I’m so seething mad I can’t go back to the store just yet. Mom will see right through me and she’ll obviously think I’m mad about the stupid boy who came to see me. Which I am, but not in the way she thinks. I also don’t want to run into Caleb or his stupid dad, so I slip behind the boardwalk to the access hallway where only the janitors and store owners have access. I take some deep breaths and walk back and forth a few times until I feel some of my anger fade away. I’m still pissed, more pissed than I’ve ever been, but I’m okay now. I am more determined than ever to work at The Magpie now.

I will make it successful and I will open my coffee shop when I’m older.

Back in the store, Mom is sneakily reading that book while standing at the front counter. I roll my eyes at her and begin restocking some greeting cards from the new batch we just had delivered.

“Natalie,” Mom says softly. She puts the book on the counter and gives me the exact same look she gave me the day my cat died while I was at school.

“What’s wrong?” I say. My hands are now shaking and I shove them in my back pockets. “I want to talk about something.” She pats the stool behind the register. “Come over here.”

“Is this about Caleb?” I say as I walk over. “Because I can’t stand that guy. He won’t be coming back here. I made it very clear I’m not interested in him.”

“It’s not about boys,” she says. She chews on her thumb nail and then it hits me. Mom’s not talking slowly because I’m in trouble. She has something she wants to tell me.

Instantly, I panic over the idea that Mom found out I’ve been talking to my dad’s new wife at school. But it’s not my fault. She made me talk to her. She’s the AP after all. I’m thinking up all these excuses to tell her when she says, “I’ve been given an offer to sell The Magpie.”

I stop just short of sitting on the stool. “Well, who cares about that?” I say. “We’re not selling.”

Mom’s expression isn’t exactly comforting. She glances at the counter, probably to avoid looking at me. “It was for fourteen thousand dollars, Natalie. We could survive a few months on that kind of money and I could look for another job. One with benefits and a good salary.”

I stand straighter. “Who gave you this offer? And when did it happen?” I’ve done such a great job of blocking Jack’s offers so far.

“A man named Jack Brown,” Mom says, and the name makes me flinch even though I’d pretty much expected it. No one else has ever come around here asking to buy us out. She picks up a stack of business cards and straightens them on the counter. “He came by today while you were at school and discussed it with me.”

Of course he did. The asshole waited until I was out of the picture and he pounced. If I hadn’t been so freaking diligent at going to school lately, maybe I could have been here. I could have stopped it.

“So what?” I say, folding my arms over my chest. “We’re not selling. This store is your dream.”

“It was my dream with your father,” she says, looking down at her hands. “Now that he’s gone, I can’t exactly use his money to keep us afloat like I used to.”

Mom never talks about Dad. Like, never. I close my eyes and exhale. “Tell me you didn’t accept his offer.”

“Not yet.” She grabs my hand and squeezes it. “I said I’d think about it.”

“Well call him and say no.” I reach for the phone. “I’ll do it.”

“Natalie.” Her voice is stern and I move my hand away from the phone. “We need to think this over.”

“I have thought it over,” I say.

Mom rolls her eyes. “It’s only been a few seconds.”

Little does she know, I’ve actually had weeks to think it over from all the times I’ve intercepted Jack’s attempts to talk to my mom. And maybe yesterday I would have considered selling if it made Mom happy, but after the conversation I heard just now in the game store, I refuse to let that asshole win.

“Jack Brown can’t buy our store,” I say through clenched teeth. “Sell it to someone else if you want, but not him.”

“Honey, no one else wants it,” she says with a sigh. “I’m not saying I’m happy about the idea of selling, but maybe this is what we need. Money has been tight for so long now and I just want to breathe again.”

“But this is your dream.” I point to the other side of the store. “And that’s going to be my coffee shop one day. I’ll go to college soon and I’ll get my degree and open the store.”

“College is four years away,” she says.

“So what? I’ll get a two year associates degree in business at the community college. I’ll be close enough to keep working here and then I’ll open my coffee shop and finish out two more years of college.”

“Honey…” I know what she’s thinking, that opening a business and going to school is pretty much impossible. But I don’t care right now.

“We can’t sell to that asshole.”

“Honey,” she says again, this time with a warning in her voice.

I grab my backpack from under the counter, knowing I need to get the hell out of here before I lose my mind. “I refuse to let you sell the store,” I tell her as I sling it on my back. “You of all people know how important small businesses are. If you let the Jack Browns of the world buy up everything, then that’ll all be gone. He’ll be more of a rich asshole and the little guys will lose.”

This hits home, I know it. Her eyes widen in recognition and I know I’ve struck a nerve with her and her love of small businesses.

“I’m going home to work on homework,” I tell her. “And you can stay here and think about what a terrible idea it would be to sell this place.”

Mom and I both know the best thing for me to do is to hang out at the store for another hour until it closes and she can take me home in her car. But the fact that I walk right out, ready to trudge home in the summer heat with my heavy backpack instead of being with her one more minute should hopefully prove my point. My mom needs the time alone. She needs to remember what this store means to her. And I need some time to come up with a better plan than simply begging Mom to turn away Jack’s offer.

If I wasn’t stuck going to school every day then I’d have more time to spend trying to drum up business. I haven’t even updated the store’s Facebook page in a week because I’ve been too busy trying to pass my classes. Well, that’s not good enough. I need to work harder. I need to save this freaking store.

When I get home, it’s almost six o’clock and I’m drenched in sweat. I take a quick shower and then plop on my bed, too exhausted and pissed off to do any of my extra credit worksheets.

My heart aches for Jonah, for his warmth and his smile and a hug. He would make me feel better if he were here right now, but since Mom will be home soon and the tension between us is so high, I can’t invite him over. Instead, I’ll have to settle for the next best thing.

 

Me: Can I call you?

 

The phone rings a few seconds after I send the text. “If you want to call me, just call me,” Jonah says. “You don’t have to text me first.”

“I didn’t know if you were busy,” I say as I sit on my bed and stare out the window.

“I’m never too busy to talk to you. What’s up?”

I sigh. “How much time do you have?”

“As much time as you need,” he says with a smile in his voice.

I tell him about the store, and how we’ve been suffering with money lately, which he already knows. Then I tell him about stupid Jack Brown and all his previous inquiries about buying The Magpie and how I blocked them. Jonah balks when I tell him Jack’s offer price.

“Surely the store is worth more than that,” he says. “Typically businesses sell for twice the yearly profit. His offer is an insult.”

“He’s offering low because he doesn’t want the business. He just wants to strip the space clean and make it another one of his office buildings. Jack Brown doesn’t care about anything but himself.”

“So what does your mom say?” he asks.

“That’s the worst part, Jonah. I think she’s actually considering it.”

“Don’t stress, chica. It’ll be okay.”

“It won’t be okay,” I say. I bite my lip but I know he needs to know the real truth. “We can’t sell the store to Jack Brown. Then he would have won.”

“Won what?” Jonah asks.

As much as I hate this, I want Jonah to know the truth so that there are no secrets between us. I feel like a total idiot, but I go ahead and tell him about Caleb, and how his dad made him talk to me in an effort to get our store. Jonah listens, and I can practically hear the gears in his brain turning as he takes in all of this new information.

“So what’s why we can’t sell to him,” I say, my heart heavy with regret and anger. “If Mom wants to sell to someone else, I could probably be okay with it, but we can’t sell to Jack. He can’t win.”

“No, he can’t,” Jonah says. “That’s why we’re going to save your store. We’re going to make The Magpie so freaking profitable that your mom will never sell it to anyone.”

“How are we going to do that?” I say.

Jonah takes a breath. The phone shuffles, and I hear a page flip over in his notebook. “We’re going to come up with a plan.”