Chapter 1

  I was all alone in the bookstore, Willow, Lucy, Lis and Zoe were heading back to Zoe’s old second hand bookstore. The new owner of the building she rented doubled her rent. So Willow and I bought all of her stock and I hired her part time. But I wasn’t used to working alone anymore and I wasn’t used to little visits from the mayor. I don’t think he is a reader like his wife is. He hasn’t changed in years; he had that same comb over in his late thirties. Why do some men just refuse to acknowledge they are losing their hair? Didn’t Patrick Stewart make the bald look sexy in the late eighties followed by a whole slew of stars since then. So why did our mayor still have a comb over in twenty twenty five? I’d ask him but I’m sure that would just set him off.

  “Good morning mayor, how can I help you?”

  “Laura, I’m here to help you.”

  Now this couldn’t possibly be true, when has a politician ever done anything without expecting something in return. Trump wants a bribe from a TV network, simple just sue them and settle out of court. No one can accuse him of a bribe even though we witnessed it right in front of our eyes. If my fellow Americans wanted a clown in office they could have elected Wavy Gravy, a decent man who spent his life in the service of others. One of the founding members of SEVA, helping poor people from going blind and restoring sight. I guess Trump could be used for a color blindness test. Does he look orange to you? Then no, you see colors perfectly well.

  “That great mayor, you brought my permit to repair and expand the boat house.”

  “Ah, no”

  “Well, that’s the only thing I need from the town, so you can keep whatever help you were planning to offer. I just bought all of Zoe Werner’s used books and I’m running out of room to store them. I can’t store them in the boathouse, the roof leaks and the whole building is so damp, I might just as well throw the books in the lake.”

  “Well what would you say about twenty five percent off of your property taxes.”

  “I’d say they are about fifty percent too high, I’d say the property taxes are driving all the working people out of town. I’d say that if I was the mayor, property taxes would go down by thirty percent.”

  “No, what I am saying, Laura, is that if you host an event for the town, the town will knock off twenty five percent off your property taxes.”

  “What about my books, mayor?”

  “What about them?”

  “You expect me to host some party, while my books just sit there and rot. The death of literature is nothing to celebrate, mayor.”

  “Laura, we all know how passionate you are about books, libraries and reading. But the town needs your help.”

  “I need the town's help, first you hire an incompetent cop to placate the county executive who accuses me of murder. If I wasn’t a pacifist I would have murdered that idiot of a detective. This past weekend your ADA and chief of police had me babysit a nazi arms dealer for a day so they could follow procedure. It seems to me that I have given the town quite enough help and when I ask for a permit to fix a building, well it’ll probably fall in the lake, before your building department gets around to reading it, they must be as efficient as your police department. The only thing they are any good at is writing parking tickets. I think they all graduated from the Barney Fife school of policing.”

  “Come on Laura, that isn’t fair. August does the best he can do with the budget that he has to work with.”

  “Yeah, what’s the building inspector's excuse? When I get my permit, then we can talk about you giving me a thirty percent discount on my property taxes.”

  The mayor finally realized I was jumping at his offer. So he decided to change tack.

  “Herb, it’s me, I’m over at Laura’s and she said you have issued her a permit to repair her boathouse.”

  He looked at me and said, “Laura, Herb said you just submitted it this morning.”

  “Yeah, and all Herb has to do is sign it, but he was too busy eating a donut and drinking his coffee to get off his fat butt and give me the signature that I need. Seems to me if the town needs a favor, they should be the first to give a favor in return. It also seems to me it would be in Herb’s heart best interest if Herb stood up, signed the paperwork and walked it over here. Just a little walking every day can add years to your lifespan. I can point out the studies if you’d like to see them. Those donuts certainly aren’t doing him any good. Fried cakes, who ever thought those would be healthy.”

  “Yes, Herb, just sign them now and hustle them over here. I don’t care, just hurry it up. Apparently some very valuable books are in danger. Alright Laura, now you got what you wanted, can we talk about what I want in return.”

  “Sure mayor, you want a cup of tea?”

  “That would be nice, Laura, milk with no sugar.”

  “Alright, keep an eye on the register.”

  I went to the kitchen and made the tea and chatted with Amy, I brought a tray down the stairs with our two cups of tea, and a plate of Amy’s homemade chocolate chip cookies. Cookies might not be the best thing for you for breakfast but they are a good deal better than donuts. Until some smart marketer figures out a way to deep fry cookies, like McDonalds did to pie.

  The mayor didn’t hesitate having a cookie for breakfast.

  “These are delicious, Laura.”

  “I’ll tell Amy you liked them.”

  “It’s funny you should have given me homemade baked goods. That’s why I’m here, Laura. We want you to host, ‘The Superb Lake Placid Bake Off’.”

  “Isn’t that trademark infringement?”

  “No, the show's lawyers claim that it isn’t.”

  “Well, it’s no skin off my nose, I don’t own the trademark. But if I agree to host this thing, I get the tax discount whether or not they make the show. Just me agreeing gets me the discount correct?”

  “Yes, fine.”

  Just then Anais arrived, I called here when I went to get the tea.

  “Hi Anais, just in time the mayor and I need a contract witnessed. Could you write it up for us please.”

  “With pleasure, what are the terms?”

  “I host a TV show called “The Superb Lake Placid Bake Off” in return for agreeing to do it. The town gives us a twenty five percent discount on our property taxes. We get the discount just for agreeing even if they don’t make the show. Also, I think they should guarantee that Amy gets to be a contestant. She is the best baker I know and there can't be anyone else in town that bakes as well as Amy does.”

  “Laura the producer is never going to go for that, it would look like favoritism if Amy won. She lives on the property the show is produced on, let me call the producer and talk to her, maybe Amy could be a judge?”

  So the mayor walked off and out the front door, “Hello, Roberta…”

  “This should be good for business, Laura, it seems like everyone wants to watch a TV show being made. I can’t believe that they want to make a show here in Lake Placid.”

  “Just make sure that it’s in the contract that we get the perks whether or not they actually make the show. Do you have any idea the number of books that got optioned for TV or movies actually do get made? Maybe one in ten or one in twenty. It's just ridiculous. So I don’t want us stuck, if they back out at the last minute.”

  “Alright well that will be easy to accomplish, we’ll stick it right in there. The mayor didn’t balk at it when you mentioned it, so I think it will be fine.”

  “We want Amy as a contestant or judge in the contract too.”

  Herb just walked in the front door, waving a piece of paper in front of his red face, he must have hustled over here.

  “Hi Herb. want a homemade cookie, Amy made them.”

  I knew he wanted one, I could see the lust in his eyes.

  “I heard what you said about my fat butt, now you are offering me a cookie.”

  “I was mad, Herb. I really need that permit.”

  “Well, Laura, maybe you should have thought about that before you insulted me.”

  “Herb, you were so entranced by that donut you wouldn’t even stand up to take my application from me. If you had just stood up, signed my application, you could be back in your office having another donut.”

  “I only eat one donut a day.”

  “That’s a lie Herb, and you know. When I was at your office you were sitting there eating a glazed donut.”

  “So, that’s the only donut I ate today.”

  “Then why is there raspberry jam and powdered sugar on your face?”

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  Anais pointed to the left side of her face by her lips, so he knew that I wasn’t lying and just where to wipe it off. I handed him a napkin and held out the plate of cookies.

  He finally broke down, handed me the signed permit. Took to cookies and turned on his heel and marched right back out the door.

  “How did you know it was raspberry and not strawberry of some other flavor.”

  “Herb has always had a soft spot for raspberry donuts, I used to babysit him when I was still in high school. I’d bring a bag of donuts and would only give them to him, if he was quiet and let me read. It worked like a charm, the one time it didn’t the bakery was out of raspberry so I got strawberry. It was awful he wouldn’t shut up about the stupid donuts. I don’t think that I got to read at all that night.”

  The mayor breezed back in, “Alright Laura, Amy is all set as a judge. Roberta is the executive producer. She will be here either later this afternoon or tomorrow morning. The recording starts Friday with a welcome party for the contestants where they record personal information about the bakers. The contest itself will begin Saturday morning and run for ten days. I’ll be around for some of it. Thank you, I'll see you on Friday.”

  “You forgot to sign the contract, mayor.”

  “Laura, we don’t need a contract.”

  “Contracts keep friends who are doing business together, friends. If you don’t want to sign, mayor, I’d advise Laura not to allow anyone on her property until you do.”

  “Anais, you know that I’m not supposed to sign anything unless it was cleared by the town attorney.”

  “Fine, take the contract with you, and just call back Roberta and tell her you need the town attorney to make the decision because the mayor isn’t allowed to on his own. Why don’t we just have the town attorney be mayor, then we could save one salary from the town’s bloated budget. Laura will welcome Roberta with open arms once she gets back the contract. Until then no cast or crew are allowed unless they are here to buy a book.”

  “Anais, I don’t think you should hang around Laura anymore. I think her hippie sensibilities are wearing off on you. Let me read your contract. There better not be any first party second party nonsense in there.”

  “Don’t worry mayor, it is just plain old American words, you won’t have any trouble at all. I didn’t use Lorries or Lifts or Boots, nope no English words at all.”

  “Funny Anais.”

  He read it, he signed it, he hitailed it out of the store.

  “Anais, want to stay for lunch, so I can pay you back, or would you like a book?”

  “Laura, you do know that books are not legal tender.”

  “Neither’s bitcoin but you don’t see anyone stopping all those idiots from buying it. A book has something that bitcoin will never have, ideas. It will enrich your mind, and make you happy. I’d like to see a digital asset do that.”

  “You do know that all those investors made a ton of money, buying bitcoin.”

  “Buying bitcoin is like buying an ebook or a movie with DRM, you get nothing in return. Bitcoin is imaginary money, just like the US dollar is. But the difference is the dollar is worth something while the US government stands. The confederate dollars, nobody wants them but bigots and nazi’s.”

  “Well I don’t have either of those, so I guess I don’t have to worry. But I have to get back to work, you don’t have to give me a book or lunch, I just wanted to see the mayor squirm. So mission accomplished, you can pay me back by saving me a front row seat to the Great British Bake Off.”

  “If it really were them, I wouldn’t have given the mayor a hard time at all. I’d love to talk to Noel Fielding, to find out what it was like to work on the ‘IT Crowd’. Thanks for coming over Anais.”

  ***

  I waited on a few customers and after the store cleared out, I called my favorite volunteer fireperson.

  “Hello Faith, how have you been?”

  “Great, Laura, it’s great to hear from you.”

  “I’m not calling at a bad time am I, you’re not fighting a fire or anything like that are you?”

  “No, I’m the duty officer today, I’m just sitting at the desk waiting for an emergency call to come in.”

  “Well, I better hang up then, Faith.”

  “No, it’s okay, in fact it’s great I was bored just sitting here. The emergency calls come through the desk phone, not my cell. Although if the phone does happen to ring, I’ll have to say goodbye.”

  “You don't have to say goodbye, just hang up and help those who need help.”

  She laughed, “Alright I will.”

  “I was wondering if you know if any of the fire persons do roofing. My boathouse leaks and I might need to store some books in there, which is a recipe for disaster.”

  “You’ll need to get a permit first, then I’ll be more than happy to do it free of charge, I owe you big time.”

  “I already have the permit, but I need to go and get the materials. But if you do it, I want to pay you.”

  “I’ll be over tonight to measure the roof and I’ll pick up the materials tomorrow morning in my pickup, those roofing shingles are heavy, they’d put your poor old car in car heaven or the junk yard, whichever is closer.”

  “The junkyard, I guarantee it. I’ll give you the store credit card tonight to buy the materials with. How are the classes going?”

  “Good, I’ll graduate at the end of August, then I can take the civil service exams in both Albany and Burlington. Both departments have openings.”

  “I’m really glad for you Faith, but we are going to miss you.”

  Then her deskphone started to ring, “Sorry, gotta go Laura, I’ll see you tonight.”

  It’s too bad that Faith has to move to a city to pursue her dream, but small towns just can’t afford fire departments. We are probably lucky that we can afford the equipment and that so many of my neighbors are willing to volunteer their time and risk their lives, trying to save ours.

  I wondered how she was making out working in the same firehouse as the guy who falsely arrested her. Well he’s not a cop anymore and Faith is well liked at the station so I have no doubt that someone probably warned him off.

  ***

  I waited on a few more customers and even took a few video orders from the Rabbit Hole and pulled books and packed them so they would be ready for shipping when the delivery company arrived.

  By then the bus was back with the final load of books, there was no helping it the books would have to be handled twice. We’d pile them into the store and put them all in the room meant for the physical ebook display. Then when the roof was repaired in the boathouse, we’d have to move the books a second time. I hated having to do hard physical labor twice, it seemed wrong. I had a brain, I should be able to find a solution that doesn’t involve back breaking work. Lucy and Willow walked in.

  “Laura, we’re back, hey, you aren’t planning on using your car for a few days are you?”asked Lucy.

  “No, why do you need it for something? You can’t pile a lot of books in there, the suspension would never be able to take it.”

  “No, we put every book that was left in Zoe’s old store into her van. She is driving back with Lis right now, very slowly and carefully. I told Zoe she could probably use your car to get back and forth to work until the roof on the boat house is repaired. Then we only have to move the books once.”

  “Lucy you are a genius, I was trying to work out how we could avoid the extra work of moving them twice. Plus Faith is coming tonight to measure the roof and she is going to go and pick up the materials tomorrow, so it won't be for too long. It’s a small roof and even working alone, I’m sure that it won’t take that long to repair. Zoe can use my car as long as she wants. We’re going to be busy here anyways, we might be having a TV show on our front lawn for the next couple of weeks. That’s what I want to talk to you about, Willow. What do you think of having Urge parked her on the grounds for a couple of weeks, either you or Phoebe and Pappy could open up out there selling cookbooks, if you don’t have the book they need, you can send them in here to do a video order with the Rabbit Hole. We could pack every cookbook you stock in Urge and we might do quite well for those two weeks.”

  “Laura, I love that, I want to pay you back for my half of the books and this might be just the thing that I need to do that.”

  “Well, Willow, I’m really glad that you brought that up, because Lucy pointed out to me that I am only bringing eleven hundred dollars into this partnership, while you are bringing a twenty thousand dollar bus into the business. So at this moment I owe you nine thousand dollars, so until we make over twenty thousand in profits, the profits are all yours. Which works out perfectly, because I’ve been doing everything possible not to make a profit here in the store. I think the next thing I’m going to do is hire a financial expert to make sure that I don’t have to pay federal taxes anymore. I want the same guy that Trump and Musk use. If billionaires can get away without paying any taxes, then I want that too. Then as I learn exactly how that is done, I’m going to write a free eBook and publish far and wide, so the rest of us regular Americans can stop paying taxes. Then I’d be willing to bet all these tax loop holes will vanish, congress will be tripping over themselves to restore the government's income.”

  “Laura, there is no way Urge is worth twenty thousand dollars.”

  “Oh yes there is Willow, ask a couple of AIs to find you the cheapest car in the US, I have and they both came back with the same answer, 2026 Hyundai Venue, it costs just over twenty two thousand. So I think realistically Urge is probably worth even more, twenty five or thirty grand, it has custom built bookcases and is just perfect as a mobile bookstore.”

  “Well I don’t expect you to buy part of Urge, that was freely donated to the business by me. It was always the plan that Urge became a bookmobile. You made that dream possible when you bought all those books.”

  “Your father made that possible when he bought Urge, that’s another thing that I hadn’t taken into account on Urge’s value, your father made Urge into the Sistine Chapel of buses. That makes Urge, pretty near priceless in my book and yours too, I’m sure of that. Let’s just agree that I have more money then I know what to do with. I don’t take a salary out of this bookstore, so I certainly for now don’t want to take a salary out of Urge. In three years when we hopefully don’t have another deranged president, then we can talk about profit again. Just take my portion of the profit and reinvest it in the business, then we might be making so much money in three years we can open a beachfront bookstore and bar in Tahiti then we can jet in on our company jet, as a business expense, to check on our investment. But you have to promise me Willow, you won’t reinvest your profits, not if you have any other way to use the money. If you have any debts, just pay those off, you’ll be much further ahead in the long run. If your collective is dragging you down, you need to rethink what you are charging. My aunt and I ignored it for over fifty years and it almost dragged down the store and the house, and then thus the collective itself. So talk to Bianca, if you need money, you can always come to me. I made a great salary when I lived in New York City and my biggest expense is books and I got those for free from the publisher and lived in a rent controlled apartment. Now I live in a giant house, for free and eat for free and get my books for free. I don’t even pay for the internet, it’s included in the collective. If everyone in America lived in a collective, they could live like kings. This is ancient knowledge, Epicurus set up collectives three hundred years before Christ. Then the damn christians come along and turn all those collectives into monasteries. In the meantime they get rid of all of his writings because he proves there is no benevolent nor life after death. Sorry Willow, rant over, just know that if you need money, for anything, no questions asked, no need to pay it back.”

  “Laura, why agree to go into business together if you don’t want to make a profit.”

  “That’s easy Willow, I think it’ll be fun, I think we can do some good. The first thing the government cut was libraries and museums. Well a used bookstore is about as close to a public library as we could get and not go broke. It’s going to give Phoebe a job so she can stay with Pappy so I would have done it just for that. But I also liked the idea of you and I being partners. If you want to be happy, be happy with what you have, not what you don’t. But if life gives you the opportunity to try something new, don’t be scared, give it a try. I’d love to go out on Urge and sell books, but I’m such a terrible driver, I’m afraid I’d kill someone driving a bus.”

  “Well, how about this partner? You and I go out on Urge for a week in late August, before Lucy and Lis go back to school. You’ve got three part-timers now so the store will be covered and you get to see what a ‘Parnassus on Wheels’ is really like.”

  “I’d love that Willow, a working vacation sounds wonderful.”