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“This belonged to a lady who was very special to me,” Mr. Wainwright said as Andrea slipped it on. “Her name was Brigid, and she was special and beautiful, like you. And I loved her very much.”
Knowing that Andrea couldn’t hear him, I said, “That belonged to the love of his life.”
Andrea smiled.
“You’re going to want to be careful how you handle that around us,” Dick told her. “Might as well be wearing barbed wire around your finger.”
“Well, that has possibilities,” Andrea said, wiggling her finger at him. Not the rude one.
Dick muttered something I couldn’t quite make out.
“ ‘To Gabriel Nightengale, the selection of his choice from my personal literary collection. To Dick Cheney, my personal spirits collection, including the wine and brandy.’ “
Dick and Gabriel smiled.
“ ‘To Jane Jameson, I leave the Specialty Books shop located at 933 Braxton Avenue and all of its contents, including the apartment upstairs and my personal effects contained therein. I trust you to allow my nephew, Emery, to look over my personal effects and select what he would like to keep as mementos.’ “
My jaw dropped. I had expected a few books. Maybe a memento or Mr. Wainwright’s personal collection of Ouija boards. I had not expected him to leave me anything as important as the shop.
My eyes stung as I smiled shakily at Mr. Wainwright. I really didn’t want to start crying again. I’d just managed to stop. “This is too much. I didn’t do anything to deserve this. And I don’t know anything about running a store. Look, with your nephew coming soon, I think maybe we should consider—”
“No one will care about the shop the way you will,” Mr. Wainwright insisted. “No one will take care of the books, take care of the customers, such as they are.” He turned to Dick. “If I had known about you, I would have planned differently—”
“Not your fault,” Dick interrupted. “And you left me the booze, so it shows how well you knew me, even before you knew we were related.”
“And anything you want from the personal effects is yours,” I told Dick. “The store stock will be available at a twenty-percent bereaved-ancestor discount.”
Mr. Wainwright guffawed. “See, you’ve got the makings of a brilliant entrepreneur.”
I protested, “I don’t know anything about running a business.”
“Then sell it. Do whatever you think is best. I trust you.”
Those words, combined with Mr. Wainwright’s earnest, ghostly gaze, left a weird, heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach.
17
When an undesirable suitor is unwilling to accept a werewolf female’s refusal, her family is likely to step in to help communicate her feelings more clearly. It can take said suitor six to eight weeks to heal up from the clan’s communication skills.
—Mating Rituals and Love Customs of the Were
We all adjusted to our grief in different ways.
On this particular Tuesday, Jolene and Zeb were doing a family thing with the McClaines. I think it involved wrestling Jolene’s father. Andrea had a standing appointment with a client who was not afraid of Dick. Gabriel was in London. I didn’t bother asking why. This left me with Dick.
No pun intended.
Dick seemed lonely, spending nights at the shop, talking to the ever-more-sprightly ghost of Mr. Wainwright, and helping me sort through boxes. We had a running bet about when Emery would show up. I had two weeks; Dick had six weeks and four days. Mr. Wainwright, who lovingly referred to his nephew as “a bit mealy-mouthed and milquetoast,” had twenty dollars on an even month, though how we were going to collect it from him, we had no idea.
I’d dropped my investigation into Wilbur’s background for the time being. I told myself that it would help me to step away, get a fresh perspective, but the truth was, I was getting nowhere. Instead, I worked from sunset to the wee hours of the morning cleaning areas that Mr. Wainwright had never let me touch: a rear storeroom, the area behind the counter, his office. For his part, Mr. Wainwright entertained himself by moving various objects around, walking through walls, and making videos float at the adult store next door, scaring several locals off porn forever.
Despite my recently developed fear of Realtors, I’d had one come by and appraise the shop. He suggested burning it to the ground and going for the insurance money. While my destructive urge was just as healthy as the next girl’s, I didn’t consider that a viable option. I was going to have to close.
It felt like packing up Aunt Jettie’s room after she died. Something important had ended, and I was left to pick up the pieces. Fortunately, Dick and Andrea seemed to pick up on this and somehow ended up at the shop every night to help me. On this particular evening, Dick was boarding over windows and putting a “For Sale by Owner” sign in the window. With Andrea quietly boxing up books, I went upstairs to Mr. Wainwright’s apartment, something I hadn’t been able to do since the funeral.
The air was dry and smelled of cinnamon and Lipton tea. As one would expect, the place was a wreck. Good antiques were covered in Mad Hatter–style stacks of books. Almost every surface not occupied by books held picture frames. There were photos of Mr. Wainwright’s mother, his sister, his nephew, Emery. There was a framed photo of a beautiful redhaired woman, who I assumed was Mr. Wainwright’s lost love, Brigid. There was a picture of a very young Mr. Wainwright in his Army uniform, one of him in a pith helmet exploring what looked to be an Egyptian tomb, and pictures of him bundled up against Canadian cold during his endless search for Sasquatch.
The latest addition seemed to be a picture of our Christmas party. Zeb had set up the camera timer to take a shot of the whole group. My eyes were closed, of course, but everyone looked so happy. Jolene had turned that million watt smile on Zeb. Gabriel had his arm around me. There were two little white orbs where Aunt Jettie and Grandpa Fred had stood. Andrea was wedged between Mr. Wainwright and Dick, who had his arm flung around both of them. Mr. Wainwright had placed it on the nightstand next to his low-slung single bed. It was the only photo from the last ten years in the apartment.
