Page 10 of Strictly Pretend

Rita runs the dress shop next door. Mark is a therapist. He’s the newest of the tenants here.

“Why didn’t you say something?” I ask him, frowning.

He shrugs. “Didn’t want to worry you. You have enough to think about.”

“They can’t make us leave,” I tell him. “We have a controlled lease.” I investigated it when the new company bought the building. Unlike Mark and Rita, who are relative newcomers, when Granddad and Grandma signed their rental agreement back in the early seventies, they were guaranteed their unit for life. All they had to do is pay the rent on time.

“I guess that’s why they’re offering money,” he says. “They’ve offered the same amount to Rita and Mark.”

“They don’t have to pay Rita and Mark. They can just evict them.”

“Maybe they’re ethical landlords. I don’t know.” He puts his spoon back in the oatmeal. “Seriously, what’s wrong with apple danishes?”

“Nothing. Once in a while.” I catch his eye. “I just like having you around, that’s all.

For a moment we sit in silence. I look at the thousands of books stacked up and lining the shelves. Some of them are so dusty you can barely read the titles. Most of them have been here since I was a little girl. I can remember my mom bringing me here when we were visiting from abroad. My dad was never there. He was always working, always traveling. And later my mom traveled with him while I boarded at school.

But when I was little, this shop felt magical. Like a version of Olivanders. My grandma would take me to the children’s section and let me pick out a book. I’d sit in the corner and read while she and mom had quiet discussions, usually about my dad.

I remember falling in love with a copy ofGrimm’s Fairy Tales. It was half-falling apart, covered in dust, but the pictures inside were magical. When we left that day, my mom pulling at my hand because we had a flight to catch and we were already running late, Grandma had insisted I take the book with me.

“But it’s worth a lot,” my mom had protested. “She’s a little girl.”

“I’m a big believer in books finding the owner they want,” my grandma said, smiling at me. “Take it.”

I sigh at the memory. Grandma was always generous. Not just with books but with love.

“I’m not planning on going anywhere, Emma,” Granddad tells me.

And now I feel like the thirteen-year-old girl who turned up here carrying a suitcase, still in the uniform of jumper, shirt, and tie that my school – the same one that had thrown me out for non-payment – insisted we wore.

But I’m not that girl anymore. It’s my turn to take care of him.

“I like it here,” he says. “I’m planning on running this place for a long time still.”

“Me too,” I admit.

We both need this place. Granddad, because it was the shop he built from nothing with my Grandma. And me because I don’t know what else to do with my life. I love books, I love being here. I’m single and determined to keep it that way after my breakup with Will.

For the first time in months, I feel myself getting fired up again. “I’ll send them a letter,” I tell him. “Let them know we’re not interested in being paid off.”

Grandpa’s lips twitch. “Sometimes you remind me so much of your grandma. Same red hair, same fiery temperament. I remember us being at a protest in San Francisco.” He runs his finger over his gray-stubbled jaw. “I can’t even recall what we were protesting against. Whatever it was, she was so fired up. When the cops tried to move us on she refused to go.”

“What happened?” I ask him, because I breathe in his memories like I breathe in oxygen.

“She was arrested. Ended up spending the night in jail. When I went to bail her out the next morning she was reciting poetry to all the cops in the station. They were lapping it up.”

We share a smile, and then the bell above the door rings and one of Granddad’s friend’s walks in. He throws the rest of his oatmeal into the trash can, looking sheepish, then goes over to talk to him, leaving me to my coffee and laptop.

I open it to compose a reply to Salinger Estates’ letter. I’m going to tell them to shove their offer where the sun doesn’t shine.

If they want a fight, I’ll give it to them. My grandmother’s blood flows through my veins, after all.

BROOKS

“Mr. Salinger?” Luke, my assistant says, opening the door to my office. “Mr. Salinger is here to see you.”

“Which one?” I ask him. Because in my family there are a lot of Mr. Salingers. Six of them who regularly call or stride into the office to see me because apparently they don’t realize I’m trying to get some damn work done.

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