The delivery truck was late.

In the five years that Arthur Miles had been sole owner of The Last Chapter, it was never late.

The court square in Leafmore was still and dark, not yet awake for the day. The lights from the bookstore were the only glow in the center of town. Arthur had already straightened the shelves, tables, and chairs to his liking, and eagerly paced by the back door. Tuesdays were Christmas morning for him, and Santa’s sleigh was due to arrive any moment.

The truck always arrived at the same time, until today.

Arthur checked the time on his phone. It was now exactly twenty-three minutes behind schedule. He wedged the old wooden doorstop under the back door so he could keep a lookout. He straightened the store again to burn off the excitement. As he looked over the shelves, one book protruded slightly from the others—The Secret of Secrets. He frowned. Strange. He was sure everything was perfect after the second round. He aligned the spine of the unevenly placed book to the others and stepped back for another look.

When he finished he looked at the time again. Forty-seven minutes late. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. He noticed a light flick on from next door at Ron’s Cafe. The presents might not be coming today. The day’s early morning excitement slowly faded.

The sun rays peeked up over the hills to the east, lighting the tops of the tall pine trees and buildings of Leafmore. Arthur could see the courthouse rising from the center of it all through the bookstore windows.

The early light sparkled across the shallow waves of Red Lake on the far side of town. Around the courthouse, the old brick storefronts stood shoulder to shoulder like children waiting for grandpa to tell them a story.

Ron’s coffee and donuts floated warm, sweet scents into the bookstore from next door. Arthur decided that he’d go over and get coffee and splurge on a donut later. He’d need a pick-me-up after the disappointing morning.

One by one, lights began to show the interiors of the courthouse and the surrounding buildings. Arthur watched as cars trickled by periodically. Casually dressed workers slammed car doors in the parking spaces and scurried off to their workplaces. Another car door slammed, closer this time, bringing Arthur’s attention back to the present. He unlocked the front door and flipped the two-sided sign to OPEN.

The first customer on Tuesdays was normally Holly Gates. She was the only person in Leafmore Arthur considered as voracious a reader as himself. He dreaded being the one to break the news that there were no new books today.

Arthur sat on a stool behind the counter reading a book, glancing up at the door now and then in anticipation of Holly. The bell over the door rang out. It was one of the charming features of The Last Chapter. He’d once thought to make a slogan for it, inspired by the film It’s A Wonderful Life. Every time a bell rings a book gets a reader. Not quite the same magic.

“Good morning, Arthur,” she said, as she opened the door. Her curly blonde hair bounced on her shoulders as she walked. She nodded at Arthur. He thought she was pretty, but he wasn’t attracted to her. To Arthur, what made her pretty was the symmetry of her face. Everything was ideally where it should be.

“Hey, Holly,” he answered back, “I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news. The new books haven’t shown up yet.”

“That’s fine.” She ignored her surroundings and went past the reading tables and into the aisles.

That’s fine? Arthur thought to himself, a little confused. Her reply caught him off guard. Holly always stopped and chatted for a few minutes. She was one of the only people in town that Arthur didn’t mind talking to, he actually looked forward to it. The two of them were bookworms that could communicate on a level that most couldn’t. It wasn’t that they felt smarter than everyone else, but that they were like friends with an inside joke that no one else knew about.

Holly disappeared into the back of the building as the bell over the door rang throughout the store again. A couple came in, breaking Arthur’s concentration on Holly. They each had coffees from Ron’s Cafe next door, a regular sight in The Last Chapter. It often worried Arthur when coffee drinkers came in and sloshed their ruinous beverages around his books. He’d thought about putting up signs about bringing drinks in, but he understood that Ron’s customers were his customers.

More customers came in as time went by and kept Arthur steadily busy. The last customer bought a couple of books and left. Silence filled The Last Chapter until Holly approached from the back.

Arthur saw her making her way to the front with a book in-hand. “You found something anyway.” He smiled.

She put the book on the counter and leaned in. “Arthur, can I talk to you?”

“Of course. Secret of Secrets is a good read. I think you’ll be happy with it. The main…”

“Not about the book.” Holly looked worried, her fingers rapidly tapping on the counter—something Arthur had never seen her do before.

“Yeah, sure. What do you want to talk about?” He gave her his full attention, concern showed on his face.

“Arthur,” she leaned in closer over the counter, her voice dropped, “there’s something wrong.”

The bell over the door rang again and they separated like two boxers at the end of the round. James Gates came in.

“Art, how’s it going?” James said as he flashed an arrogant half-lipped smirk.

Arthur forced a polite smile, just as he always had when getting picked on for being a nerd. He hated when people that didn’t know him called him Art. “Hello, James.”

“Hey babe, ready to go?” James asked Holly.

Holly hesitated for a moment. “Sure.” She smiled at Arthur.

He knew she was putting on a face. After all, he was the king of the social facade. Holly left with James behind her, leaving Arthur alone with his thoughts. He sat at the counter for a few minutes until he remembered the book Holly sat on the counter. He grabbed it and hurried out the door, looking up and down the sidewalks for her, but she was gone.

“She’ll be back tomorrow,” he told himself. The Secret of Secrets went on a shelf behind the counter for safekeeping for Holly.

The rest of the day went on as normal. Leafmore moved through another ordinary Tuesday, stopping for coffee and pastries and then heading to The Last Chapter to sit at a table and talk or browse the books. Arthur waited on the last few cars to leave the courthouse like he always did. Sometimes a straggler or two would pop in before heading home, but not today. He flipped the sign to CLOSED and locked the door.

Arthur went about his closing routine just as he always did. The bookstore was already neat and orderly, but he followed his normal repetition of walking up and down the narrow aisle to check for anything out of place anyway. Afterwards, he tried to sit and read at one of the tables, but couldn’t help but wonder what Holly wanted to talk to him about earlier. Not wanting to chat about books and leaving a book behind was out of character for her. It made Arthur feel like she was an out of place book, or a table that had just been moved out of a perfectly symmetrical line.

It was getting late and the normal Tuesday book delivery never came, so Arthur decided to head home. The night brought colder air and he kept a jacket on the shelf behind the counter for just such occasions. He pulled at the jacket and The Secret of Secrets fell open onto the floor. A page near the middle was dog-eared. He picked it up and a note had been written on the page:

Arthur, thank you for recommending The End of Eternity and Never Let Me Go. They are such wonderful and relevant reads. HG

“Those are great books, but I don’t remember recommending them. Maybe I mentioned them in passing or she overheard me speaking with another customer,” Arthur mused as he took the book and put it back behind the counter. It was something else to ask Holly about the next time he saw her, if she came back tomorrow.

Next Chapter: Delivery Day