Enchanting Lily Read Online Free PDF Page B

wouldn’t have liked the noises the cottage made—creaks and groans and strange sighs.
    She’d already had a leak repaired in the roof. The contractor had told her the cottage would need a new roof eventually, and maybe she would need a new heating system, too. She’d only been here a month. The rooms feltdrafty in spots and too warm in others, as if the house were a planet unto itself, complete with microclimates and self-contained ecosystems swirling inside its walls.
    One thing at a time. Right now, forget the house upgrades. I just need to bring in the customers.
Why weren’t they knocking down the door? She’d installed a painted sign in the yard, on an ornate iron pole that suggested it was a vintage shop. A few curious people had come in, smiling and browsing—stragglers who’d already bought crisp, new outfits at The Newest Thing. What should she expect? She didn’t even have a window display, not yet at least. The cottage had stood empty for a long stretch, and it still looked a bit like an abandoned space. She had to give it time—create a pretty tableau in the window, plant flowers in the garden. But would her efforts pay off?
    As she rummaged through the last garments in the box, she felt a sudden, sharp panic. What if she failed? What if she ran out of money? What if nobody ever came in? What if The Newest Thing sucked away all her potential customers? She needed to visit the nearby businesses. She’d only been into the Island Creamery. She would go, soon. She would meet her neighbors.
    Right now, these dirty shirts needed to be washed with mild, fragrance-free soap. How could people mistreat their clothes, storing cotton in plastic bags? Delicate fabricsneeded to breathe, and what was with the toxic mothballs? Herbal southernwood made a much better insect repellent.
    She needed a break from the details of laundering, so she got up and stretched, stiff from sitting cross-legged for so long. She headed back to the office for her usual breakfast of grapefruit, toast, and Market Spice tea. The office wasn’t another room, really, but rather the dining room closed off from the shop by a standing partition. As always, she perused the
Island Bugle
obituaries—a morbid habit, but she couldn’t help herself, and the memorials often celebrated successful lives: a ninety-one-year-old inventor remembered for creating the teleprompter; a ninety-four-year-old Chilean writer known for his “lyrical explorations of eroticism and mortality.”
    Josh’s obituary had read,
Celebrated owner of Vilmont Designs for over a decade, Joshua Vilmont will be remembered for his period costume creations used in theater and film productions far and wide.…
She had cried while writing the memorial.
Will be remembered. Will be remembered.
She’d felt as though her fingers bled as she typed, as though her rage would consume her. The universe had cheated her, forcing her to go on living. Somehow she’d believed that if two people were deeply in love, the gods would leave them alone. Josh should’ve lived to enjoy their golden wedding anniversary. He should’ve survived long enough to play with their grandchildren.
    What was she looking for in these narrow columns of newsprint? To commiserate with others who might understand her pain? She’d written a note to another young widow,
I know exactly how you feel—the disappearing dinner invitations, the looks of pity, the sense of slowly becoming invisible.
She had not heard back.
    But she heard from her mother all the time—e-mails, notes, postcards. She also called often, like now, when she should’ve been at her yoga class. “Are the customers breaking down your door, honey?” Her tinny voice sounded so far away, she could’ve been talking from the moon instead of California.
    Lily gazed out into her empty shop. Well, not empty. Full of the best Chanel, Ralph Lauren, Ferragamo. The clothes were here. The people would come. “Boatloads, Mom. I can’t hold off the