“It’s called determination,” I murmured as I looked one last time at the shelf in front of me.
“It’s called stubborn as hell and refusing to admit it. I’ll be outside.”
I barely glanced up as she left. I’d known Kira’s attention span wouldn’t make her the best companion for this trip, but I’d put off buying Stella’s gift for too long. I hadn’t seen much of Kira since I’d moved away from our hometown to Harrisburg. Actually, I hadn’t seen much of her even before that. When she’d called to see if I wanted to get together I hadn’t been able to think of a reason to say no that wouldn’t make me sound like a total douche. She’d be content outside smoking a cigarette or two, so I turned my attention back to the search, determined to find just the right thing.
Over the years I’d discovered it wasn’t necessarily the gift itself that won Stella’s approval, but something even less tangible than the price. My father gave her everything she wanted, and what she didn’t get from him she bought for herself, so buying her something she wanted or needed was impossible. Gretchen and Steve, my dad’s kids with his first wife, Tara, took the lazy route of having their kids make her something like a finger-painted card. Stella’s own two boys were still young enough not to care. My half siblings got off the gift-giving hook with their haphazard efforts when I’d be held to a higher standard.
There is always something to be gained from being held to the higher standard.
Now I looked, hard, thinking about what would be just right. Don’t get me wrong. She’s not a bad person, my father’s wife. She never went out of her way to make me part of their family the way she had with Gretchen and Steven, and I surely didn’t rank as high in her sight as her sons Jeremy and Tyler. But my half siblings had all lived with my dad. I never had.
Then I saw it. The perfect gift. I took the box from the shelf and opened the top. Inside, nestled on deep blue tissue paper, lay a package of pale blue note cards. In the lower right corner of each glittered a stylized S surrounded by a design of subtly sparkling stars. The envelopes had the same starry design, the paper woven with silver threads to make it shine. A pen rested inside the box, too. I took it out. It was too light and the tiny tassel at the end made it too casual, but this wasn’t for me. It was the perfect pen for salon-manicured fingers writing thank-you cards in which all the i’s were dotted by tiny hearts. It was the perfect pen for Stella.
“Ah, so you found something.” Miriam took the box from me and carefully peeled away the price sticker from beneath. “Very nice choice. I’m sure she’ll love it.”
“I hope so.” I thought she would, too, but didn’t want to jinx myself.
“You always know exactly what someone needs, don’t you?” Miriam smiled as she slipped the box into a pretty bag and added a ribbon, no extra charge.
I laughed. “Oh, I don’t know about that.”
“You do,” she said firmly. “I remember my customers, you know. I pay attention. There are many who come in here looking for something and don’t find it. You always do.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s the right thing,” I told her, paying for the cards with a pair of crisp bills fresh out of the ATM.
Miriam gave me a look over her glasses. “Isn’t it?”
I didn’t answer. How does anyone know if they know what they’re doing is right? Until it’s too late to change things, anyway.
“Sometimes, Paige, we think we know very well what someone wants, or needs. But then—” she sighed, holding out a package of pretty stationery in a box with a clear plastic lid “—we discover we are wrong. I’d put this aside for one of my regular customers, but he didn’t care for it, after all.”
“Too bad. I’m sure someone else will.” I wasn’t surprised a man didn’t want the paper. Embossed with gilt-edged flowers, it seemed a little too feminine for a dude.
Miriam’s gaze sharpened. “You, perhaps?”
I waved the flowered paper aside and shoved my hands in my back pockets as I looked around the shop. “Not really my style.”
She laughed and set the box aside. She’d painted her nails scarlet to match her lipstick. I hoped when I was her age I’d be half as stylish. Hell. I hoped to be half as stylish tomorrow.
“Now, how about something for yourself? I have some new notebooks right here. Suede finish. Gilt-edged pages. Tied closed with a ribbon,” she wheedled, pointing to the end-cap display. “Come and see.”
I groaned good-naturedly. “You’re heartless, you know that? You know all you have to do is show me…oh. Ohhh.”
“Pretty, yes?”
“Yes.” I wasn’t looking at notebooks, but at a red, lacquered box with a ribbon-hinged lid. A purple-and-blue dragonfly design etched the polished wood. “What’s this?”
I stroked the smooth lid and opened it. Inside, nestled on black satin, rested a small clay dish, a small container of red ink and a set of wood-handled brushes.
“Oh, that’s a calligraphy set.” Miriam came around the counter to look at it with me. “Chinese. But this one is special. It comes with paper and a set of pens, not just brushes and ink.”
She showed me by lifting the box’s bottom to reveal a sheaf of paper crisscrossed with a crimson ribbon and a set of brassnibbed pens in a red satin bag with a drawstring.
“It’s gorgeous.” I took my hands away, though I wanted to touch the pens, the ink, the paper.
“Just what you need, yes?” Miriam went around the counter to sit on her stool. “Perfect for you.”
I checked the price and closed the box’s lid firmly. “Yes. But not today.”
“No?” Miriam tutted. “Why is it you know so well what everyone else needs, but not yourself? Such a shame, Paige. You should buy it.”
I could pay my cell phone bill for the price of that box. I shook my head, then cocked it to look at her. “Why are you so convinced I know what everyone else needs? That’s a pretty broad statement.”
Miriam tore the wrapper off a package of mints and put one into her mouth. She sucked gently for a moment before answering. “You’ve been a good customer. I’ve seen you buy gifts, and sometimes things for yourself. I like to think I know people. What they need and like. Why do you think I have such atrocities on my shelves? Because people want them.”
I followed her gaze to the shelf holding more porcelain clowns. “Just because you want something doesn’t mean you should have it.”
“Just because you want something doesn’t mean you should deny yourself the pleasure,” Miriam said serenely. “Buy yourself that box. You deserve it.”
“I have nothing to write with it!”
“Letters to a sweetheart,” she suggested.
“I don’t have a sweetheart.” I shook my head again. “Sorry, Miriam. Can’t do it now. Maybe some other time.”
She sighed. “Fine, fine. Deny yourself the pleasure of something pretty. You think that’s what you need?”
“I think I need to pay my bills before I can buy luxuries, that’s what I think.”
“Ah. Sensible.” She inclined her head. “Practical. Not very romantic. That’s you.”
“You can tell all that from the kind of paper I buy?” I put my hands on my hips to stare at her. “C’mon.”
Miriam shrugged, and it was easy to see how she must have been as a young woman. Stubborn, graceful, beautiful. “I can tell it by the paper you don’t buy. When you’re an old lady, you’ll be wise like me, too.”
“I hope