Chapter One
> “Nothing new” was comfortable. Like his broken-in slippers and cozy chair. James liked nothing new.
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James let out a good, old-fashioned grumble as the rain continued coming down in sheets, threatening to cave in his last good umbrella and sliding off his practical black raincoat. One of several he kept in his small, organized closet. Couldn’t hurt to be prepared.
His apartment building was across 7th Avenue, and James glared at the slightly blurry pedestrian crossing sign, willing it to change but knowing from over six decades of experience that it would take exactly two minutes and thirty-four seconds.
The entire walk—or shuffle, since James’ joints had started seizing up five years ago—from Blaise’s Books to his tiny studio apartment in Chelsea took precisely twenty-two minutes. Twenty-seven in the rain, which was far too constant in a bustling, overcrowded mess like Manhattan.
As he stood, waiting for the light to change and adjusting the angle of his dark, nondescript umbrella to better block the inky drops cascading down, he spotted a light-green umbrella approaching him and nestled deeper into his rain coat, feeling his poor heart stutter a little. The next thing he spotted was her bright-yellow rain boots. Size seven or eight it looked like. Then she was standing next to him, also waiting for the light to change. Yet another large potted plant was balanced in her arms. He thought about asking her if she needed help, but he didn’t trust his knees to not give out on him.
“Mr. Blaise, how nice to see you,” a soft voice emanated out from under the green umbrella, and James knew his cover had been blown.
“Miss Carmen, do you need any help with your newest acquisition?” He kept his eyes focused on the bright-red hand beaming on the crosswalk sign, waiting for the little white figure that would free him from his perch on the dirty sidewalk.
“No, that’s okay,” she murmured, but he saw the pot shift precariously and glanced over at the woman. Bel Carmen was the very definition of organized chaos. Her hair, unusually long for her age, was a bright silver and tucked into a messy bun. She wore an emerald-green dress that hung over her slight frame, but her eyes were what caught his attention, even if it was unwillingly.
Unlike the bright yellow of her boots and the various shades of green that seemed to circle her like a verdant constellation, her eyes were a cool gray, like the ocean in Los Angeles right before a storm. Sometimes they were a bright green. Sometimes a warm brown.
Not that James was paying attention. He was just cursed with a terribly exacting attention to detail. It wasn’t his fault—he blamed genetics and utter boredom.
Suddenly the trickle of people also waiting at the corner of 7th started moving forward in unison, and James knew the light had changed. Mentally sighing in relief, he shuffled forward as fast as he could, not hoping to outpace Bel, but hoping to outpace the strange feeling hovering around his ribcage. She kept up with him easily, even though she was only three years younger than he was.
Must be all those years of dancing paying off, he thought to himself. Bel lived in the apartment complex next to his, had for the past sixty-seven years. Like him, her entire life had been spent growing up in a tiny studio apartment, her with her parents until they had both passed about ten years ago. His own parents had passed on fifteen years ago, both from some kind of cancer.
After making it across the street and expertly dodging the dog walkers, floating cigarette butts, and avoiding the patch of sidewalk that tossed up dirty rainwater when stepped on, he and Bel stood in front of her apartment building. As he had for the past fifty-odd years, James opened the door for Bel. He even had one of her parent’s old door keys. After holding open the door for Bel hundreds of times, she’d insisted he take one of the keys to make it easier on him.
Yes, she had insisted that she could open the door herself, but James had been raised as a gentleman. Yes, that was it. No other reason. And maybe he didn’t go out of his way to open the door for any of his other neighbors, but…
“Thank you,” Bel said, completing the ceremony the two of them had been enacting without variation for multiple decades.
“You’re welcome,” he responded in kind, about to close the door behind her and shuffle over to his apartment building next door when he felt a hand on his jacket sleeve.
That was new. And slightly alarming. He almost dropped his umbrella, hastily shoving it under his arm as a pale hand extended an ivy-green envelope to him.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“An invitation. The garden has really grown since the last time you saw it.” He had no doubt. The last time he had personally toured her garden was with his parents, forty years ago.
“I was hoping you could make it. It’s tomorrow.”
“Thank you for the invitation. I’ll think about it.” He feared he would think of nothing else. All the precious nap time that would be wasted!
Bel smiled at him, a slightly shy gesture, half her face hidden behind the huge plant still cradled in her thin arms like a child. Those eyes of hers were almost as green as the plant now. Then she was pushing the elevator button with her elbow in a practiced gesture and was out of sight. James shook his head slightly and let the door close, locking him out with a loud click.
He walked the twenty-three steps to his own apartment door, too distracted to realize his umbrella was still tucked under his elbow, oblivious to the rain falling onto his hat and tickling the sides of his face.
It had nothing to do with Bel Carmen’s invitation, tucked safely into his breast pocket.
It had nothing to do with the feel of her hand on his arm.
He just had other things on his mind. Like work. And preparing for work tomorrow. And… other such things. That was all.
***
James walked into his tiny studio apartment and carefully closed the door, making sure to do up the dead bolt and the lock before hanging his key on the keyring beside the door. His coat, umbrella, and hat were hung above the small shower to dry, and his shoes were carefully placed on a small box of rocks sitting beside the front door to dry off.
Glancing at the clock, he entered the cramped kitchen, which boasted two burners, a mini-fridge, and a skinny bar that acted both as an eating table and the kitchen’s only food-preparation surface and pulled open a drawer, removing a fork. He had to almost get on tiptoe to reach the plate up in the cupboard.
“I swear I could easily reach up there before,” he muttered to himself. The joys of old age.
Placing both plate and fork on the bar, he went to the door, undoing the locks as the doorbell rang.
“Delivery for Mr. Blaise,” a young man said, tall and lanky with dark skin and big brown eyes. Water dripped from a long, gray raincoat with “Tavern on the Green” emblazoned across the back in curly green letters. The jacket was clearly designed for a thicker man, the rain dripping off of it leaving a small puddle under the man’s large, sneaker-clad feet.
“Thank you, Josef.”
“Enjoy yourself, Mr. Blaise! Always pleasure doin’ business with you.” Josef handed James a paper bag with two sheep emblazoned on the side. Tavern on the Green didn’t do delivery, but James had been friends with Jimmy Davis, the original owner, and used the connection to his advantage. No reason to know how to boil water or—heaven forbid—bake elaborate and messy dishes when you could order New York’s finest.
Roast Maryland turkey, tavern dressing, and cranberry sauce. He’d grown up on the stuff and didn’t plan to stop until he was six feet under. Even then, he might see if he could get Josef to drop off a plate every now and then to his headstone.
Settling into the third stool up against the bar, James tucked into his dinner. The other two bar stools remained empty, had since Henrie and Sera had passed. They would have all gone out to dinner, making the trek down to the Tavern on the Green, taking a seat at their usual table, chatting good-naturedly about things that didn’t really matter and books. Always about books. He supposed it came with the territory of owning one of the oldest book shops in Manhattan.
James wasn’t really into books. But he knew more than his fair share of stories thanks to the endless enthusiasm his mom and dad had for the things. “Books are more than freshly bound paper and ink. They’re living, breathing things. They transport us to new heights, transform us from the simple to the divine,” his mother had insisted.
His father’s opinion was similar, even if he worded it differently. “Books take the dull out of life.” Henrie had been a man of few words.
James could appreciate that, even if he secretly worried he’d taken after Mom a little too much.
He was just finishing his turkey when Prince Charles pawed at James’ leg, letting out a small, dignified “meow.”
“I didn’t forget about you, hairball.” Getting out of the stool was hard, and James was sure his joints were creaking more than his neighbor Rose’s squeaky front door.
He bent down to pick up Prince Charles’ food dish, muttering the entire time, one hand on his back. “I told Mom the cat would outlive her, but no, she insisted… and Dad caved, and here we are.”
Having retrieved the cursed bowl, James painstakingly measured out a cup and a half of cat food and underwent the torture of returning the bowl to its special mat beside the bar stools. The cat fluffed out his already billowing white mane of hair and wiggled his fat cat bottom and tail in appreciation before gracefully nibbling at the brown pebbles, meowing absentmindedly to himself.
After handwashing the single plate and fork and drying them with a dish towel so old that whatever the design had been had faded, James hung the towel on the little hook by the tiny window over the sink to dry and shuffled his way over to his large chair. It was shoved in between the queen bed and a bookshelf sagging so badly James was afraid to remove any of the hundreds of books off the shelf for fear the wood would simply disintegrate into a pile of dust.
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His trusted copy of the newspaper was sitting on the comfy chair, beside his slippers. He slowly settled into the chair, letting his bones get with the program before putting on his slippers and resting his feet on the bed in front of him. The chair gave him an unparalleled view of the bustling world outside his tiny 450 square foot apartment. It also gave him a good view of Bel’s garden, at least a small piece of it. What her apartment lacked in interior space it made up for with a balcony that opened up to the roof. Bel had long since claimed the entirety of the space as her own private oasis, bursting with dazzling displays of flowers, small trees, even herbs and tomatoes. The apartment owner didn’t mind—in fact, Erick Lander had gone to school with James and Bel half a century ago. He claimed it gave the apartment a more natural look and actually brought in more tenants eager for a splash of nature in the middle of the concrete jungle.
James hadn’t turned the chair, which had faced the bed, toward the window because he wanted to catch a glimpse of Bel working in her garden.
He just liked natural light. Made it easier to read the paper.
Unfurling the latest paper and putting on his reading glasses, James burrowed deeper into the overstuffed chair and started perusing the different articles. China, earthquakes, drugs, elections, something called “TikTok,” and immigration… nothing was really new, but that didn’t bother James.
“Nothing new” was comfortable. Like his broken-in slippers and cozy chair. James liked nothing new. After reading the paper for exactly thirty minutes and laughing politely once or twice, he untangled himself from his chair, shuffled over to the small recycle box by the front door and carefully placed the newspaper inside, then shuffled over to the tiny bathroom.
Twenty-two minutes later he was tucked into bed, the window curtains firmly shut and the lights off.
***
The next morning, after feeding Prince Charles and drinking his small glass of orange juice with a single piece of rye bread toasted with blackberry jelly, James shouldered on his regular brown overcoat and matching brown hat. Before heading out the door he opened the windows, letting sunlight pour into the small space. Prince Charles liked napping in the warm sunbeams, and James was willing to do anything to keep the lump of white fur happy and distracted. As he did, he spotted a white sunhat bobbing through Bel’s garden.
“Good morning, Miss Carmen,” he called through the window. The sunhat rose up out of the neatly trimmed rows of greenery, and Bel smiled at him. Her hair was in a long braid this morning, resting on her right shoulder, and bright-green gardening gloves covered her hands. She wasn’t usually in the garden quite this early.
She waved. “Have a good day at the bookshop!”
“Have a good day in the garden,” he replied, wondering why his hands felt slightly sweaty and why his heart was feeling a little jumpy. Maybe he’d forgotten to take one of his multiple medications that morning.
“Will you be coming to the garden party tonight?”
The invitation. He’d completely forgotten. A lengthy article on teenagers stealing from trash cans and making bizarre art exhibits out of their finds had stolen away his attention the night before.
“Umm, remind me when that will be happening?”
She brushed a spare piece of silver hair out of her face—her eyes were blue this morning—and said, “Tonight at 7:30. Bring something to share if you can. That is, if you’re able to come.”
“I am probably… well, if the shop isn’t too busy.” He was fidgeting with his neatly pressed slacks now. Nothing was going according to schedule. He’d be two minutes late for opening the bookshop!
“But don’t you close the shop at 5pm sharp every day?”
“Well, yes, usually. But you never know. There might be more customers than usual. That could make it hard for me to, umm, make it,” he finished lamely.
“I wouldn’t want to impede your flourishing business,” Bel said, then whispered something under her breath that seemed to make her smile.
“What was that? I didn’t hear the last part,” James said.
“Oh, nothing. Just a bad habit of talking to myself. Probably comes from living alone.” She laughed, but it sounded a little forced. “If you can make it, James, I’d be happy to see you.”
James. He couldn’t remember the last time she’d used his first name. Probably not since school. His heart was jumping up and down like a particularly horrible bus ride now. Maybe he should call in sick, stay home. But he was the bookshop’s only employee, not to mention the owner, so there wasn’t anyone to inform if he didn’t go in. But Bel would definitely expect him at her party if he didn’t go to work but seemed perfectly healthy.
“Umm, yes, that would be nice. Have a nice day, Miss Be… Carmen.” He gave a little bow, tripping over Prince Charles, who had settled his prodigious, furry girth on James’ shoes while he had been talking.
His palms were definitely sweaty. How unsanitary. He ignored Prince Charles’ disgruntled meow at being displaced from his cozy perch and quickly washed his hands before closing the window, leaving the curtains open for the lazy cat’s opulent sun bathing that would take place later that day.
The white sunhat was back at it, the assorted plants hiding Bel from view.
Then he was out the door, down the elevator, across the street, and on his way to Blaise’s Books.
He could have taken a bus or taxi or one of those strange Ubert things, but James knew he had to exercise each day to keep his joints happy. Or at least happier. They seemed to be perpetually irritable since his sixties. A million smells wafted through the streets, joining the cacophony of voices and bodies flowing down the sidewalks like a flood of color and sensation. A young mom with two kids, insisting they hold hands as they crossed the street, the children’s hair wet and slicked down. Probably on their way to an expensive private school of some kind. A young man wearing skinny jeans that emphasized his skeletal structure, riding on a strange skateboard with small white buds in his ears and shaggy brown hair peeking out from under a beanie. A gaggle of teenage girls giggling and conversing rapidly in something that sounded like Spanish, cell phones out and flashing as they snapped pictures of themselves and made strange faces, puckering their lips and fluttering eyelashes that seemed too long and dark to be real. Bakeries were doing their best to perforate the streets with the smells of pastries, sugar, and addiction. Countless men in business suits that looked like a second skin were sipping coffee, their designer shoes clicking on the sidewalk as they talked on cell phones and studied their nails.
James couldn’t wait to be in the bookshop, away from the crush of human bodies and the countless sounds and scents. Chaos at its best. Or worst.
Two more street lights and James was on the corner, pulling the old-fashioned brass key from his overcoat pocket and working it into the old, dark-oak wood door. Fantastical creatures were etched into the wood, dragons with outstretched wings chasing long-legged horses with horns, along with every other kind of nonsensical creature fantasy writers had written into existence over multiple centuries.
As he opened the door, the sound of chimes filled the small shop as though welcoming him to Blaise Books, home to the wonderful world of fantasy. The chimes reminded him of his mother. She had a bad habit of reading on the job and had added the chimes to alert her to customers. It had helped. She’d noticed twice as many customers as before and had looked up from her latest read to greet them warmly. Which was better than jumping when a customer gently tapped her, ready to make their purchase.
James made his way over to the sign in the tall, arching front windows and flipped the old, battered sign to “open” before shuffling over to the counter. He’d exchanged the uncomfortable stool with one of the overstuffed armchairs littered throughout the bookshop, and after studying the people striding past the windows outside for almost an hour, he reached for his folded blanket tucked under the counter, made sure the cash register was locked, and closed his eyes.
***
“Uncle James! Uncle James! What if we were robbers! You would have been sleeping, and then we would have stolen all your books and stuff! Maybe we would have taken the money box too, with all the money in it. That would have been sad! Good thing we aren’t robbers.”
James heard the voice and groaned, burying his head deeper into his blanket and pretending to snore.
“James, is that any way to greet your grandnephew?”
He recognized this voice as well and knew she wouldn’t be fooled by his faux snores as easily. Sighing, he slowly lifted his head, blinking as his eyes slowly adjusted to the bright sunlight slipping into the store through the front windows.
“Diane. How nice to see you. Out with your grandson again? What is Jenny up to this time?”
“She wanted to get her nails done before her and Grant go and see that new show, the one with the attractive man with long blond hair…”
“And you decided to come to the old bookshop to see your dear old brother?”
“Exactly.” Diane grinned. Her hair was honey-blonde and cut short. James knew for a fact that underneath the expensive hair dye was hair as white as his. Her makeup was a little heavy, hiding her light-blue eyes under thick mascara and bright-blue eyeshadow that glimmered in the heavy sunlight falling on the counter.
“I thought some intellectual stimulation would be good for little James,” she said, tousling the young man’s hair fondly.
“I’m not little,” James Jr. protested, folding his arms tightly across his chest and making his best angry face. He just ended up looking a little constipated.
“You are smaller than Great Uncle James though, isn’t that right?”
“I guess so,” James Jr. huffed. “But Uncle James is getting shorter all the time, and I just keep getting taller, so when I’m bigger than him will you call me Big James and him little?”
Diane laughed, a clipped, ladylike sound that was at complete odds with her real laugh, which slightly resembled a giddy hyena. “It’s a deal.”
“So, Uncle James, is there anything fun to read in this place? Anything you like?”
James was about to respond when Diane’s icy-blue gaze met his own with a clear message that said, “We want him to like books, so you will lie.”
“I think you’ll enjoy the books on the very top floor,” James said hastily, pointing with a slightly arthritic finger at the spiral staircase in the middle of the room that went up two stories with circular bookshelves surrounding it, crammed with every kind of book—so long as it was fantasy.
James Jr., his interest piqued with the staircase, scampered over to investigate. As he started making his way up the stairs, Diane turned to face James. Reaching into her purse, she pulled out a box of gum and took out a piece, popping it in her mouth.
“Would you mind keeping an eye on little James for me, dear brother?”
“I thought you were the one who signed up for babysitting, not me. I have a professional establishment to run.”
“Don’t worry, Ester doesn’t usually come in until 4, and I’ll be back to pick up little James no later than 3:30.”
Ester was the only reason James was still in business. The little woman was a voracious reader and offered to pay the monthly rent on the shop if James let her have free access to any of the books in the shop. She didn’t purchase any, but in the multiple decades he had helped man Blaise’s Books, she had probably read at least half of his parents’ massive collection. James secretly figured Henrie and Sera hadn’t wanted to really sell any books and would have been better served opening a library, but living in New York wasn’t cheap, and the few loyal, bored, and wealthy regulars the bookshop had were what had kept his family afloat through their many years living in New York.
“I figured once Robert passed you would have more free time on your hands.”
“Dear Bobby. There isn’t a moment when I don’t think of that dear, sweet man. Love of my life, you know.” James knew better than to argue with her. The two had bickered more than an old married couple, but he supposed maybe that was how some people showed their affection.
“I have a lunch date with the girls. Need to catch up on the latest gossip, you know. My column doesn’t write itself.” Diane hadn’t captured the love of reading their parents had, but she had become a successful journalist, even if her preferred column was little more than a gossip reel going over what so-and-so had eaten for breakfast and the newest fashion in jeans worn by Miss this-and-that. Diane knew them all by name. James tried to forget he’d even heard so much about complete strangers.
“But, I…”
She leaned on the counter, doing her best puppy dog impression. “Mom and Dad would have loved for any of their great grandkids to spend time in this wonderful establishment.” She drew out the word “establishment,” as though savoring every syllable. “I know you’ll help me out, James dear. You always were the responsible one in the family.”
James sighed. “Fine. Go to your lunch. But I expect you back here at 3:30 on the dot. Do we have a deal?”
“Of course, Jamesy. I’ll be here, scout’s honor.” She raised a hand to her forehead as though doing a military salute. James didn’t bother correcting her. Neither of them had been any kind of scout, but he was almost sure real scouts didn’t do things that way.
“Just James.”
“Of course.” She rolled her eyes. “Just James. Boring old James. Always dependable James. Be-more-like-him-Diane James.”
“So you don’t want me to keep an eye on the little terror?”
“Little James. And yes, please.” She flashed him a beaming smile and turned around, striding toward the door as fast as her weak bones and high heels would allow.
As she reached the door and opened it, she called out, “Love you, Jimmy! Be back soon.” Blowing a kiss in his general direction, she teetered out onto the sidewalk, nothing but a dark silhouette against the blinding brightness of noon.