We Are Inevitable Gayle Forman (simple ebook reader TXT) 📖

circumstances have changed.”

“How so?”

“I think I might have been wrong. Maybe people here do want a bookstore.”

“Interesting.” She turns toward the kitchen. “Are you warming the pie?”

“Always do,” Cindy Jean replies.

“Not too hot, or the ice cream melts.” She turns back to me. “Don’t you love pie à la mode?”

“I guess so.”

“Me too!” She takes a bite of her pickle. “Oh, nice and dill. So you were saying people here want a bookstore?”

“I think so.”

“Well, you know me. I’m more of a TV person. I’m a big fan of that show Survivor. Have you ever seen it?”

“No.”

“Gerald used to love that show. We used to watch it together every Wednesday.”

“Uh-huh.” The pleasant rubbery feeling in my limbs starts to harden into unease.

“Cindy Jean,” Penny calls. “Are you getting me my Sanka?”

“Do I ever not?” Cindy Jean replies.

“Just making sure. Do you want any Sanka?” she asks me.

“No. I don’t want any Sanka.”

“Okay. Now where was I?”

“Survivor.”

“Right. So you see, on Survivor, when they don’t want you, they vote you off the island. This town voted you off the island years ago. A fresh coat of paint won’t change that.”

“It’s not just paint. It’s also . . . other things.” I scramble to remember how Chad put it. “We’d diversify our revenue streams.”

Cindy Jean drops off the pie and Sanka. “Now look what you did,” Penny scolds. “The ice cream’s already a puddle.”

“’Cause the pie’s hot. You wanted it heated,” Cindy Jean says.

“Warmed, not piping.” Penny sighs as she takes a forkful of the hot, melty pie. She chews, swallows, and says, “So what’s in it for me?”

“For you?”

“If I let you out of the deal, what’s in it for me?”

“I dunno. You’d be doing the right thing. A mitzvah.”

“A whatzvah?”

“A good deed.”

“Oh, you sound like Gerald, God rest his soul. He didn’t understand business at all. And I didn’t either until after he passed, without a dollar in the bank. And then, oh you’ll like this, I read a book.”

“A book?”

“Yes! It changed my life.” She forks a piece of pie and holds it up to my face. “Would you like a bite?”

“No, thanks.”

“Oh, go on.” She holds the fork there until I have no choice but to accept. The filling is cherry, but all I taste is strawberries.

“The book was called The Art of the Deal and it taught me how in business, nothing is personal. There are no good deeds. So I’d want to know what’s my incentive to let you back out of this deal, especially given I’ve already spent a fair amount of energy, not to mention money.”

“How much?”

“Oh, about three thousand dollars in legal bills and bank fees.”

I gulp. “What if I pay that back?”

“Do you have three thousand dollars lying around?”

We both know I don’t. But I could probably scrounge it up. Ask Chad for a loan. Maybe Mom. Maybe get a credit card of my own. “I can figure it out.”

“It’s a start, but that just gets me back to even.” She takes a loud slurp of her Sanka. “But say you were to buy out my option . . .” She taps her bubblegum-pink nails against the table. “With an additional ten thousand dollars, I might reconsider.”

“Ten thousand dollars?”

“Well, thirteen, total. By December first.”

“That’s in two weeks.”

“December first is the day we agreed to close by.”

“I’ll just pull out of the deal. I can do that.”

“You most certainly can. Of course, you’ll still have to reimburse my expenses, which will most certainly grow. And pay a penalty. It’s all in the contract.”

“It is?”

“If you’d had a lawyer read yours, you’d know all this.”

“You didn’t say anything about lawyers! It was just you and me signing the contract.”

“Who do you think executed the contract? My lawyer. You should always have a lawyer read your terms. Even though lawyers can be very expensive. Though not thirteen-thousand-dollars expensive. Sometimes you can be penny-wise but pound-foolish. Penny-wise. Ha!” She laughs at her own joke before stabbing another piece of pie.

I feel sick. “I can’t believe you’re holding my store hostage for thirteen grand.”

“Oh, pish. I’m just looking to leverage my assets. You see, winners take advantage of opportunities when they present themselves.” She scrapes up the last bits of cherry from the plate, the knife sending a nail-against-chalkboard shudder through me. “Though I suspect that’s one lesson you already know.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Cindy Jean, check,” she calls before turning back to me. “Well, for one, you sold the building to me without consulting your father. Now, I don’t pretend to know the ins and outs of your relationship, but I suspect you did that because you wanted to sell the store and you knew he didn’t. Which leads me to believe you have your own agenda.”

“But . . .” I sputter.

“Oh, I’m not judging you. If anything, I admire it. Though for the life of me I’m not sure why you let Ike and those gentlemen do any work, knowing it is for naught. That I don’t understand.”

“I’m trying to help my father.”

“Everyone always says they’re trying to help someone.” She dabs her lips with the napkin, which between the burger and pie now looks like a crime scene. “But really, Aaron, if we’re honest, we’re all just trying to help ourselves.”

Goldmine Record Album Price Guide

I get back to the store that afternoon to find Ira waiting for me, his slicker on.

“I have to talk to you,” I tell him. “Now.”

“I’m meeting Bev for support group.” He smiles. “My first one.”

“This is important.”

“So’s this,” he replies. “We can’t have me fainting all over town, now can we?”

“But . . .”

“It’ll keep.”

When Ira’s not back by six, I’m now on the verge of a panic attack myself. This morning I woke up feeling hopeful. I thought I’d found a way to make it work. Make Ira happy. And Chad. And the Lumberjacks.

I should’ve known better.

I lock up the store and go upstairs to make some pasta for dinner. I’m so distracted and distraught that