Nora opened her mouth to tell Jed to take care, but he was already gone.
“Sell a billion books,” Nora repeated. After last night, there was nothing she’d rather do.
*
She entered Miracle Books to find that Sheldon had already brewed coffee, arranged the book pockets, and straightened the shelves. He was cleaning the reading chairs with the hand vac when she tapped him on the elbow.
“Any signs of vandalism?” she asked when he put down the vacuum.
Ignoring her question, Sheldon enfolded her in his arms. “I won’t ask why you’re here when you could have slept in because I already know the answer. You needed to be among friends. Jane Austen, JRR Tolkien, and Sheldon Silverstein Vega.”
Sheldon’s bear hugs were magical. When Nora laid her cheek on his shoulder, she smelled peppermint and wool. With Sheldon’s arms around her, she felt safe. For someone who’d never been much of a hugger, Nora would accept one from Sheldon any day of the week.
When he released her, he wasn’t smiling. “Before you believe that your troubles went away just because I squeezed you like Charmin, you’d better take a look in the stockroom.”
The devils! Nora pictured Celeste’s statue and Marie’s sign as she hurried to the stockroom. When she saw a pumpkin sitting on the mailing counter, she moaned in relief.
Whoever transformed the pumpkin into a devil hadn’t put much effort into it. They’d used black marker to draw a malicious face and pointy beard on the gourd’s surface. After poking a pair of devil horns on either side of the pumpkin’s stem, they’d left it for Nora to find.
“Where was it?” she asked Sheldon.
“In the front planter. The marigolds are totally flattened.”
Nora studied the pumpkin. “I can use this.”
“You’re going to put it back out there?”
Nora grabbed a can of black spray paint from the supply shelf. “After I make some improvements.”
All the parking spots on Main Street were taken by the time Nora put the last of the food-themed paperbacks on the sidewalk table. The table wouldn’t be staffed, but Nora found that the presence of other people tended to discourage shoplifters. She also expected shoppers to stream in and out of Miracle Books all day long, so she decided to use the planter to prop the front door open. No one entering the bookstore could miss her newly improved pumpkin.
After covering the pumpkin with two coats of black spray paint, Nora had written a quote across the glossy surface with a white paint pen.
When she carried the finished product to Sheldon, he put on his glasses and read the text out loud, “‘You don’t need a silver fork to eat good food.’ ” He looked at Nora. “Who said that?”
“Chef Paul Prudhomme. He’s the jolly bearded guy on the Magic Seasoning labels. We have some of his cookbooks on the display table. Louisiana Kitchen is a classic. I thought it was a good quote for a farm-to-table celebration.”
Apparently, her customers agreed. Most people smiled after reading the quote and many took photos of the pumpkin.
A woman wearing a T-shirt that said I LIKE MY COWS AND MAYBE 3 PEOPLE asked Nora if she could leave a stack of paperbacks at the checkout counter.
“I want to get more from that sidewalk,” she said. “My town doesn’t have a bookstore or a library, so this is my chance to stock up. Cool pumpkin, by the way.”
Nora pulled Louisiana Kitchen from the table and slid it into an acrylic stand by the cash register where everyone could see it. She touched its cover with the tenderness of a mother caressing her child’s cheek.
Once again, a book had come to Nora’s rescue. The person who’d made the devil pumpkin had wanted to insult or scare her. However, thanks to a short but charming quote by a chef and cookbook author, the pumpkin that was meant to hurt her was generating sales and social media posts. It was setting a positive tone for everyone entering the shop. Nora wasn’t hurt or scared. She was delighted.
Books had saved her the last time she’d been scared too. After someone had thrown a brick through her front window, Sheldon had come up with the brilliant idea to turn the shattered window into a banned books display.
That display became the talk of the town, and readers tagged Miracle Books in social media posts for weeks. Not only had the shop’s sales soared, but people across the state also started having conversations about banned books.
Today, everyone was talking about food. Growing it, harvesting it, selling it, preparing it, and eating it. Aromas from the street vendors drifted into the shop, and when a man walked in carrying a basket of Fuji apples, Nora’s stomach grumbled. She was thrilled by the line of customers waiting to be checked out, but it didn’t look like she’d be able to grab lunch anytime soon.