time I get back to Midtown, I’ve pushed the man in the fancy suit with teal eyes to the back of my mind and heart, where he will sit on the shelf alongside my other perfect, unattainable men, like Prince Eric from The Little Mermaid, Mark Ruffalo’s character from 13 Going on 30, and of course, A.J. from Empire Records.
The bell that’s been on the front door of Bubbles & More for longer than I’ve been alive jingles as I let myself into the shop, and my mood boosts a little when I see we have three customers. It’s not a lot. But it’s better than the zero customers we had three years ago.
The shop’s always been small, the revenue modest. But even though I worked at the shop throughout my twenties, I hadn’t realized how much we’d been struggling—none of us kids had—until I took over after Dad died. Not that it was Dad’s fault. The reality of modern life is simply that people want to be able to order their vodka, their cabernet, and their Prosecco all from one place. They want to be able to do it online. And they want it delivered to their doorman while they’re at work.
For all Dad’s adamancy that customer service, product expertise, and neighborhood loyalty would carry the day, the numbers had said otherwise.
And though I can’t claim that champagne or being a shop owner has ever been my dream the way it was Dad’s, the desire to protect a loved one’s dream and legacy is a powerful motivator. In the months following Dad’s passing, I swapped art school in Italy for business school here in the city, taking all morning classes so I could be here when the shop opened at noon. I changed the store’s name from Bubbles to Bubbles & More and expanded our inventory. In addition to being a champagne store, it’s now also an upscale gift shop—the type of place you pop into on your way to a dinner party, bridal shower, or birthday gathering to get a bottle of celebratory bubbly and a little something fun for the host or guest of honor.
Slowly but surely, the store began making money instead of losing money, but I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t sleep easier if we were just a bit more comfortably in the black. Or if I said I didn’t have flickers of resentment that while my dad had left the shop to all of us—Lily, Caleb, and myself—my siblings have been off busily chasing their dreams, while only I fought to preserve Dad’s.
It grates more than I want it to.
But I wasn’t the only one who practically grew up here. I wasn’t the only Cooper kid who did homework on the little table in the back corner, who spent early teenage mornings restocking before the store opened, who could recite the difference between dry and extra dry champagne long before I could legally drink it. And all of three of us had been in the hospital room during Dad’s last days when he’d requested that we carry on his and Mom’s legacy.
But those flickers of regret and resentment are just that—flickers. Like I said, making the best of what I’m handed is my superpower, and I’m proud of what I’ve achieved. Proud most of all that in addition to the pretty journals, rose-gold staplers, and cute cocktail napkins, the most popular items are the paintings we sell in the little “art corner” I set up.
My paintings.
In fact, while one of the customers is getting a rundown from my employee Robyn on the nuances of Franciacorta in our Italy section, the other two are in the art corner, gushing over one of my more recent works—a leopard-print martini glass with a sassy red lipstick mark on the rim. Originally, I stuck with mostly champagne-themed prints. But they sold so quickly I decided to try painting all types of wine, not just sparkling. Then cocktails. Then fancy coffee, with the foam shaped into little Empire State Buildings, as many of our customers are tourists looking for NYC souvenirs.
That each new idea for a painting seems to sell better than the last is a point of pride and frustration, mainly because the operation of the shop leaves me with little time for painting.
Carlos’s flowers still cradled in my arm, I head toward the cash register, where a sixty-year-old woman is reading one of the historical romances she’s never without.
“Thank God,” she says, not looking up