Her poetry was anachronisticblonde, and that was perfect, too, but for entirely different reasons. It was a literary term, and Daniella loved those. A word for out of its own time. She liked to revisit the old forms. The sonnets, the odes. Maybe even one day a real epic. But it was also a wink at the blond—the DaniellaDaze—that she had created. A girl out of her own time. That part was perfect for her alone. Daniella dug in her bag to find her notebook and flipped through her work. Nothing caught her eye.

She’d have to make something new.

A warm-up. That’s what she’d post. She didn’t have the mental space to write a whole piece. But she could handle a fragment. She put her knees up and balanced her notebook on them. She bit on the end of her pen to free her hands as she flipped until she found a blank page. She took the pen in hand and sketched circles, thinking about the spinning. Thinking about the world. A makeshift globe, moving and spinning. A rock hurtling around through space, held together by invisible forces beyond its control.

And as she drew that, she knew what she would write.

In truth the sun does not rise, but Earth

Spins with all her might to bear creation

It was a bit maudlin. But it felt right, given how intense Daniella’s spins had been not a moment before. “Ode to a Hungover Girl,” she might call it. “Lament of the Wild Night,” even. But the title would come later—it wasn’t a full poem, yet. It was still in its infancy, still simply a fragment, with the potential for anything. A bit that might eventually grow into a sonnet. But now it was simply a couplet with a little doodle.

It always felt good to create.

Daniella took a photo of the page. She hit post, and she tucked her phone back into her bag. Now that she had found a little bit of steadiness and a bit of poetry, Daniella really did need to double-check the books.

They were over on the desk where Jo kept the old calculator. Daniella took the hefty calculator in hand and sat, back against the desk and legs akimbo for a solid minute. She reached back up and grabbed the black leather-bound notebook that kept the financial ledgers off the desk.

She was going to double-check her sales record.

Daniella hoped Eli was wrong. Hoped she had unwittingly lied to Rinn Freaking-Stick-of-Sunshine-Up-My-Butt Olivera about the store closing.

Ugh.

Daniella’s stomach nearly revolted again, but she took a deep breath and stuck her head between her knees for a moment and, eventually, the feeling passed. She took another sip of the grape soda, and she knew that would hold her over until the Pepto kicked in—which should be at any moment now.