Nolan: Return to Signal Bend (Signal Bend)(16)

The ledger was a bit cumbersome, but Iris cradled it in her arms and wandered through the shop, beginning at the sales room farthest back, which was windowless and full of rugs and paintings. Taking a methodical approach, she found an item to start with and then studied each item nearest it in sequence. It would probably take her a whole week, at least, to know everything in the shop, but she found the task fascinating.

Geoff had explained that most of his profit was made in private sales rather than in the store, so he focused on deep knowledge of his stock and rapport-building with his clientele. His notes in the ledger showed where, when, and how each item had been acquired, gave specific details about the history and provenance of each item, and sometimes had notes about the people who’d given or sold the item to him. She felt like she was doing research for a paper or something—something she’d always enjoyed.

Iris had loved school, but she’d never quite understood the drive to pick a major in college that was only about getting the best job possible. She’d tried that at first, because it was what her mother wanted, but she didn’t have a good idea about a career she’d like. There truly wasn’t anything she felt driven to do. Rose, on the other hand, perfect, precious Rose, had known before she’d even gone to college that she wanted to work in fashion. She’d picked her major right away and charged forward into a career that let her shop professionally.

Their mom had wanted Iris to get a business degree, saying again and again that it was the best chance for a lucrative career. So, with no better idea, Iris had tried that. But business classes were boring, and when she was bored, she couldn’t focus. Her grades showed as much.

What she’d found interesting was anthropology and literature and history—the way people made their world. Those classes she’d excelled at. But she hadn’t really wanted to be a teacher or anything like that, either. She’d thought about going to graduate school, but her flailing as a business major, and then, briefly, a psychology major, had hurt her GPA too much. And anyway, more school would have been fun, but grad school was expensive, and she hadn’t known what she’d do with a Master’s any more than she’d known what to do with her Bachelor’s.

Iris just wanted to have a good life. To be happy. She didn’t really think her job would be the thing that would determine her happiness.

But sitting on the floor in Jubilee Antiques & Curiosities, reading in the ledger about a rug that had been in a woman’s family since that family had come over from Norway two hundred years ago, Iris thought that maybe a job could make her happy after all.



oOo



She had moved from the rug and painting room and had just started in the room she’d already developed the habit of calling ‘Edgar’s Room’—where she’d found Shannon’s Christmas present. She was going through the drawers of butterflies and moths. So far, they’d all come from the estates of the same few collectors. The blue butterfly she’d bought for Shannon had actually been pinned by the man from whose estate Geoff had acquired it. And the bell jar as well. Mr. Frederick Jergen had traveled the world hunting for specific butterflies. She now knew that Shannon’s—which her stepmother loved—was a Violet-spotted Emperor butterfly that Mr. Jensen had found in South Africa.

“What do you think?”

Iris looked over her shoulder and saw Geoff leaning against the door jamb, smiling at her.

“I think you have the best job in the world.”

Geoff’s smile went wide. “I think so, too. When the weather is a little warmer, we’ll go hunting together. That is, by far, the best part. You know, it’s almost noon—I was thinking I’d call in a pick-up order at Marie’s. If you fly, I’ll buy.”

“Yeah? Thanks! Sure, I’ll go get it.”

“Excellent. I’ll call it in. What would you like?”



oOo



When Iris was a little girl, lunch at Marie’s was busiest around ten-thirty or eleven in the morning. Most of the customers then had been farm folk, whose days started before dawn, so noon was late for lunch. But things had changed a little since then, and there were more people, and more different kinds of businesses in town, so lunch started early and kept going until the afternoon. Back in the day, Marie’s had been strictly breakfast and lunch, opening in the dark of the predawn and closing for the day in the afternoon. But since Marie had retired and the Sachs family had taken the diner over, it was open for supper now, too.

It was a couple minutes shy of noon when Iris opened the front door and headed to the counter to pick up the order Geoff had placed. The wind had picked up, and she paused a moment to get her hair out of her eyes.

At one of the booths nearest the door sat a crew from Signal Bend Construction: Cox, Tommy, Kellen…and Nolan. They must have all turned when she’d opened the door, because now they were all looking at her.

“Hey, Iris,” Kellen called with a nod.

They were Horde, her family, so she didn’t exactly have a choice about whether to go over and talk for a minute. Not that she had a mind to duck them. After that weirdly sweet conversation with Nolan on Christmas Day, Iris had decided not to make too much of anything he did. She didn’t know if she believed his whole ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ deal, but it didn’t matter. If they were just friends, it was fine. She liked him a lot, and she didn’t mind letting him know that, but she had never been one to pine after things she didn’t have.