paler by the confident sun.
I stood there for a long moment, looking at it, wanting what it stood for. It seemed like such a foolish thing to be thinking of right now when so much else was at stake. Three times I shifted my weight, about to step off, to go back on my way. And every time that image of Grace — wind lifting the edge of the dress, pressing the fabric flat to her belly and breasts — kept me fixed in front of the window.
I bought it. I had four twenties in my wallet — Karyn had paid me in cash last week — and I left with one of them and a little bag with the dress nestled in the bottom. I backtracked to put it in my car and then went on to the Crooked Shelf, eyes on the sidewalk running ahead of me, feeling the warmth and uncertainty of having bought a gift that cost more than a day of working. What if she didn’t like it? Maybe I should have been saving for a ring. Even if she had really meant it and did want to marry me, which seemed like an impossible thing, a ring seemed far off. I had no idea what a ring cost, and maybe I needed to start saving. What if I told her I’d got her a present and that was what she expected and I disappointed her? I felt simultaneously like the oldest nineteen-year-old on the planet and the youngest — what was I doing thinking about rings, and why hadn’t I thought of it sooner? And perhaps in all her practical nature Grace would be annoyed that I’d bought her a gift instead of doing something about the hunt.
So it was these things I wrestled as I walked into the bookstore. With my mind so far from my body, the store felt like a lonely, timeless place as I opened it up. It was Saturday, so an hour after I opened the store, Karyn came in the back door, sequestering herself away in the tiny back room to do ordering and reconciling. Karyn and I had an easy relationship; it was nice to know she was in the shop even when we didn’t speak.
There were no customers and I was restless, so I walked back to the workroom. The sun was coming in the front windows full and strong, reaching long hands all the way back here. It warmed my body, comfortingly hot, as I leaned on the doorway.
“Hi,” I said.
Karyn was already sitting surrounded by drifts of invoices and book catalogs. She looked up at me with a pleasant smile. To me, everything about Karyn was always pleasant — she was one of those women who always seemed comfortable with themselves and the world, whether they were in polar fleece or pearls. If she thought any differently about me since Grace disappeared, she didn’t show it. I wished I could tell her how much I had needed that from her, that unchanging pleasantness. “You look happy,” she said.
“Do I?”
“Happier,” she said. “Have we been busy?”
I shrugged. “It’s been quiet. I swept. And removed some tiny handprints from the front windows.”
“Children — who needs them?” Karyn asked. It was a rhetorical question. She mused, “If it would get warm, we’d get people. Or if that Tate Flaugherty sequel would come out already, we’d have them in scads. Maybe we should do up the front window for it. What do you think, an Alaskan theme for Mayhem in Juneau?”
I made a face. “It seems to me Minnesota just got done with its Alaskan theme.”
“Aha. Good point.”
I thought about my guitar, the northern lights over my head, the songs I needed to write about the past few days.
“We should do music biographies,” I said. “That’d make a nice window.”
Karyn gestured to me with her pencil. “Point to the man.” She lowered the pencil and tapped it on the letter in front of her, a gesture that suddenly reminded me of Grace. “Sam, I know that Beck is … ill, and this might not be a priority for you, but have you thought about what you’re doing for college?”
I blinked at the question and crossed my arms. She looked at my crossed arms as though they were part of my answer. I said, “I — hadn’t given it a lot of thought yet.” I didn’t want her to think I was unmotivated, though, so I said, “I’m waiting