Chapter 5

The sign went up on a Tuesday.

Junie hired a sign painter — a young woman named Delia who did hand-lettering for the craft fair circuit and had painted the new menu board at Mrs. Alvarez's bakery. Delia came out to the building across the river with a stepladder and a can of red paint and a brush, and she stood in the parking lot for a while looking at the faded FRANK'S TOOLS letters.

"COLERIDGE HARDWARE," Delia said. "That's a mouthful. You want it in the same red?"

"I want it in the same red," Junie said. "Same lettering style, too. The way the old sign looked before Wade repainted it."

Delia nodded. She didn't ask questions — she was young, but she was from the town, and she'd heard the gossip. She'd probably heard more than the gossip, talking to Mrs. Alvarez over the counter of the bakery. The sign painter started with a scraper and a wire brush, peeling off the old letters, and by the time she was done, a small crowd had gathered across the street.

Not a hostile crowd. A curious crowd. The same crowd that had come to the ribbon-cutting on Saturday, but different now — quiet, watchful, the way a crowd gets when it's waiting to see which way the wind blows.

"Junie," said a voice — Mrs. Alvarez, from the bakery. Junie turned and there she was in her blue sweater, holding two paper cups of coffee, her face carefully neutral but her eyes bright. "I brought you coffee. You must be thirsty."

"Thank you, Mrs. Alvarez."

"Call me Rosa. You've been calling me Mrs. Alvarez for fifteen years and I keep telling you—" Rosa pressed one of the cups into Junie's hand. "I heard you're opening your own place."

"I'm opening a store, yes."

"No, I mean your own place. Your name on the door." Rosa looked across the river, to where the old Coleridge Hardware stood with its fresh white paint and its COLERIDGE & SON sign. "Wade's been telling everyone you stole the name from him."