We Are Inevitable by Gayle Forman (read aloud txt) 📕

“No!” Ira says forcefully. “Aaron will find you the book.”

“How will I find her the book?” I yell. “We can’t find anything in here.”

“You would if you had an organizational system and a database,” Chad pipes in.

“Shut up, Chad!”

“Aaron!” Ira gasps. “What’s gotten into you? Talking to customers that way.”

“It’s all gravy, Mr. Stein. He had a long night.”

“I think I’ll go,” Bev says.

“Don’t!” Ira says. Then he adds, in a wavering voice, “Please.”

“Nurse lady. What did you say the book you were looking for was called?” Garry calls.

“When You Reach Me,” Bev replies. “And my name is Bev.”

“This the book, Bev?” Garry trots to the front of the store, holding, miraculously, a copy of When You Reach Me. “Uh-oh,” he says, flipping through the pages. “Looks like someone wrote in it.”

I grab the book, check the title page. “The author wrote in it.”

“Well, that was disrespectful.”

“It was signed by the author.”

“Signed?” Bev asks. “You have author visits? How wonderful!” She claps her hands together in delight. “Is there an events schedule? Or is it online?”

“They don’t have a website,” Richie says.

“We have a website!” I say. “It’s just down.”

“But we can get it back up,” Ira says. “After the renovation. So check then.”

“What renovation?” I cry.

“I will,” Bev says, paying for her book. “The bookstore in my old town had so many events. Author readings and a book club knitting circle. They called it Knit and Lit.” She plays with her glasses chain and smiles dreamily. “I miss that.”

“Knit and Lit,” Ike says. “Not a bad idea.”

After Bev leaves, I pull Ira to the side. “Will you tell me what’s going on?”

“I know. I’m sorry. I should’ve asked you. But after you left yesterday, Ike and the boys came back, and we got to talking about improvements.”

“Ira,” I object.

“I know! I know. But Ike says a lot of the material could be salvaged. And Joe Heath is retiring.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“He’s getting rid of his inventory for cost, below cost. A lot will be free.”

“Let’s assume that’s true, which I doubt it is—what about the labor?”

“Ike says we could pay them in coffee.”

“Coffee?”

“And creamer,” Ira adds. “Ike likes French vanilla and Garry’s a hazelnut man.”

“Ira.” I reach for his hands. They’re so thin and frail. He’s only fifty-two years old. When did he become so old? “This can’t be real. You see that, right?”

“But why can’t it?” Ira asks, pulling his hands back to gesticulate around the store. “We aren’t talking about major work. Just a few pieces of Sheetrock, a fresh coat of paint. To spiff up the place. Why couldn’t we do author events again? Knit and Lits, even? Why can’t this place get a second chance?”

Because there are no second chances after asteroids hit. Just ask the dinosaurs.

I need to tell him.

Why can’t I tell him?

I can’t tell him.

“What if it’s too late?” I ask.

“It’s not too late. Not if we work together. Remember that book I used to read to you? Stone Soup.”

Stone Soup is another one of those feel-good classics for kids that, like The Giving Tree, is built on a dangerous lie. Three hungry soldiers get the stingy townspeople to give them food by pretending to make a soup out of stones. In the book it all ends happily. But think about real life: What would happen when the townspeople realized they’d been Lucied? They’d run after those soldiers with pitchforks and torches.

Ira can’t see it but I do: He’s being fed rocks and water by Ike and the Lumberjacks. He’s being fed rocks and water by his own coward of a son.

“At least let them fix the shelf,” Ira implores. “It was the first one we bought for the store. Your mother picked it out.”

The look on Ira’s face, so open, so hopeful—it guts me. It’s like he believes that fixing a splintering shard of wood will change anything. But it won’t. It won’t bring the store back. It won’t bring them back.

“Ira,” I begin. “It’s not gonna work . . .”

I watch my father’s face crumple. There’s only so many times you can break someone’s heart. Unlike wood, it can’t be fixed.

And it’s one shelf. What harm can that do?

As it turns out, a lot.

The Scent of Desire

The olfactory bulb is a tiny bit of the brain deep in the amygdala that, according to a book I read a few years ago called The Scent of Desire, is why you can be walking down the street and smell something—perfume or drying pine needles or stale cigarette smoke—and bam! You’re transported to some other place in time associated with that smell. It’s not a memory. It’s more powerful than that. It’s as close as you can get to a time machine.

When I wake up the next morning to the aroma of coffee, I am transported to a different world, a different time: Mom is in the kitchen wearing Joseph, dancing around, using the robe’s strap as a microphone that she sings into. Sandy is up early, sipping his coffee, teasing Mom for playing the same song every damn day. “Don’t you ever want to switch it up?” Sandy asks. And Mom says, “No more than I want to switch you up.” Ira is downstairs in the shop, getting ready for the new day. And for a minute, all is well.

But then I hear Ike’s gravelly voice. And I realize Mom is not in the kitchen. Neither is Sandy. Just my olfactory bulb sending me to a world that no longer exists.

Even your own damn brain can Lucy you!

Downstairs, Ira is bustling around with Mom’s old Mr. Coffee, refilling the Lumberjacks’ mugs. Give him an apron and he could get a job at C.J.’s.

He’s chatting with Ike while Richie and Garry box books from the broken shelf.

“We should probably box a few of the others while we’re at it so we have more room to maneuver.” Ike points to the teetering