The key slipped from the lock and the small silver ring of keys dropped into her bag in one motion.
Margie turned and stopped so quickly she could have popped her Achilles.
It hit her as though the small, decorative streetlamp in front of the store was shouting the words at her.
You did it, Margie Langa. Your dream.
She backed up and looked at her bookstore.
It’s not just a bookstore, Margie, it’s a for-effin-real community, just like you wanted.
Book scavenger hunts for kids.
Intro writing classes.
Fiction and Nonfiction book club.
Two customers who met in the store married.
Chess club.
She pumped her fist like she had scored a game-winning goal in her drop-in hockey league.
She never scored goals, but that would be her celebration.
Her reflection in the window startled her.
There was a gap in the window display where one shouldn’t have been.
It took her a second, then she remembered Kellen coming in early that morning to pick up Julie Fournier’s watercolor of Toni Morrison they bought.
Vonnegut out of wine corks that Amelia Reinsfeld made could move over and take its place.
Maybe she ought to ask Amelia, politely and diplomatically, to lower the price.
What would go in Vonnegut’s place?
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