And Jo got to save the inventory she thought would really sell. They made a plan—and a few more customers volunteered, including the Birdman, who had been pestering Rinn all day; the mom who usually read with her kid in the children’s section; Myrna, who was told that she could supervise and bring pastries; and the zoologist lady with all those amazing tattoos.

It was all very: Wild Nights Is Closing; Long Live Wild Nights!

The Will of the People, and all that.

Which, if she didn’t like being such a cynic in public, Daniella might have admitted to out loud. As it was, she could smirk over the fact that in a couple of days, Archer Hunt Junior would come down to close the place and sign over the deed and all the art and all the books would be gone. Except for those Clive Cussler novels.

So Daniella got out a slip of paper from the register. And the Sharpie that was still in her back pocket from all of those signings. In big block letters she wrote out—

THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT

CARPE DIEM,

THE MANAGEMENT

And then, so there was absolutely no confusion, Rinn left that note for Archer Hunt Junior to find on top of that stack of Clive Cusslers and all his pandering adventures. She set it there along with a copy of Rinn Olivera’s written summary that Wild Nights Bookstore had a right to retain Wild Nights’ intellectual property, even if the equipment and land were being sold.

The man certainly didn’t deserve a phone call or any other valuable use of their time. They all had real work to do saving this store. They weren’t going to waste any more of it on him.

Rinn, finally done with all of her orchestrating, signaled Daniella over.

“What’s up?” Daniella had practically skipped there, which was embarrassing in and of itself.

“Can you get the microphone from the break room?” Rinn had this serious look of concern on her face.

“Is everything okay?” Daniella watched her, worried.

“It’s great,” said Rinn with a smile that did nothing to assuage Daniella’s worries. “Just go get the microphone, okay?”

Daniella nodded and went off gathering the rest of the employees. Most of the customers were slowly funneling out. They’d had their poetry and their good time and they were ready to get back to their own lives. Daniella saw, for a moment, the kind of community that they could have built had Archer Hunt not kept holding them back. Had he not continued to simply slash prices and pretend to hope for the best. He hadn’t been hoping for the best at all; he had simply wanted to say that he’d tried and sold the land back to the purveyors of multiuse space and gentrification.