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

whistles and Richie and Garry unfurl the new sign. Mom designed it with Amanda, Garry’s girlfriend. It has Mom’s original lettering and Amanda’s illustration of birds flying out of a nest. She painted a similar design on the ceiling of the new space. I look at the sign, old and new, the same and different, like the store, like my family. Ira looks at me. I look at Ira. It’s time.

“I now declare Bluebird Books, Music, Coffee, and Community Center open,” he booms.

Everyone in town seems to have shown up for the grand opening: Ike’s friends from the mill. Bev and Beana’s newly assembled book group. The middle school principal and a bunch of teachers Angela knows. Lou’s collector pals, all drooling for first dibs. A bunch of small kids are tearing around. Even Penny Macklemore is here, sniffing things out.

“Want me to have her thrown out?” Chad asks. “I’m happy to be the bouncer.”

“Let her stay,” I say. “Everyone deserves a great good place. Even Penny.”

“Also, look how many people are here. Rub her nose in it a bit.”

“And that.”

The crowd is so thick I can hardly see through it, but when Hannah walks in, I feel it immediately even though I haven’t seen her since Thanksgiving. We’ve texted a few times and I hear about her from Jax, who’s always at our place these days. When we closed the old store, Ira decided to rent Joe’s house. There was space for me, but I think we both knew it was time for this bird to leave the nest. As I was starting to look for rentals, Chad showed me a listing of an apartment in a new elevator building, between here and Bellingham, totally accessible. “It’s nice, but I can’t afford that,” I’d told him. He’d grinned at me. “Yeah, but we can.”

Hannah approaches me, awkwardly. I’m not sure what the protocol is for greeting an ex who was really only your girlfriend for two nights, but like everything else in my life, I’m trying to figure it out as I go.

“You came?” I ask, settling for a half hug, half arm pat. My heart still does something funny but it’s not like it was before. It’s distant, like a fossil of something that was once alive.

“Damn straight I came,” she says. “A bookstore, café, record store, community space has to have music at its opening.” She looks around. “Is Jax here yet?”

“They’ve been here all day, helping.”

“Helping, you call it?” Hannah gestures to where Jax is canoodling with Chad.

“Anything that keeps Chad happy is helping.”

She chuckles. “We have a special set planned. All songs with book references. Elvis Costello, ‘Everyday I Write the Book.’ Talking Heads, ‘The Book I Read.’”

“Not ‘Clair de Lune.’”

She looks me straight in the face, and there it is, that echo again. Maybe she hears it too. “Not that.”

“I’m sorry, you know. For running to you when I was really running away.”

She smiles, nods. “It’s okay. How’ve things been?”

“I keep thinking about what you said at the meeting, about needing to destroy things in order to create something new. I’m somewhere in that process.”

“You were listening?” I can see this pleases her. “I’m glad. I heard you’re going to college.”

Jax must have told her, which means the two of them talk about me. Which pleases me. “I’m taking a few classes.”

“Anything interesting?”

“A literature course, now that I can read books again. And intro to paleontology.”

“Dinosaurs.” She laughs. “Some things never change.”

Maybe that’s true. Because no matter what Hannah and I are now, I will never stop believing we are inevitable. Not just her and me, but me and Chad. Chad and Jax. Ira and Ike. Maybe we are all inevitable.

By seven we run out of Angela’s crumb cake, by eight the muffins are history, and by nine the espresso’s history. “I bought five pounds of beans this morning,” Ike says, dismayed. “Thought that would get us through the weekend, but it didn’t last the day.”

Ira laughs. “If we get a boom of babies in nine months, we’ll know it’s because no one in town could fall asleep tonight.”

“We’ll expand our children’s section,” Chad says, gesturing to two little kids racing around the store like maniacs. “Get a train set. Stuffed chairs. Some other kid stuff. And more books about travel. Your mom was right about that one, which is why I left the travel and parenting books together.”

“I saw that,” I say.

“Maybe we should start the musical portion,” Ira says. “Since we’re out of coffee.”

“Good idea,” Bev says. “I’ll tell the musicians. Then we can announce the upcoming events. Because we also ran out of printed schedules.”

“The schedule’s all up on the website,” Chad says as a father chases down a pair of wayward kids, followed by a laughing woman. “Holy shit,” Chad whispers. “I think that’s the guy who used to be in Shooting Star.”

“What’s that?”

Chad rolls his eyes. “Only, like, a world-famous band. The lead singer married a famous cellist. I heard they bought a spread around here to turn into a studio. Dude, I think that is them and their kids. I gotta go tell Jax. Opening night and we got celebrities in the house!”

Ira sidles up next to me. “You okay with all this?” he asks, giving my hand a squeeze.

I nod. More than okay. “It’s the happy ending I couldn’t have imagined.”

He shakes his head. “I still don’t understand how we did this.”

“Sure you do,” I reply. “Stone Soup.”

“You’re right. Stone Soup. You’re the one who got the pot going.”

“That tracks. The story does start with an act of fraud.”

“Hmm, I never thought of it like that before.”

“I did,” I reply. “Being the resident con artist and all.”

Ira reaches out to hug me. “Thanks for being you,” he murmurs in my ear.

I hug him back. “Everyone else was taken.”

When Hannah and Jax take the stage, I follow Chad to a special spot we’ve set up where his view will