Almost every single shop I passed had potted plants outside or hanging from their awnings, and I could feel them rustling in their containers as I went by. Maple trees rooted in squares of dirt dotted the sidewalk for as far as I could see. Ignore. Breathe. I couldn’t stretch here, not out in the open.

The bookshop sat tucked between a tailor’s shop and a pharmacy, the door propped open with a half-dead cactus. As I went in, it greened up and stretched toward me. I nudged the container away from the door and let it clang shut behind me.

Dust floated in the shafts of sunlight shining through the shop window. As I wandered through the closely fitted stacks, the musty smell of books, most of them more than gently used, stuck in my nose. I spotted a stack of old Audubon field guides in a plastic crate on the floor. Priced at $2.50 each, they were in perfect condition. The pictures were still bright and I’d always loved the rainbow-colored covers.

A huge crash suddenly rattled the shop. I spun around to see a young guy, probably my age, sprawled on the floor. A stack of books he’d been holding lay scattered around him like fallen leaves.

“Are you okay?” I asked as I took ahold of his arm and helped pull him to his feet.

“Yeah,” he said, avoiding eye contact as he brushed himself off. Embarrassment radiated from him like heat from the sun. I picked up a few of the books he’d dropped and handed them to him.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” I asked again.

For a moment, he didn’t answer. He stared at me, his brown eyes wide. “Yeah. I, uh—I tripped.” He gathered the rest of the books. One of them was titled Botany for Gardeners. Without thinking I plucked it from his hand.

“Is this part of the buy-one-get-one sale, too?”

He nodded. “You into gardening?”

I almost cringed. I set myself up for it but did we have to start there? I should have left the book alone. “You could say that.” I gestured toward the field guides. “What about these? They on sale, too?”

He craned his neck to examine the titles. “You want those? They’re really old.”

“But the pictures are great,” I said.

He grinned and ran his hand over the top of his head. “You can just take them.”

“You serious?” I asked.

“Yeah.” He brushed past me and scooped the whole stack out of the crate, hauling them to the counter.

“What’s the catch?”

He blinked a few times. “Uh, no catch.”

“Sounds like a scam, but okay,” I said.

As he smiled something about him struck me as familiar. I couldn’t place it.

“So, you new in town or visiting?” he asked.

“Not sure yet,” I said. I grabbed a copy of The Changeling and set it on the counter. I felt bad that he was giving me the field guides for free so I figured I could at least find something to pay for.