ChapterThirty
The renovations meant closing the store for January. Nana would lose her mind, but it had stopped mattering so much what Nana thought.
January had always been one of Bella’s quietest months. After the December spending spree, people took stock and opened their credit card bills. Yeah, January pretty much sucked.
Her online business would carry on through the renovations and Bella cleared out a space in her house for popular stock. A lot of the stuff she could leave in the store’s storerooms. But that meant moving everything from the storefront into the back.
Liz and Noel jumped in to help, and the three of them now stood knee-deep in fabric and coat hangers.
“Fucking hell.” Liz held up a sateen dress Nana had ordered in the eighties. “What is this?”
Bella had to laugh. If Liz of the butt-bedazzled velveteen sweatpants wouldn’t touch the dress, it was truly hopeless. One of the advantages to this renovation would be finally getting rid of the stuff that made her shudder. The store needed a different direction and the few anchors still hanging around kept it and its tired décor in the eighties.
In the past, even clearing out old, outdated stock had ended in a nasty battle with Nana. Bella had developed a way of pushing that stuff to the edges of the racks or burying them in sales racks at the back of the store.
“Put it in the box for the Salvation Army.” Bella pointed to a growing number of boxes in the front of the store. Years of hiding fashion atrocities had gathered quite a haul.
Liz eyed the dress, poking her finger at a large, floppy neck bow. “Do you think they’ll want it?”
Bella couldn’t be sure anyone would want that dress. Judging by how many sizes of that particular one remained, so far there’d been no takers. Nana also didn’t believe in working on consignment.
Noel talked a whole lot less than Liz and therefore got a number of boxes sealed against the dust and neatly labeled and stacked in the storeroom.
Pippa rapped on the glass door, holding up a carry tray of coffees.
Bella let her in
“I bring sustenance,” she said, putting the coffees on the checkout counter. “Matt has forbidden me from picking up heavy things, but I can bring coffee, and pack boxes.” From her large bag, she hauled out a paper bag. “And what would coffee be without a sweet friend?”
Pippa wandered across the store. “You’re making good progress here.” She picked up the recently maligned dress, shuddered, and dropped it back. “My honey is going to make your store look fabulous.”
Bella found her coffee and joined Pippa in the center of the store. “This is a whole new era for Bella’s.”
“And a whole new era for Bella.” Pippa slung her arm over Bella’s shoulder. “I’m hella proud of you, sweet Bella.”
The compliment rushed straight through Bella on a warm, fuzzy cloud of aw-shucks. “It was time.”
“Past time.” Pippa took a huge sniff of Bella’s coffee. “God, I miss coffee.”
“How are you feeling?”
In her wool dress pants and cashmere sweater, Pippa looked as slim and elegant as ever. “I feel great.” She grimaced. “But between Matt and Phi, it’s hard to do anything. They watch me like hawks.”
Bella got a little misty-eyed. Matt Evans had waited too long for his happily ever after. She could imagine how protective he would be of Pippa and their unborn child.
“Speaking of Phi . . .” Pippa chuckled. “She’s offered her help if you want some guidance in the matter of the store’s color scheme.”
“Thanks?” Bella had found the pink too much. Let loose in her store, Phi could do just about anything.
Pippa eyed Liz and winced. “Really, Liz? Didn’t we have a conversation about bedazzled sweatpants?”
Liz snorted. “I’m working here, give a girl a break.”
“Just so you know, I’m accepting the excuse this once because you’re helping our Bella.” Pippa tucked into a chocolate muffin. “Also, chocolate mellows me out.”
“I like ’em,” Noel said.
All female eyes swung his way.
Noel flushed and tried to hide behind the counter. “I mean, I like Liz’s pants. They work for her.”
“Thank you, honey.” Liz gave him a tender smile.
Progress? Who knew with those two.
Pippa sniffled. “Damn hormones, but that was really, really sweet.”
“Not really.” Noel blew on his coffee. “Liz always looks beautiful.”
“Stop already.” Pippa wiped her eyes.
Noel sipped. “She always did.”
“Always?” Liz jammed her hands on her hips, but her tough-guy act wore paper thin, underscored by the vulnerability on her face.
“Always.” Noel nodded. “Thought so the first time I saw you. Still think so.”
“Then why?” Liz tossed up her hands. “Why?”
The rawness in her voice hung like jagged tears between her and Noel.
Pippa nudged her. “Perhaps we should—”
“No.” Liz marched over to Noel. “I need to understand this.”
“I wish I had a good answer for you.” Noel dropped his gaze. “I wish I could give you a reason, because if I could do that, I could show you that it will never happen again.”
Bella really didn’t feel right witnessing this. “Liz, we’re going to leave you two alone.”
“No, Bella.” Liz thumped the counter. “This can’t go on. I need to understand this and perhaps you can help me do it.”
Outside the silent store, a car drove down Main Street. A man stepped out of the hardware store and climbed into a dusty pickup.
Noel’s stricken expression grabbed hold of Bella and dug its claws in.
“I don’t think you do.” Bella stepped closer to Liz and moved the cups out of striking range. “I think you do understand. I think you know the why, maybe even better than Noel does. What you have to do is decide what you’re going to do about it.”
“Just like that?” Liz snapped her fingers.
“No, not just like that, but you can’t spend your life being afraid.” Bella touched Liz’s hand, wanting to make the connection between them and to ease some of the hurt radiating out of her. “And I do know a little something about spending your life afraid.”
Liz turned to her, her face stretched taut. “What do I do?”
“What do you want to do?”
“I want to be loved. Wholly. Completely. Passionately.”
Noel stepped around from behind the counter. “I can do that, Liz. I already do.”
“Shit.” Liz pressed her hands into her eyes. “Shit, shit, shit.”
“Your move, babe.” Noel took her hands from her eyes. “I won’t keep coming around if it’s making you unhappy. I won’t do that anymore. I’ll do anything for another chance with you, but if it makes you unhappy, it’s not worth it. I love you, Liz, and I want to show you how much. Even if that means letting you go.” He gathered up his keys and wallet from the counter and left.
Liz’s shoulders slumped. “I hate crying.”
Bella put her arm around her. “Ask yourself if he never came back how you would feel.”
“He hurt me.” Liz pulled free.
“It happens.” Bella shrugged. “None of us are perfect. Nobody can love perfectly. In the end, it’s always going to be a leap of faith.”
Liz stared out the window.
Noel bleeped the locks to his truck. He stopped and looked back at the store.
Bella had never seen a man look more broken.
“Fuck this.” Liz ran. She hit the door with her palm. The bell jangled loudly. She stopped on the sidewalk, tense as a cat.
Noel’s smile brought tears to Bella’s eyes when he opened his arms.
Liz went into them and clung.
Pippa sniveled and dug a Kleenex out of her purse. “Damn, Bella, when did you get so insightful?”
Liz climbed in the passenger side of Noel’s truck and waved.
Bella waved back. “I hope they make it.”
“They will if they both want to.” Pippa dabbed at her creeping mascara.
Pippa hung up her coat and got to work beside Bella. Mindful of Matt’s orders, Bella lifted the boxes when they were filled.
Matt brought a truck to the back of the store and loaded up the stuff to go to the Salvation Army. He would drop it off before he went home. A tired and dusty Pippa hopped up beside him.
Bella turned back into the store and locked the storeroom. She hoped Liz would be busy for the rest of the night. For her, it looked like a hot bath, a pizza, and a good movie.
She wasn’t quite sure what she’d occupy herself with while the store was closed. She’d spent nearly every afternoon after school here at Bella’s, helping out first her grandmother and then her mother. Some kids might have resented the expectation that they would one day take over the store, but not her. She wandered through the front of the store and locked the street door. She turned the “Closed” sign to face the street. Dust motes hung in the air. Empty, the store seemed twice as big. Faded squares on the paint showed where she’d taken down old posters and pictures. Stains and worn patches on the carpet looked more obvious without the furniture and clothes racks. She toed the indentations where the sofa and table set had rested.
Pippa had called it right. Bella’s stood on the edge of a brand-new start.
How many times had she dusted the yellowed sweater shelves? She pushed a drawer closed and picked up an old price tag from the floor. Working in Bella’s, she had built her dreams for it over the years. Countless thoughts about what she would change, how she would make it hers.
Winter had brought down the early dark and she flipped off the lights to the scrolled window sign. Come Monday it would join everything else in the large Dumpster Matt had had delivered to the store back.
Streetlights made yellow pools on the sleet-slicked road.
In four weeks, her new sign would face the street, announcing to everyone who saw it that things had really changed at Bella’s.
For the last time, she pulled her purse from beneath the cash register. Time to go home.
Footsteps sounded from the storeroom. A tall, blond man stepped into the light. Adam smiled. “Hello, Bella.”