My name is Wanda, and on the day my sister decided to remind me exactly where I belonged, it was raining in that soft, persistent Portland way that feels less like weather and more like judgment.

The city was a blur of wet asphalt and smeared taillights when I pulled up in front of Elmeander. Even the valet looked like he’d been cut out of a glossy magazine—slick hair, black suit, an expression that managed to be both polite and bored. He opened the door of my old Honda Civic with a smooth, practiced motion that made the age and dull paint of my car stand out even more.

“Ma’am,” he said, and it sounded like an apology.

I stepped out carefully, heels already protesting the slick sidewalk. I’d bought the shoes for this event, just like I’d bought the navy wrap dress, just like I’d spent forty minutes curled in front of my mirror trying to coax my hair into something that said I fit. I’d even put on pearl earrings I rarely wore because every time I caught a glimpse of myself, I could hear my mother’s voice in my head.

Presentation, Wanda. Standards.

The rain tapped lightly on my shoulders as he handed me the ticket. Across the street, O’Sullivan’s Pub hunched under the gray sky, brick stained darker by the weather, its green sign washed out and modest. Someone had propped the door open, and a haze of warm light and the faintest scent of grilled onions drifted across the street. It looked like the kind of place where people laughed too loudly and kept their coats on and didn’t bother with dessert forks.

Elmeander was the opposite.

Inside, the restaurant glowed like it was trying to outshine the rain. Crystal chandeliers spilled light over tables dressed in white linen. Everything shimmered—glass, silver, carefully arranged flower centerpieces that probably cost more than a month of my utilities. A wall of floor-to-ceiling windows framed the wet downtown streets, turning the city into scenery.

For a brief second, standing in the doorway with water still clinging to my hair, I let myself imagine that I belonged to this world as much as my sister did.

Rebecca’s baby shower.

I tightened my grip on the gift bag in my hands. Inside was a hand-embroidered baby blanket, done by a local artist who came into my bookstore every Thursday afternoon. Tiny constellations stitched in pale yellow on soft blue cotton. When I asked her to make it, she’d smiled at me like I’d requested something sacred.

“For someone you love?” she’d asked.

“Yes,” I’d answered, and I thought I meant it.

Now, the hostess took my name with professional warmth, checked a list on a sleek tablet, and gestured toward a private room off to the right.

I heard my sister before I saw her.

Laughter, that specific kind of bright, polished sound that comes from women who know they’re being watched. The private room was a magazine spread brought to life—pink and gold balloons, a long table lined with More Important Women, white plates circled with gold rims, name cards at every place setting, each one standing upright like a little proclamation.

Rebecca stood near the head of the table, one hand on her rounded belly, the other cradling a glass of sparkling something in a crystal flute. She wore a pale silk maternity dress that draped over her like a breath, her hair brushed into soft waves that probably had a name on a salon board somewhere. Her makeup was immaculate. She looked like she’d been curated.

My mother hovered beside her, in a tailored jacket and a string of pearls that had seen more charity galas than I could count. Her lipstick was precise and unforgiving.

I set my shoulders back and stepped inside.

“Wanda,” my mother said when she saw me, lips curving in a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “You’re late.”

I wasn’t. I’d checked the time twice before walking in. But I swallowed the correction and smoothed my dress instead.

“Traffic,” I lied, because it was easier than reminding her that she’d never once trusted my version of reality over her own.

Rebecca turned, and for a heartbeat her expression was bare—surprise, then something like irritation—before she smoothed it into something soft.

“Oh,” she said, as if she’d just noticed a stranger. “You came.”

“I did.” I held out the gift bag. “For you. For the baby.”

She took it with two fingers, barely glancing at the plain brown paper and twine bow.

“Thank you,” she said. “Just put it on the table.”

Not: what is it? Not: oh, you shouldn’t have. Just a quick, dismissive flick of her eyes to the growing pile of pale pink tissue paper and glossy, branded boxes. My hand tightened around the handle for half a second before I let it go, setting the bag at the far edge of the table, away from the others, like it didn’t quite qualify.

I told myself I was imagining it. That I was being sensitive. That I was tired.

I listened to the chatter for a moment—baby names, nursery colors, private school waitlists already being discussed for a child not yet born. My mother’s voice floated through the room like perfume.

“Travis insists on the Montessori,” she was saying. “You know how those Montgomerys are. They put excellence into their blood.”

Of course she was talking about the Montgomerys.

Rebecca had married Travis three years after college. His family owned half the commercial real estate in the city. They lived out in the West Hills, in a house with glass walls and a view. They hosted events like this twice a month: charity dinners, holiday parties, fundraisers that involved live music and discreet photographers. Their lives were filtered and framed and shared endlessly.

My mother loved it. She loved the Range Rover parked in the circular driveway. She loved the private chef, the monogrammed towels, the holiday cards printed on cardstock so heavy it could double as a weapon. She loved having a son-in-law whose last name could open doors.

She loved telling people at the grocery store, at the salon, at the dentist’s office:

“My younger daughter? Oh, she married into the Montgomery family.”

When people asked about me, she said, “Wanda runs a little bookstore. It’s a phase.”

A phase that had lasted eight years.

I pushed that thought away and turned to scan the room, looking for my place.

Each plate at the long table had a linen napkin folded into a perfect triangle, a small gold-rimmed glass above it, a sprig of eucalyptus tucked just so by the fork. And in front of each plate, a name card.

Grace. Eleanor. Julia. Amanda. Lauren. Brittany. Alice. Sophia.

I walked along the table once, reading. Twice, slower.

Travis’s mother. His two sisters. His cousin from Seattle. Rebecca’s Pilates instructor. A woman I vaguely recognized from social media as the CEO of a local wellness startup. An influencer who did something with yoga and scented candles.

Not one said Wanda.

My throat went tight.

I did the mental math without meaning to—my mother, my sister, twenty-three other women. The invitation list hovered in my mind, all those names, and mine at the bottom like a footnote.

It had to be a mistake, I thought, though the part of me that had grown up with them knew better. Maybe they’d forgotten a card. Maybe it had slipped under the table. Maybe—

Rebecca slid up beside me, moving easily between chairs, the silk of her dress whispering against the linen.

“Something wrong?” she asked in a voice that sounded kind, if you weren’t really listening.

“I can’t find my seat,” I said, low, hoping she’d flush and say, Oh my God, I’m so sorry, let me fix this.

Instead she sighed, as if this were all very tiresome.

“Right,” she said. “About that.”

I stared at her. “About what?”

“We had to finalize the numbers weeks ago,” she said. “Capacity restrictions, you know? Elmeander is very strict. Twenty-five, exactly. Not one more, not one less. We… didn’t really think you’d come, to be honest.”

For a heartbeat, the room narrowed. The flowers, the light, the laughter at the other end of the table, it all muffled. The only clear things were her face, the faint sheen of powder on her nose, the way she kept her voice low but didn’t bother to turn away from the others.

I felt eyes on the back of my neck. A couple of women glanced over, pretending not to listen. One of them tilted her head and whispered something behind her hand.

“I RSVP’d yes,” I said, hearing how small my voice sounded.

Rebecca’s smile didn’t move, but her eyes sharpened. “You know how that is,” she said. “Things slip through. And with your… schedule…”

Owning a bookstore, apparently, made my schedule less legitimate than their pilates classes and board meetings.

My mother appeared then, as if she’d been summoned. She had that look she always wore when she suspected I might embarrass her—eyes bright, mouth stretched in something that technically qualified as a smile.

“What’s going on?” she asked, and I could tell from the way she said it that Rebecca had already told her all she needed to know.

“There isn’t a place card for me,” I said, forcing myself to meet her eyes.

My mother’s gaze flicked to the table, then back to me, quick and clinical.

“These rooms have limits, Wanda,” she said. “They’re not like your little shop where you can just drag in an extra chair. Everything has to be precise, and we had to make some difficult choices. You understand.”

There it was again.

You understand.

It meant: you will comply. You will swallow this. You will not make this inconvenient.

Rebecca’s fingers brushed my elbow, a light touch completely at odds with the steel in her voice.

“We didn’t want you to feel… out of place,” she said. “It’s very formal today. Lots of Travis’s family. Maybe you’d be happier somewhere more… relaxed.”

Her gaze drifted past me to the window, where rain streaked the glass and blurred the city into soft lines. Across the street, O’Sullivan’s glowed dimly, neon sign flickering faintly against the brick.

“There’s that pub,” she said, her voice brightening as if she’d just had a generous idea. “Sullivan’s or whatever it’s called. You like those kinds of places, right? You should try there.”

“Dirty pub,” my mother added, laughing in that quick, sharp way I’d heard my whole life. “It suits you perfectly.”

The words landed like stones dropped in a still pool. A few women at the table glanced over again, eyes flicking up and down my dress, my hair, my plain gift bag. One of them smirked into her champagne.

I felt the old instinct rise up in my chest, the one that had governed most of my childhood: explain. Justify. Prove. Make yourself smaller. Earn whatever little bit of space they were willing to give you.

I could say I’d closed the bookstore early to be here. I could say I’d saved for the dress, that I’d picked the blanket with care. I could offer to squeeze a chair in somewhere, to sit on the end, on the side, on anything. I could apologize for existing in the imprecise space outside their perfect seating chart.

Instead, something in me went very, very still.

I looked at my mother, then at my sister, then at the long table of women who had been given a place without having to beg for it.

I heard my father’s voice in my head, the way he’d sounded when I first told him about the bookstore.

If you’re going to build something, Wanda, he’d said, build it solid enough that it doesn’t collapse the first time someone leans on it wrong.

I thought of the shop—my shop—with its worn wooden floorboards and the bell that jingled when the door opened, the shelves I’d built with my own hands, the customers who came in on rainy Wednesdays and left holding something they didn’t know they needed.

I thought of how many years I’d bent myself into shapes that fit their table settings, their seating charts, their expectations.

And then I smiled.

“Okay,” I said.

Rebecca blinked. “Okay…?”

“I’ll do that,” I said. “I’ll go across the street.”

For the first time all afternoon, my mother’s smile faltered.

“Wanda, don’t be—”

But I was already turning away.

I didn’t reach for my gift bag. I didn’t apologize. I didn’t ask again if there was room for me. My heels clicked against the marble floor, a sound that echoed a little louder than it should have, and the hush that fell behind me tasted like victory and humiliation all at once.

I walked past the hostess, who looked up with a start, past the valet stand where a couple huddled under an umbrella, arguing softly. The doors sighed open as I pushed through them, and the city’s damp grayness wrapped around me like relief.

The rain had picked up, fine and steady. It dotted my dress and turned the sidewalks slick as glass. Across the street, O’Sullivan’s neon sign flickered: O’SULLIVAN’S PUB. Established 1953. The door was still propped open.

I didn’t look back at Elmeander.

I crossed the street.

O’Sullivan’s smelled like warm wood, spilled beer, onions on a grill, and something frying in the back. The light was low, the kind that made everyone look softer. Brass rails ran along the bar, and a row of mismatched stools lined up beneath it like old friends.

A muted game played on a television in the corner. A couple of older men argued amiably at the end of the bar about a call that had happened twenty minutes earlier. A woman in a green sweater laughed at something her friend said, head thrown back, face bare of everything except joy.

I felt absurd, standing just inside the doorway in my carefully ironed dress and high heels, the rain still drying in my hair. My mascara prickled at the edges of my lashes, threatening to run.

That’s when I saw him.

He sat in a corner booth, half-hidden from the door, a stack of papers spread out in front of him and a pen moving quickly over them. He looked like he always did—dark hair just a little too long, sleeves rolled to the elbows, tie loosened, shoulders relaxed in a way that somehow still took up space.

James O’Sullivan looked up, saw me, and stood.

“Well, well,” he said, a slow smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “If it isn’t the book dealer.”

The words settled me like a hand on my back. Book dealer. Not shopgirl. Not hobbyist. Not phase.

“James,” I said, managing to smile back. “I didn’t know this was your place.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “It says O’Sullivan’s on the door,” he said lightly. “Family-owned. Seventy years and counting. We’re not subtle about it.”

“I always thought that was coincidence,” I said, moving closer. “Like how some people are named Baker and can’t cook.”

He laughed, genuinely. I’d always liked that about him—the way his amusement was never at my expense. The first time he’d come into my bookstore a year ago, he’d wandered through the stacks like he was visiting a cathedral.

“You smell that?” he’d said, inhaling deeply. “There is nothing better in the world than old paper and bad air-conditioning.”

I’d told him we had excellent air-conditioning. He’d bought three first editions anyway.

Now, in the pub his family had run since before my parents had even met, his gaze slid past me to the window. Through the rain-streaked glass, Elmeander glowed like it had swallowed its own chandelier.

“What happened?” he asked quietly.

Not curious to gossip. Curious about me.

I swallowed, feeling the burn I’d been pushing down since I walked into the restaurant.

“No seat,” I said.

His brows drew together. “What?”

“At my sister’s baby shower,” I said. “They… forgot to put my name on a card. Or decided not to. Or something.” I let out a breath that was closer to a laugh. “Rebecca suggested I’d be happier here. My mother said this place suits me. Called it a dirty pub.”

His jaw tightened, just enough that I noticed.

“Dirty,” he repeated, gently, like he was testing the word. “Well. They picked the wrong insult.”

I pressed my lips together, fighting the sting behind my eyes.

“I’m tired,” I said.

His gaze moved back to my face, sharp and steady. “Tired of what?”

I could have given him the answer I’d given everyone my whole life: work, the weather, the way customers never remembered release dates.

Instead, the truth slipped out.

“Tired of being treated like a mistake,” I said. “Like every choice I’ve made is evidence I don’t know what I’m doing. They talk about standards, like love is another thing you qualify for. I built my store from nothing. I know what I’m doing.” My voice wobbled. “They just don’t care.”

James studied me for a long moment, the pub noise fading into a muted hum.

“Do you trust me?” he asked, out of nowhere.

My first instinct was to laugh. Trust wasn’t something I handed over easily, not after years of having it used against me. But something about the way he asked—direct, no flattery, no sugar—made the instinct to deflect feel cheap.

I thought of the time I’d called him about a rare collection I was nervous to ship; he’d sent his own driver instead of rolling his eyes. I thought of the way he always carried the boxes himself, even though he owned the place and could have delegated that to someone else. I thought of the way he never called my store cute.

I nodded.

“Yeah,” I said. “I think I do.”

“Okay,” he said, like that settled something inside him. He pulled his phone from his pocket and started dialing. “Then we’re going to fix this.”

“James—”

He held up a hand as he pressed the phone to his ear.

“Bridget,” he said when someone answered. “I need you at the pub. Ten minutes ago. Yes, I know. Family emergency. Bring the garment bag. And the good makeup. The waterproof stuff.” He glanced at me, eyes flicking to my damp dress, my hair, my smudged mascara. “Size six,” he added. “Roughly. And I’ll owe you. Big.”

He hung up and sat down again, motioning toward the seat across from him.

“James, what are you doing?” I asked, feeling a swirl of dread and curiosity battle it out in my chest.

“I’m giving you a seat,” he said simply. “One they can’t pretend not to see.”

Ten minutes later, the door opened again, letting in another gust of rain and a woman with the kind of presence that made the entire room shift a little.

She was maybe thirty, with sharp eyes, blunt-cut dark hair, and a trench coat draped over one arm. She carried a long garment bag and a shoe box, both handled with the kind of care most people reserved for jewelry.

She spotted James and rolled her eyes fondly as she walked over.

“You know,” she said, “when most brothers say ‘family emergency,’ they’re talking about flat tires or hospital visits. Not improvised guerilla glam operations.”

“Bridget, this is Wanda,” James said. “She owns the bookstore on Alberta. The one I talk about.”

“Oh,” she said, looking at me properly. Recognition sparked. “Banjo the cat in the front window?”

“You remember Banjo but not me?” I said, and it came out drier than I meant.

“Cats are easier,” she said, but her smile was warm. “Nice to meet you, Wanda.”

She let her gaze run over me once, not in a cruel way, more like a tailor measuring invisible lines.

“How attached are you to what you’re wearing?” she asked.

I looked down at the navy wrap dress. It was still damp at the hem. A faint watermark curved along the side where the rain had soaked in. I’d bought it secondhand and spent an hour steaming out wrinkles in my tiny bathroom.

“I…” I hesitated.

“This is the part where you trust me,” James said calmly.

I met his eyes, then looked back at Bridget.

“Not very,” I said. “Apparently it doesn’t suit the venue.”

Bridget’s mouth twitched. “Bathroom,” she said, nodding toward a hallway. “Let’s go.”

The bathroom at O’Sullivan’s surprised me. I’d expected cracked tiles and a flickering fluorescent light. Instead, it was small but spotless, with a big mirror, soft lighting, and a faint smell of citrus.

“James got sick of people assuming ‘pub’ meant ‘filth,’” Bridget said, catching my expression as she hung the garment bag on the back of the door. “He overcompensated. You could do surgery in here.”

She unzipped the bag and pulled out a dress the color of midnight.

It wasn’t elaborate—no sequins, no glitter, no dramatic cut-outs. Simple, sharp lines. A neckline that would show my collarbones without feeling like a billboard. Fabric that fell the way good sentences read: clean, unforced, confident.

“I can’t wear that,” I said automatically.

She raised an eyebrow. “Because… why?”

“Because…” I gestured helplessly. “It looks expensive.”

“It was,” she said. “I buy samples for work all the time. This one didn’t make the cut. The world is an idiot. Put it on.”

The next twenty minutes passed in a blur of small, precise movements. Bridget pinned my hair up in a way that looked effortless and probably required engineering knowledge. She wiped away the smudged mascara and redid my makeup, her touch steady and professional.

“What do you do?” I asked, because talking felt safer than sitting in silence with my reflection.

“I buy clothing and accessories for people with too much money and not enough time,” she said. “Nordstrom buyer during the week, charity event wrangler on weekends. Professional dresser of rich women and wrangler of chaos.”

She leaned back, tilting my chin up with one finger.

“And you?” she asked. “Besides owning the world’s coziest bookstore?”

“I authenticate rare books,” I said. “Evaluate collections. Help people decide what to sell, what to keep.”

“Ah,” she said. “So you tell stories about what things are really worth.”

I met her eyes in the mirror.

“Something like that,” I said.

She dusted a final sweep of powder across my cheeks, then stepped back.

“There,” she said. “You look like yourself.”

I turned, expecting to see a stranger. Instead, I saw…me. Just clearer. Like someone had wiped the fog off the glass.

My hair was pinned in a twist that made my neck look longer. My eyes looked brighter without the smudges beneath them. The dress hugged my waist and skimmed over everything I usually tried to hide, not like a spotlight but like an apology for the years I’d spent pretending my body was a problem.

“You’re sure this isn’t… too much?” I asked.

“For what?” Bridget said. “For existing? No. Come on.”

When we stepped back into the main room of the pub, something had shifted.

One of the servers—Tommy, if I remembered James’s stories correctly—was holding a door open to a side room I’d never noticed before. Warm light spilled out into the hall. I caught a glimpse of linen and glass.

“After you,” Bridget said.

The private dining room felt like it belonged in a different building. Exposed brick walls, high wooden beams strung with simple white lights, a long table down the center draped with linen so crisp it looked untouched. Crystal glasses at every place setting, the light catching and throwing small rainbows onto the table.

At the far end of the room, a set of tall windows looked directly across the street.

To Elmeander.

From here, I could see it clearly: the glowing chandeliers, the clusters of women gathered near the window, the pale blur of Rebecca’s dress as she turned, laughing, toward someone I couldn’t see. They looked like a painting of a life my mother wished she’d been born into.

“Subtle,” I said under my breath.

James was already there, in a dark blazer he’d put on over his shirt, no tie now. He pulled out a chair for me at the center of the table, not at the head, not at the edge.

“There’s your seat,” he said quietly.

My chest loosened in a way I hadn’t realized it had tightened. I sat, fingers brushing the linen, the cool stem of the glass, the small, folded card in front of me.

My name. In clean, confident script.

Not Wanda Reynolds, my family name.

Just: Wanda.

I swallowed.

“James, what is this?” I asked.

He took a folder from the chair beside mine and set it on the table.

“This,” he said, “is what happens when someone calls my pub dirty and treats a woman I respect like she’s optional.”

He flipped the folder open. Inside were pages printed with logos I recognized, names I knew.

Margaret Reynolds Books.

Chen Culinary Group.

Aldridge Collection Management.

“I called in a few favors,” he said. “Margaret’s been trying to get you to consult for them for months, but your mother keeps ‘forgetting’ to pass along the information. David’s been talking about adding a coffee bar near your store; he loves your location. Patricia has more first editions than sense and no idea how to organize them.”

I stared at him.

“You’re joking.”

“Do I look like I’m joking?” he said. “I told them I was hosting a small, private gathering. They’re curious people. They like stories. I figured they’d be interested in meeting the woman who keeps half this town’s book collections sane.”

“You did all that… in twenty minutes?” I asked.

He shrugged, the movement easy. “I’ve been planning their charity events and letting them host tastings here for years. They owe me. And I monitor my phone better than your mother does.”

Outside, across the street, a flash suddenly went off in the Elmeander window. I frowned, leaning closer.

A woman stepped into view outside the pub, closing an umbrella with a sharp shake. She wore a beige trench coat and heels that didn’t seem to notice the rain.

I recognized her before James even said her name.

“Margaret,” he murmured.

I’d seen her picture on the dust jackets of books for years—owner of Reynolds Books, the city’s oldest independent bookstore, the one my mother loved to mention when she was trying to prove that she had culture.

Margaret Reynolds walked into O’Sullivan’s like she’d been there a hundred times, even though I knew from James that she rarely left her own store unless tempted by something unusual.

Behind her, a man in jeans and a button-down shifted a camera bag on his shoulder. He lifted the camera once, snapping a quick shot through the rain-slicked window, Elmeander’s glowing chandeliers and O’Sullivan’s warm interior caught in the same frame.

“Who is that?” I asked.

“Portland Monthly,” James said. “They’re writing a piece on neighborhood institutions and the people behind them.”

“And you invited them today,” I said slowly.

“I might have mentioned that something interesting was happening across from Elmeander,” he said. “Journalists are like cats. Curious, independent, and easily intrigued by shiny objects.”

“James,” I said, “I don’t want to humiliate my sister.”

“Good,” he said. “Because that’s not what this is about. This is about you getting what you’ve earned, in plain sight. That’s it.” He paused. “If anyone across the street feels anything about that, it’s their problem.”

The door opened fully then, and Margaret stepped inside the private room like she was arriving at an appointment she’d been looking forward to all week.

“Wanda,” she said, crossing the room with her hand outstretched. “I am so glad he finally put us in the same place.”

“You… know who I am?” I asked, taking her hand. Her grip was firm, dry, and warm, ink stains smudged at the edges of her fingers.

“Of course,” she said. “I’ve seen your provenance reports. Clean, meticulous work. Half the collectors I deal with mention you at least once. I’ve been trying to get your number for months, but somehow your mother never had it on hand.”

Of course she didn’t.

Margaret took the seat to my right.

“I want your authentication system for my high-value acquisitions,” she said, without preamble. “Twenty hours a month, you set the rate. I’m tired of relying on three different people when one woman with a brain and a spine could do the job better.”

My mouth went dry.

“I—uh—yes,” I said, brain scrambling to catch up. “I mean, I’d be honored. I’d have to look at my schedule, but—”

“We’ll work around it,” she said. “James, darling, is there tea?”

He grinned. “There is whatever you want.”

As he signaled a server, the door opened again.

This time it was David Chen, the chef-owner behind three of the city’s most beloved restaurants. My mother had once sighed wistfully over his tasting menu, saying, If only we were that kind of family.

Apparently, we were, at least in the sense that he walked into James’s pub and took me in with quick, assessing eyes.

“Wanda,” he said, shaking my hand. “James tells me you own the bookstore on Alberta. I’ve been there. Twice. You recommended that collection of travel essays that made me book a flight to Iceland.”

“I remember,” I said, startled. “You bought the last copy. I had to wrestle a grad student for it.”

He laughed. “I want to open a coffee bar near your shop,” he said, getting right to the point. “Small, focused menu. Good beans. Good pastries. I need someone whose foot traffic isn’t built on impulse purchases but on loyalty. You.”

I blinked. “Me?”

“We split the revenue,” he said. “You handle the space; I handle the coffee. Your customers get caffeine; mine might buy a book for once instead of just reading menus. We’ll draft terms a lawyer won’t hate. What do you say?”

I glanced at James, who watched me without speaking, letting me make my own decision.

“Yes,” I said, before I could overthink it. “Let’s talk.”

David nodded, satisfied, and took a seat at the far end of the table, already pulling out a notebook.

The third guest, Patricia Aldridge, arrived ten minutes later, eyes bright behind her glasses, hair pulled back in a messy bun that somehow still looked intentional.

“I’m building a private library,” she said as soon as we shook hands, words tumbling out in a rush. “My husband calls it my midlife crisis; I call it correcting decades of neglect. I need someone to curate it. Evaluate my purchases, recommend new ones, tell me when I’m being ridiculous. Three-year retainer. You call your price; we’ll negotiate from there.”

I stared at her.

“You don’t even know if I’m any good,” I said.

She smiled, small and knowing.

“I read the piece you wrote for that tiny literature blog last year,” she said. “About the ethics of collecting. About what it means to hoard stories you don’t intend to understand.” She shrugged. “Anyone who can see that clearly can pick books for me.”

Heat flushed my cheeks. I’d written that piece after a particularly condescending encounter with a man who’d referred to my store as “a charming little spot,” right before asking if I had anything he could use as décor.

“I’d be honored,” I said.

My phone buzzed on the table, rattling against the linen. Once. Twice. Again.

I didn’t have to look to know who it was.

I glanced anyway.

Mom.

Rebecca.

Mom again.

Who is that you’re with?

Why are there photographers at the pub?

Call me RIGHT NOW.

A tight ball formed in my stomach. I flicked the phone over, screen down, the small act feeling bigger than it should have.

James saw the motion but didn’t comment. He simply reached for the water pitcher and refilled my glass, his movements calm and unhurried.

Across the street, the windows at Elmeander were full now. Silhouettes lined the glass, faces barely visible through the rain, but the posture was unmistakable—curious, craning, trying to see what they hadn’t been invited to.

The photographer from Portland Monthly drifted around the edges of the room, unobtrusive, capturing small moments—a laugh between Margaret and David, the way Patricia gestured with her fork as she talked about bookbinding, James listening with his head tilted thoughtfully as one of the servers whispered something to him.

I felt strangely… steady.

Not triumphant. Not gloating. Just… level.

For the first time in a long time, the space I occupied did not feel conditional.

We were halfway through the first course when the muffled sound of raised voices drifted in from the main room.

James’s eyes flicked toward the door. “Excuse me,” he said softly, and stood.

He stepped out, closing the door behind him with a quiet click.

I heard the murmur of conversation from beyond the wall, low and indistinct. A higher voice cut through, sharp and familiar.

“That’s my sister,” Rebecca said. “You can’t keep her from me.”

You left me without a chair, I thought. You did that without blinking.

James’s reply was calm, his tone even. I couldn’t make out the words, but the cadence was firm, not angry.

Patricia looked at me with open curiosity. Margaret sipped her tea. David continued to scribble in his notebook, either oblivious or politely pretending to be.

My hands had gone cold. I rubbed my fingers against the linen to bring the feeling back.

You could go out there, a small voice inside me whispered. You could apologize for making a scene you didn’t even make. You could slide back into the role they wrote for you and spend the rest of your life wondering what would have happened if you’d stayed seated.

My chair felt solid under me.

I stood.

“I’ll be right back,” I said.

When I opened the door, James was standing between my family and the private room like a bouncer at a nightclub he didn’t particularly like.

Rebecca’s hair was slightly frizzed by the humidity, her dress still perfect. Her cheeks were flushed in that way that meant she was furious. My mother stood slightly behind her, lips tight, eyes bright.

“This is a private event,” James was saying, polite but unyielding. “She’s not available at the moment. You can leave a message, and she can call you when she’s free.”

“She’s my daughter,” my mother snapped. “I have a right—”

“Rights are legal,” James said. “Access is earned.”

I had to fight the urge to smile.

Rebecca spotted me first.

“There you are,” she said, pushing past James. “What on earth do you think you’re doing?”

For a second, I saw myself through her eyes: in a dress that wasn’t my usual style, in a private room of a pub she’d dismissed, surrounded by people she respected professionally but had never bothered to know personally. Being seen.

Existing somewhere she couldn’t control.

“I’m having lunch,” I said.

“This is insane,” she hissed. “You’re ruining my shower.”

I blinked. “Am I?”

“Yes!” she said. “People are talking. They saw you storm out of Elmeander, and now there are photographers taking pictures of you at a bar. They’re going to think there’s some kind of drama. You’re making me look ridiculous.”

The old script waited on my tongue: I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I’ll fix it.

But something inside me had shifted.

“You left me without a seat,” I said quietly. “You invited me to your shower and then erased me from the table. Then you laughed and told me to come here, like you were throwing scraps to a dog.”

Rebecca’s mouth opened, then closed.

“It was a mistake,” she said, but her voice wobbled. “We didn’t think—”

“No,” I agreed. “You didn’t. You didn’t think I’d come. You didn’t think I’d matter, either way. That’s the point.”

My mother stepped forward, reaching for my arm.

“You’re overreacting,” she said. “You know how these venues are. There are guest limits, budgets—”

“Travis rented out the whole restaurant,” I said flatly. “There’s enough space in there for thirty people, easily. You gave a seat to Rebecca’s Pilates instructor. You couldn’t make room for me.”

Her hand tightened on my arm, then loosened when she realized I wasn’t moving.

“We are not having this discussion here,” she said. “You’re being very dramatic.”

“If you want to talk,” I said, my voice steadier than I felt, “call me tomorrow. We can meet at my shop. Or somewhere neutral. We can have a private conversation. Honest. No jokes. No audience.”

Her eyes flashed. “Wanda—”

I lifted a hand slightly, the gesture small but clear.

“Not today,” I said.

For the first time in my life, I watched the words land on her face and stay there, unchallenged. Not because she accepted them, but because she didn’t know what to do with them.

James stepped in then, his presence a quiet wall at my back.

“You heard her,” he said. “She’s not available right now.”

Rebecca’s expression curdled. “You’ve changed,” she said to me, voice low and bitter.

“Maybe,” I said. “Maybe I just stopped pretending.”

I turned and walked back into the private room, my heart pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat. James closed the door gently behind us.

“Are you okay?” he asked, not in the fragile way people asked after someone had tripped, but like he actually wanted to know if I was intact.

I took a breath.

“Yes,” I said, surprised to realize it was true. “I think I am.”

When I sat back down, three business cards waited by my plate, lined up neatly.

Margaret lifted her glass.

“To women who stop asking for permission to sit,” she said.

The others raised their glasses too.

“To women who stop begging,” Patricia added softly.

I raised my water glass. It was all I had in front of me, and it was enough.

They didn’t lose a party that day, I thought as we drank. They lost the version of me who stayed.

---

The next morning, Portland looked scrubbed. The rain had eased overnight, leaving the streets damp and shining, the sky a pale kind of blue that never quite committed.

I walked down the narrow back stairs from my apartment to the bookstore, key cold in my hand. The smell of paper hit me as soon as I opened the door—ink and dust and a faint trace of coffee from yesterday’s pot. It smelled like home.

The bell over the door chimed once as I stepped inside. I flipped on the lights, watched them warm to life slowly, shelf by shelf. The window display—Banjo the cat asleep in his favorite spot among the paperbacks—didn’t so much as twitch.

My phone sat on the counter where I’d left it, face down. I picked it up and turned it over.

Thirty-seven missed calls.

Twenty-one from my mother. Twelve from Rebecca. Four from an unknown number I guessed might be Travis or one of his sisters.

One voicemail notification.

I pressed play and set the phone on the counter.

My mother’s voice filled the quiet store.

“Wanda,” she said, tone careful in that way that meant she knew she should sound calm and was failing. “We need to talk about what happened yesterday. This behavior is… unacceptable. You embarrassed your sister. Call me back as soon as you get this.”

No apology. No acknowledgment that any part of what happened before I left had been wrong. Just urgency. Control disguised as concern.

I deleted the message and set the phone down.

On a blank page in the small notebook I kept by the register, I wrote three lines:

Private.
Honest.
No audience.

A new rule.

If my family wanted access to me, they would have to meet me somewhere that wasn’t a public stage. They would have to leave the peanut gallery at home.

The bell chimed again, this time announcing a customer.

It was one of my regulars, a middle-aged man with a penchant for obscure Russian poetry. He greeted Banjo first—as always—then nodded at me.

“Morning,” he said. “Got anything that’ll make me question my existence in under two hundred pages?”

“I have just the thing,” I said, slipping seamlessly back into the part of my life that made sense.

I found him a slim collection of poems that had made me cry the first time I read them. I rang up the purchase, wrapped the book in brown paper like it was a present, and watched him leave with the kind of satisfaction that never showed up on my mother’s list of acceptable life achievements.

By noon, the emails started coming in.

Margaret, with a consulting contract attached. Terms straightforward, rate more than I would have dared to ask.

David, with a draft proposal for the coffee bar. Nothing binding yet, but solid, exciting.

Patricia, with a detailed outline of her collection and an offer I read twice to make sure I hadn’t misunderstood the number at the bottom.

Proof doesn’t argue. It just sits there. Holds.

I printed the contracts out and laid them in a neat stack on the counter, smoothing the pages like they were fragile things. I wasn’t used to my work being treated like something worth formalizing.

The bell chimed again.

This time, it was James.

He held two coffee cups in a cardboard carrier, a paper bag balanced on top.

“Truce offering,” he said, setting them down gently. “One for you, one for Banjo if he’s feeling adventurous.”

Banjo opened one eye, decided the bag wasn’t interesting enough, and went back to sleep.

“No speeches?” I asked, half-teasing, half-hopeful.

“No speeches,” he said. “Just caffeine and carbohydrates.”

He pulled a chair up to the counter like he’d done it a hundred times and didn’t intend to go anywhere else anytime soon.

“How are you?” he asked.

I paused, really thinking about it.

“I’m… clear,” I said finally. “Not fixed. Just clear.”

He nodded, as if that made perfect sense.

“Clarity’s worth more than half the things people chase,” he said. “Congratulations.”

I laughed softly.

“I don’t feel like I did anything that dramatic,” I said. “I just walked across a street.”

“You did a lot more than that,” he said. “You stopped knocking on a locked door and decided to build your own.”

We sat in easy silence for a few minutes, the quiet of the shop wrapping around us like an extra layer of insulation. Outside, cars hissed along wet pavement. Somewhere down the block, someone laughed.

I knew there would be more conversations ahead. My mother would not let this go. Rebecca would not forget the sight of me across the street, seated in a room she hadn’t arranged, among people she couldn’t claim.

Maybe we would meet in my shop someday soon, as I’d offered. Maybe they would sit in the mismatched chairs by the front window and talk without an audience, and maybe I would finally say all the things I’d swallowed over the years.

Or maybe they wouldn’t come.

Maybe they would decide that any version of me they couldn’t choreograph was not one they wanted to know.

Either way, I realized as I watched steam curl from my coffee cup, I would be okay.

Because my worth wasn’t hanging on a place card at the head of anyone else’s table.

It existed in the quiet weight of books on shelves I’d built with my own hands. In the way customers trusted my recommendations. In the consulting contracts sitting under my palm. In the coffee bar that might soon hum with extra life next door. In the private library I’d help shape, the collections I’d keep honest.

In the pub across the street whose owner had seen me, even when my own family refused to.

I wasn’t the family disappointment.

I was the one who’d built a life that could survive them.

Respect, I realized, wasn’t something I had to chase from the people least willing to give it. It was something I could practice with myself, quietly, consistently, until the lack of it from others felt less like a verdict and more like a mirror of their limitations.

“James?” I said.

“Yeah?”

“Why did you do all that yesterday?” I asked. “Really.”

He took a slow sip of his coffee, considering.

“Because I could,” he said. “Because it needed to be done. Because I’ve watched you walk into my pub a dozen times with a book under your arm and fire in your eyes, and I got sick of the idea that someone, somewhere, looked at you and saw anything less than what you are.”

He shrugged, a little embarrassed now that he’d said so much out loud.

“And because,” he added lightly, “if Reynolds Books, Chen Culinary Group, and the Aldridge Collection all owe you favors, my chances of getting interesting authors to agree to events at my pub go way up.”

I laughed, the sound rising up from somewhere that hadn’t felt light in a long time.

“There it is,” I said. “The ulterior motive.”

“Always,” he said, grinning.

After he left, the store settled back into its usual rhythm—customers drifting in and out, the phone ringing occasionally, the world outside moving at its own pace.

The missed calls on my screen stayed where they were. Unanswered, but not ignored. Just… waiting.

If they wanted to try again, they knew where to find me.

In a little bookstore in the Alberta Arts District, above which a woman named Wanda lived in a small apartment with secondhand furniture and bookshelves that bowed under the weight of her choices.

A life that was, finally, enough.

THE END.