Mr. Barnard walked through the door and headed right to the counter, as always.
“Hi, Mr. Barnard.”
“Maisie,” he replied gruffly. “I’m here for my special order.”
“Of course,” she said and turned around to find his book, but there wasn’t anything there under his name. “Lainey, did you take a special order for Mr. Barnard?”
“No,” Lainey replied. “Maybe Sarah did.”
“What book was it?” Maisie asked the man, prepared to look it up in the system for him.
Mr. Barnard seemed to think for a long moment, which was odd for him, and Maisie got worried for a minute because herwasgetting old.
“Oh. I must not have put it in,” he answered.
“Can I help you put one in now?” she asked.
“I think I’ll just have a look around,” he replied.
“Okay. Let me know if I can help you find anything.”
“I think I know my way around here by now, Maisie.”
“Of course,” she said with a smile.
Then, the front door opened again, and Maisie turned to see Colter Stone walk in, dressed in his easily a thousand-dollar suit.
“Colter?” she asked.
“Maisie,” he replied, buttoning his light-blue jacket over the crisp white shirt before he approached her at the counter. “I need to talk to you.”
“I haven’t decided if I’m going to take you up on your advisor offer yet.”
“Advisor?” Lainey said.
“Can we have a minute, Lainey?” Maisie asked.
“Sure. I’ll help Mr. Barnard.”
“I don’t need any help!” the old man half-yelled as he walked down the right aisle.
Lainey shook her head, smiled, and walked away.
“I doubt you’ll want to take me up on my offer now,” Colter said.
“What? Why not?”
“Look, I had a favor that I was holding on to for you. It wasn’t a guarantee, but Lopez and I go back, and he said that if I gave him something, I could have something. I was going to use that favor to get you your historical status approved, but I had to use it on something else.”
“What?” she said.
“Yeah, I had to pull you from the agenda. Technically, you can get yourself back on. I won’t block you or anything. I doubt any of them will. I just can’t get you on this time. I had to use my favor. Well,favors, really. I had to ask Jameson for something, too, and that–”
“You used up your favors, so now, I’m off the agenda?”
“You can still get yourself on the agenda. You’re a citizen. Anyone can. You just have to follow the process.”
“The process can take months.”
