Goodnight June: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

voice in my head as I do.
    But it is time, they tell me. So, I’ve put fresh sheets on the bed and tidied the kitchen. I’m sorry the floor is in such disarray. These days, it’s hard for me to part with anything, so I tend to keep it all. It would be an honor to me if you’d stay here. Make yourself at home. I truly hope you will. Because it is your home now, June.
    Bluebird Books was always to be your legacy. You see, my dear, we share the same sensibilities about life. I knew that even when you were a wee child. Your sister would spend hours with her dolls, but you’d sit in the window seat with a book in your lap, wide-eyed. You loved books as I do. I hope you’ve never lost the love of literature, the sense of discovery and wonder.
    It hasn’t been easy for me since you left Seattle. But I understood why you had to go. You needed to spread your wings and fly. And you did. I only wish you’d have flown home every once in a while. I have missed you so.
    I trust that you will love Bluebird Books and care for it as much as I have. It won’t be easy. Children aren’t reading the way they did in my day. And I will confess, I worry that the love of books is dying. Children’s literature today is facing a state of emergency. My most loyal customers are straying for the glitz of media, the lure of this thing called the Internet. Two years ago, a little boy named Stuart and his mother Genie used to come into the store often. He would listen to me read at story time with wide eyes, eyes of an active imagination. But he stopped coming as frequently, and when his mother brought him in last summer, I could see that the spark had died out. His mother lamented that all he’s interested in these days is movies and video games. As a result, literature doesn’t speak to him in the way it once did.
    I’ve done all I can, all I know to do. And now I leave it to you. It is the problem of the next generation to solve. What is childhood without stories? And how will children fall in love with stories without bookstores? You can’t get that from a computer.
    I know that keeping Bluebird Books afloat will be a challenge. But I have faith in you, June. If anyone can save this store, it’s you.
    So I leave this beloved place to you, and with it, all of its secrets. And there are many, all here for you to discover.
    As Beatrix Potter once said, “What heaven can be more real than to retain the spirit-world of childhood, tempered and balanced by knowledge and common sense.”
    And this is what you will find here, my dear child.
    With love, always,
    Your devoted Aunt Ruby
    I place the letter to my chest and sigh.
She wants me to save the store.
I shake my head.
How can I? I live in New York. I have a job. I can’t stay in Seattle. I can’t do this.
    I hear Ruby’s voice then:
Yes, you can, dear.
    And for a moment, I believe her.

Chapter 3

    T he next morning, I wake up in Ruby’s bed at five a.m., which would be eight a.m. New York time, and I chastise myself for sleeping in. Under normal circumstances, I would have been up hours ago. I’d have already run six miles, showered, and would be sitting at my desk with a phone in one hand and the other scrolling through e-mails on my computer.
    I stand up quickly, remembering the way my mom used to sleep late. And when I say late, I mean past noon. My sister and I could hardly rouse her. We’d lie beside her and watch her chest rise and fall, just to make sure she was still breathing. Her hair would always be frizzy and wild from a night of partying, and she’d smell of cigarettes and alcohol. Often there’d be a man in her bed. Amy and I never liked that. Once we took a permanent marker and drew a mustache on one guy’s upper lip. He was too hungover to notice when he woke up two hours later and staggered out the door. We never saw him again, but I often imagined him catching a glimpse of his reflection in a window somewhere and trying to rub it off. It still makes me