings.

Natalie hadn’t yet tackled the jewelry box. Its contents, though not valuable, evoked all sorts of memories. Through the years, her mom’s admirers had gifted her with any number of baubles. She even remembered the guy who had given Blythe the hoops. Langdon somebody, a poet who had a beard and smelled of French cigarettes. Mom had met him when his publisher set up a poetry reading in the bookstore. Natalie had been in middle school and was helping at the cash register during the event. She remembered thinking it was her lucky night, because a group of students from Greenhill Prep showed up. Natalie had just begun thinking about boys as something other than an alien life-form. Every Sunday, she studied the Pink Pages in the paper and dreamed about going to a concert with a boy, maybe having her first kiss while Counting Crows were playing at Slim’s.