Lucy picked up the coffee can by the register. She crossed out the word “Tips” and replaced it with the words “Helicopter Fund.” She poured Allison’s coffee milkshake into a glass and handed her the metal overflow cup. “Bottoms up, gal. Trees still standing?”

“Just a little chest pounding so far.”

Allison stopped by the bulletin board on her way out. It was littered with flyers for babysitting and home services—one card offered “Husbands by the Hour,” which gave Allison pause. Myriad items were for sale, from strollers to aquariums to training wheels. Someone was offering cooking lessons, and the town Single Parents’ Club was having a barbecue. There were business cards from Nina Strauss, realtor, to Maggie Conifer, a college student offering editing services, “No job is too small!” to Monkey Mind Yoga, “Specializing in private and small group classes.” People were so industrious, so entrepreneurial, so brave, putting themselves out there for the world to consider. Choose me! they seemed to cry. Choose me! She understood the feeling.

Allison found a table on the porch. She reviewed the photos she’d taken so far this morning as she sipped her shake. Not bad, if she did say so.

She would thank Jillian on the dedication page of the book. “To my lovely daughter,” perhaps, or “My love and thanks to Jill . . .” Would Jillian be flattered or embarrassed by the gesture? It was Jillian’s model of the town that had inspired the book Allison was working on, after all: Willard Park: An American Dream. That’s what Allison wanted to call it, assuming the publisher approved. Once she found a publisher.

She would fill it with photos of the town interspersed with Willard Park’s history and facts about the architectural styles and the oddities: the merry-go-round that used to be where the elementary school parking lot now lay, the peacocks one eccentric resident used to raise. She imagined a well-designed and informative book meant not only for residents, but for anyone who wanted evidence that idyllic towns still existed in America.

Allison was pinning a lot on this project. She wanted it to be the answer to the question “What do I want to do when I grow up?,” a question that had haunted her since childhood. What was her passion? Her raison d’être?