The Lost and Found Bookshop

She jumped into her little hybrid hatchback and drove toward Tess’s place. On the way, she stopped to grab a jar of honey from a roadside stand. Jamie Westfall, the owner, was a beekeeper who had moved to the area a few years back, alone and pregnant. She wasn’t alone anymore, though. She now had a little boy named Ollie.

As Natalie selected a pint jar with its SAVE THE BEES label and stuck five dollars in the honor box, Ollie came outside. “Hiya, Miss Natalie,” he said.

“Hi, yourself. What’s up?”

Elaborate shrug. He was bashful in the most adorable way. “S’posed to be reading to my mom for homework.”

“How’s that going for you?”

Another shrug. His mother came out on the porch, a wisp of a girl in overalls and an embroidered peasant top. “He’s a good reader, but he’s super picky. He did love the last one you gave us—One Family.”

“Oh good, I’m glad you liked it. Wish that book had been around when I was your age, Ollie. Our family was just me and my mom and my grandpa, and it would have made me happy to read about all the different kinds of families. Not just families that had a mom, dad, kids, dog.” She counted them off on her fingers.

He tugged at his lower lip. “I like reading about dogs.”

“I’ll bring you a new book next time. There’s a good one called Smells Like Dog. Did I ever tell you my mom has a bookstore? I used to work there, and it gave me a superpower—picking out just the right book for just the right kid.”

“How come you don’t work there anymore?” asked Ollie.

“After the day I had, I’m asking myself that question,” Natalie admitted. “I’m heading over to visit Tess for some tea and sympathy.”

“I don’t like tea,” Ollie said. “What’s sympathy taste like?”

Natalie laughed and ruffled his hair, then got back in the car. “Like a melted marshmallow with chocolate sauce.”

“Maybe we’ll have that for dessert tonight,” Jamie said. They stood together on the porch and waved goodbye.

As she regarded Jamie and her child, Natalie couldn’t help but see how happy they were together. Every once in a while, she thought about kids and felt a tug of yearning. All in good time, she told herself.

She and Rick had once talked about kids. Correction: Rick had talked about kids. She’d listened. And doubted. They hadn’t brought it up again.

En route to Tess’s, other doubts crept in. Was Tess her friend, or had she taken Natalie in like a stray cat? After what she’d overheard at work, Natalie wasn’t so sure anymore. She wasn’t sure of anything.

Turning at the signs for Rossi Vineyards and Angel Creek Winery, she followed the long gravel lane. Like Natalie, Tess Delaney Rossi had been raised by a single mother and had been living in San Francisco before moving to Archangel. Yet unlike Natalie, Tess had settled in the small town to marry, following her heart, not a career.

Natalie parked in front of the rustic farmhouse where Tess lived with her husband, kids, stepkids, and two rescued dogs—an aging, pointy-nosed Italian greyhound and a hulking mutt that was part akita and part Wookiee, as far as anyone knew. The dogs were lolling deliberately in the middle of the walkway between the driveway and house.

Tess came out to greet her. She wore her red hair pulled back in a scarf and a grape-stained work apron tied over her clothes.

“Hey, Nat,” she called. “Thought you’d like to join us for happy hour.”

“Sounds heavenly. Thanks.”

“Dominic and the kids are all out back. Big harvest day for our little vineyard.” With a gesture, Tess led the way to a sunny spot beside a large shed. The harvest team unloaded the crates of just-picked grapes and dumped them on the long, stainless steel sorting table. At one end, the table vibrated, eliminating unripe or rotten grapes. At the opposite end, the grapes moved along a conveyor for destemming.

The family gathered around, sorting the grapes by hand, laughing and talking as the juice stained everything it touched.

She took in the sight of kids and dogs running around; Tess’s whistling husband; the older children helping Dominic with practiced skill. It all seemed so normal, a family having fun just being together.

“Hey, everybody,” she said.

“Hey, yourself,” said Dominic. “Welcome to Friday night at Angel Creek.”

Dominic Rossi was the type of husband who gave husbands a good name. The type of guy for whom the expression tall, dark, and handsome had been coined. The type of guy who exuded humor and heart along with a can-do attitude. He was the former president of the Bank of Archangel, but his passion was making wine.

And babies with his pretty wife, apparently. Natalie eyed Tess’s apron. Viewed from the side, the bump was impossible to miss. “Are you pregnant again?” she asked in a low voice.

Tess answered with a redhead’s classic blush and a grin of delight.

“She promised me a sister,” said Trini. Dominic’s daughter, now in high school, threw a glance at her brother Antonio, who had stepped away from the table to amuse Tess’s two sons by chasing them around with his grape-colored hands. The little boys, known as Thing One and Thing Two, responded with squeals of glee.

“That’s great,” Natalie said. “Congrats, you guys.”

The Rossis made the whole blended-family thing look easy. An illusion, Tess had assured her. Natalie knew it had been challenging to put together Dominic’s kids by his first marriage and the two he and Tess had had together. But there was no denying that in moments like this, they looked happy and secure. It was impossible to miss the undercurrent of passion Dominic and Tess shared.

“People say the third time’s the charm,” Trini pointed out. “Why do they say that?”

“Good question,” Natalie commented. “And does it imply the first two times are not charmed? Because when I look at those two little guys, I see something pretty special.”

As she spoke, Thing One plopped a fistful of discarded grape pulp on his brother’s head. The younger one howled with outrage.

Dominic’s sister, Gina, wiped her hands. “I got this, Tess.”

“Thanks.” Tess settled herself on a stool and looked at Natalie. “So … Where’s Rick tonight?”

“Not sure. He had a test flight late this afternoon.”

“You look like you had a tough day,” Tess observed.

Natalie didn’t bother denying it. “So I got this giant promotion at work …”

“Hey, that’s great,” said Tess. Something must have flickered in Natalie’s face, because she added, “Isn’t it?”

“It all seemed like a fine thing. The company had a little party, even, because I put together a big deal for them. My mom was supposed to come up from the city, but she never showed. Which is probably a good thing, because it turns out the whole promotion was a ruse to isolate me so I don’t have to work with anyone.”

“What?” Tess’s hands flew expertly through the grapes. “I don’t get it.”

Natalie sighed, staring at the ground. “I’m a toxic boss.”

“No way. You’re one of my favorite people.”

“You don’t have to work with me. Apparently I’m a nightmare. Micromanaging, control freak, see-you-next-Tuesday. According to the conversation I overheard in the restroom, I’ve checked all the boxes.”

“Oh, Natalie. That doesn’t sound like you at all. For what it’s worth, I’m guessing the trouble is with your coworkers, not with you. Someone who said what they said is objectively awful. I’m sorry you heard that, and I want you to know it’s not true.”

“Thanks,” Natalie said. “You’re probably right, but it was hard to hear. To tell you the truth, I’m kind of glad they moved me to a department where my only coworker is a flat-screen monitor.” She sighed. “My coworkers can’t stand me.”

“Well, we love you here at Angel Creek Winery, so roll up your sleeves and help out.” Tess tossed her a rubber apron.

“Putting me to work?”

“This time of year, everybody works.”

“I’m toxic, remember?” She gamely tied on the apron.

“Say goodbye to your manicure,” Tess warned. “The next one is on me.”

Natalie always had a flawless manicure. It was something she considered necessary to look professional at work. For all the good that did her. She dove into the destemming with both hands, turning her fingers the deep rich color of old-vine zinfandel.

They worked side by side for a while. The repetitive task and the chatter of Tess’s family helped a little. “What if they’re right?” Natalie mused aloud. “My work peeps, I mean. What if they’re right and I’m toxic, and no one can stand me?”

Tess didn’t say anything right away, but Natalie felt her hard, studying gaze. “What?” she asked finally.

“You need a drink.” Tess caught Dominic’s eye. “We’re taking a break,” she said, gesturing Natalie over to a stationary tub with a hose.

“Slacker,” said her husband with a grin.

Tess stuck out her tongue at him and turned away. “I’m a toxic boss, too, sometimes. They just don’t dare say anything.”

After they washed up, Tess poured a glass of zinfandel from a cask labeled Old Vine—Creek Slope. For herself, she opened a frosty bottle of Topo Chico, and they sat down on the terrace adjacent to the house. Shaded by a pergola, the stone-paved area was littered with kids’ toys and offered a commanding view of the vineyard. Beyond that lay the neighboring apple orchard, where Tess’s sister lived and ran a wine-country cooking school.

“Listen,” said Tess. “I used to be like you. I used to be you. I was a life-support system for a job, mad at the world without really knowing why.”

“What?” Natalie frowned, then looked around at the house—which literally had a white picket fence—and the kids and dogs. “No way.”

“Way. Do you know, I once ended up in the ER with a panic attack?”

“Seriously? Oh, Tess. I never knew that about you. I’m sorry.”

“Thanks. Honestly, I was a hot mess. Thought I was having a heart attack.” She was quiet for a few minutes. Then she said, “It seems like long ago—a different life, back when I was single and living in the city, before all this happened.” She gestured to encompass the vineyards, the husband and family. “I was obsessed with my career. A career I was so, so good at.”

She used to work as a provenance expert for a high-end antiquities auction house—that much Natalie knew. In fact, Tess had helped Natalie’s mother in valuing some of the rare books at Lost and Found. “I’m pretty sure I drove people batty,” Tess admitted. “I know for sure I drove myself batty.”

“I can’t even picture that.”

“It happened. I survived. And I’m not trying to scare you. I’m not saying you’re dealing with anything like anxiety, but for me, lying in the ER, convinced I was dying, was a wake-up call.”

“I’m woke. Too woke, according to people at work.” She told Tess about Mandy’s habit of making mistakes, and her own constant vigilance and extra work to correct them.

“Let me get this straight,” said Tess. “This woman screws up on a daily basis, and you cover up for her. Not that you owe her anything, but why would you help her out all the time?”

“Because I’m her supervisor. And because I can.”

“Well, here’s a question for you: What would happen if you stopped covering for Mandy and let her fail? What then?”

“I’ve asked myself that many times,” Natalie admitted. “It would suck for the whole company. If I hadn’t fixed things just this afternoon, we would have lost the account and the firm’s reputation would suffer. So would mine, since I’m her supervisor. Eventually, she’d get fired. And she does need her job. She’s single, raising a couple of young kids.”

“And how is that your responsibility?” Tess asked.

“Because I—” Natalie paused. “It’s not.”

“So …?”

Natalie swirled the wine in her glass. Wine was such a beautiful thing, complex and rich and delicious. The whole company she worked for had been founded solely on the basis of this fine substance, bringing comfort and joy to those who knew how to savor it.

Yet for Natalie, there was no joy. Just a job. A steady, lucrative job with benefits. A pension plan. Everything her mom had done without all her life. “Not bailing Mandy out when I know exactly how to do it seems manipulative. I don’t want to be the agent of her downfall.”

“I get that, and I get where you’re coming from. We were both raised by single moms. Not a dad in sight. Did our moms fall down?”

Natalie thought about her mother, who had somehow managed to deal with financial struggles without collapsing utterly. Tess and her half sister, Isabel, had grown up without their father, who had gone missing before they were born.

Natalie, on the other hand, knew exactly where her father was. Though Blythe was fond of saying that life had given her everything she wanted, Natalie sometimes wondered if that was really true. Blythe was a bundle of contradictions. She would take any risk in business, but never with her heart.

“If you keep rescuing your coworker,” Tess went on, “she’ll never figure things out on her own. You’d be surprised by how much you can learn from failure.”

“It’s the gift that keeps on giving,” Natalie remarked.

“See, my point is, you’re not doing her any favors by constantly mopping up behind her. Saving a person takes away her power to learn and move forward.”

“How’d you get so smart about these things?” Natalie asked. “Pregnancy hormones?”

“Right.” Tess chuckled.

Natalie reminded herself to savor the deep, rich wine and the glorious colors of the gathering sunset. She had a good life. A good job. A good friend. “I have to say, you’re better than therapy. It’s been a crappy day. Not just work and my mom being a no-show.” She sighed again. “I don’t think Rick and I are going to make it.”

“You and Rick? You seem so great together. What happened?” asked Tess.

“Well, that’s part of the problem. Nothing really happened. Nothing at all. He’s a perfectly nice guy and—outside of work, I suppose—I’m a perfectly nice person. We’re compatible, but … I’m not sure compatible is enough. We’ve been together for almost a year, and things haven’t really progressed.”

“Oh, man. Do you want them to progress?”

Natalie gazed out at the sweeping landscape, vineyards and orchards, endless bounty. Rick sometimes took her flying to enjoy the scenery, and she loved it. She wanted to be able to say she loved him. “I want to be crazy about him. I should be crazy about him. He’s great-looking. Successful. Good enough in bed. Has a nice family down in Petaluma.”

“And yet …”

“Exactly. There’s a yet.” She studied the horizon, a gently undulating sine wave where the hills met the sky. “I wish there weren’t. I wish I could feel all in.” It was true. She craved some heady mixture of passion and certainty and excitement that didn’t feel threatening or risky.

Maybe that was the point, though. Maybe the very nature of excitement was risk.

In that case, she could do without the excitement. “Mom says I’m too closed off to intimacy,” she confessed. “She would know, of course. She’s been single all her life. And she claims she’s happy. So why does she think I need someone? Can’t I be happy too?”

“Of course you can. Your mom sounds like mine—a bundle of contradictions. Keeps things interesting. Ah, Nat. I’m sorry your mom couldn’t be bothered to show up, and I’m sorry you and Rick are at a low point. But your promotion is awesome and well deserved.” She paused. “You’re my friend and I love you so this is coming from a place of love. Do you think maybe you’re cranky because of the work?”

“Well, duh,” Natalie replied. “The work is … ah, just work. But I’m excellent at it. Much as I wish I could find something both steady and inspiring, I don’t think that exists for me.”

“Somewhere along the way, you’ve convinced yourself that feeling excitement is risky.”

“Growing up in a bookstore can do that to a person. I won’t deny it was fun—surrounded by all those books, the customers coming and going, the shipments of new titles every month—that was the fun part. But at some point, I realized Mom was drowning in debt, month in and month out.”

“And that scared you into going for a steady career with no surprises.”

Natalie nodded. “I can’t be fearless like my mom. Maybe she likes the roller coaster. She doesn’t mind being behind on the bills, because she’s always sure she’ll have a better day.”

The thought of living like that caused Natalie’s stomach to knot. “The only time I’ve seen her rattled is when my grandfather fell and broke his hip. Now he’s having something Mom calls ‘cognitive issues.’ I really wanted to see her tonight to hear more about that. Poor Grandy. Maybe that’s why Mom couldn’t come—something with Grandy.” She hugged herself, picturing the lovely man who had been the father she’d lacked, the nanny looking after her, the homework mentor and tutor, the adored playmate of her childhood.

“I had that falling grandfather,” said Tess.

“Old Magnus?” Natalie had met the elderly gentleman a time or two. Like Grandy, he was a fine old man. He had that soft-spoken affection that radiated from the best sort of grandfathers. “He had a fall?”

“Not recently. He fell off a ladder in the apple orchard years ago. It was a huge scare, but he got better.”

“I hope I can say the same about Grandy. Ever since he broke his hip, he hasn’t been the same. Maybe I’ll head down to the city tomorrow and pay him a visit.”

“I bet he’d love to see you.”

Natalie got up and carried their glasses to the patio bar. “And on that cheery note, I’ll let you get back to your family. I need to head home and spend some time figuring out what to do about the people who hate me.”

“Stop it.”

“I’ll try, Tess. I won’t let it get to me.”

As she drove back to town, Natalie repeated the words like a mantra. Don’t let it get to you.

The mantra didn’t work, so she switched on the car radio and sang along with Eddie Vedder while the sunset panorama of the countryside swished past. The song “Wishlist” had her compiling her own list of wishes. A different job. A different attitude. A different life.

“More on our breaking news story …” An announcer interrupted the next song.

Annoyed, she reached over to switch the station but stopped when she heard “Aviation Innovations.” That was Rick’s company.

“The FAA is investigating a crash of a small plane registered to Aviation Innovations in Lake Loma this afternoon,” the announcer said. “Both the pilot and passenger were apparently killed on impact. The names of the deceased are being withheld pending notification of the families.”

Natalie listened with gathering dread and a guilty sense of relief. It was Rick’s company, but the victim could not have been Rick. He was flying solo today, a test flight. She pulled off to the shoulder of the road and called him. No answer. Then she sent a quick text message to him. I just heard about the crash. I’m sorry. Anyone you knew?

There was no reply, so she continued driving. It had to be someone he knew. It was a small company, after all. She might even know the victim. She and Rick had socialized with some of the other pilots, going on wine-tasting flights and scenic tours. She found herself wondering if life with Rick was really so bad. He was steady. Predictable. Reliable. Everything she valued.

On impulse, she turned off the main road and drove to the Aviation Innovations headquarters. The parking lot was jammed with official vehicles and people rushing around. She looked for Rick in the crowd—a squeaky clean–cut all-American guy with big shoulders, a clipped haircut, and a nice smile.

She didn’t spot him amid the personnel swarming the main building and the hangars. Then she spied Miriam, his assistant, sitting on the front steps, talking on her phone.

Miriam looked up and saw Natalie. “I’ll call you back,” she said into her phone.

“Hey, I just heard,” Natalie said. “I came to see if Rick got back yet.”

Miriam took hold of the stair rail and drew herself up. “Natalie …” The woman’s face was as white as the puffy clouds sailing over the Sonoma hills.

Natalie stopped in her tracks. Dread dawned in stages—confusion and disbelief, then flat-out denial. “It wasn’t Rick,” she said. Her voice sounded harsh, almost mean. Probably how she sounded at work, come to think of it.

“Oh, Natalie. It’s terrible. Horrible. I’m so sorry. I can’t even …” Miriam reached for her hand. “Come sit.”

Natalie flinched and snatched her hand away. “I don’t need to sit. I need … I … I …” She had no idea what she needed in this surreal, unbearable moment. She took a gulp of air. “He said he was going to be gone for the day. Yeah. Said he wouldn’t make it to my party at work. He was on a test flight. Oh God, did he crash during the test? Did … did—”

“It … It wasn’t a test flight.”

“Then he’s okay?” Natalie was desperate for that to be true.

Panic glinted in Miriam’s eyes. She seemed to have trouble meeting Natalie’s gaze. Then she took a deep breath. “He, um … He had a passenger.”

“I heard that on the news, yes.” Natalie’s mind raced. Oh God. Rick.

His parents lived in Petaluma. He had a sister there, too. Natalie had met her just a few weeks back—Rita? No, Rhonda. “Should I go see his folks?” she asked Miriam. “Is someone with them now?” Her heart hammered furiously. Her hands were clammy, her lungs aching for air.

Rick was gone. How could he be gone? They had dinner plans tomorrow night at the French Laundry in Yountville. She’d been agonizing over the talk they needed to have about the fact that the relationship didn’t seem to be working. She had been wondering which one of them would step up and end things.

How could he be gone?

“Natalie, I really need you to sit.” Miriam put a hand on her shoulder and steered her to the blond limestone steps in front of the low, modern building. Her touch was firm, yet Natalie could feel her hands shaking.

“Yes, okay. I’m … I guess everybody’s in shock …” She noticed a few others casting glances her way, whispering.

“He had a passenger,” Miriam said again. “She died, too.”

“Oh. Well, that’s terrible.” Her mind was racing. Running away from something too awful to grasp. She. Another woman? Was Rick cheating?

Not anymore, she thought. And then hated herself for thinking it.

Miriam turned to her. Held both her hands in a firm grip. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know how to … oh God. The other passenger was your mother.”

Time stopped. Everything stopped—breath, heartbeat, the turning of the Earth, the wind through the trees, the swarm of approaching personnel. Natalie forced herself to listen to Miriam’s explanation, struggled to take in the words while at the same time feeling everything inside her rise up in furious denial. This couldn’t be happening, but as more people drew around her, she felt the devastating electric shock of certainty.

She stared at the woman who had just said her mother was dead, but she really couldn’t see anything through the blindness of shock. And then it came, a pain so excruciating that she was flash frozen in white numbness, shot through the heart.

3

Grandy.” Natalie spoke her grandfather’s name softly, with as much gentleness as she could muster. “It’s time to go.”

As she stepped through the door, Andrew Harper rose from his favorite wingback chair in his tiny apartment at the back of the bookstore. He could no longer navigate the stairs in the old building and had moved to the new space from the upstairs apartment where he’d lived nearly all his life. The small ground-floor studio had been reclaimed from a storage room. The hurried arrangement wasn’t ideal, but it spared her grandfather from having to leave his lifelong home. Though the space was cramped, there was a picture window with a view of the tiny rear garden, now bright with the last of the season’s hollyhocks and roses.