The door opened and a babble of voices carried back to them.
“That’ll be the book club ladies. I’ll go see to them.” Brenda headed up front to greet people.
Reed took one of the stools behind the counter and patted the other. “Did you get the press kit I forwarded to you?”
Cecily didn’t hesitate before joining him. “Yeah. It’s really bare-bones. Have you read Becker at all?”
“I read his debut. He’s not bad. The shipment of his latest arrived a couple days ago, but I haven’t started it yet.”
“We’ll come back to that. How about instead you tell me what your vision is for this place?”
Now was his chance to make up for the poor impression he’d given at the lake. “It’s not just a store. Not just brick and mortar and books. I want it to be a focal point in the community. A gathering place. To an extent we already do some of that. Like the book club out there. My grandmother’s knitting circle meets here once a week. The high school writers’ guild meets here twice a month. But I want to go beyond that. I want to be the next Square Books.”
At her blank expression, Reed remembered she wasn’t from the area. “Square Books is the independent bookstore up in Oxford. It’s a local institution up there, located right in the heart of town. I’m pretty sure I was in there at least every other week for a reading or signing from some author or other, when I was in college at Ole Miss. They do such a great job of community engagement, with carrying on the literary tradition. I want to do that. I want to bring that kind of culture here. Except with a slightly less literary bent because we aren’t a university town and that’s not our demographic.”
She beamed and thumped him on the shoulder. “Look at you using marketing lingo.”
“Norah is almost a part of my family. I’ve picked up a little by sheer osmosis.”
Her lips curved, her eyes warm as she looked over at him. “You love it. The store. The life you have here.”
“I really do.”
“It’s a good life.”
Looking into her face, Reed could see that she really meant it and that she remembered what he’d said all those months ago.
“I like to think so.”
“You understand that a town without a bookstore isn’t really a town. That it’d just be fooling itself.”
“Not a bad paraphrase from American Gods. I didn’t know you were a Neil Gaiman fan.”
Cecily shrugged. “I read a lot of different things. And I can’t say as I disagree with him. Bookstores are important, and I think the fact that you’ve worked so hard to keep this one going, during a time when independent booksellers across the country are closing their doors, is a very admirable goal.”
Reed preferred to believe he didn’t need validation of his life choices. He knew what he wanted and intended to go for it, regardless of what anyone thought. But the fact that Cecily understood it, that she admired that choice, soothed something in him. “Thanks.”
“It’s a real investment in the community. And it’s my job to sort out the best means of maximizing that investment of time, effort, and capital. I’m just not quite there yet.”
“I guess it’s a little hard to imagine if you haven’t actually seen it.” Inspiration struck. “Actually…you can see it. Greg Iles is doing a reading in Oxford on Thursday night. We should go. You’d get a first-hand view of exactly what I’m talking about, and afterward, we could go grab dinner on the Square. You haven’t lived until you’ve had the jalapeno cornbread at Ajax.”
She arched a perfectly manicured brow. “Is it really that good?”
Reed laid a hand over his heart and did his utmost to look serious. “Would I lie to you about cornbread?”
She snorted. “I suppose that’s a jailable offense down here?”
“Damn straight.”
“Fine. I guess it’s a date.”
He answered her smile with his own. “Guess it is.”
Chapter 5
“Darling, I wish you’d just let me make some phone calls—”
“Mom, no,” Cecily insisted. “I’m not capitalizing on family connections to get a job.”