Gayle Forman’s track record of producing beloved (and best-selling) YA novels continues.
Now, from a universal perspective, thirty-three thousand years is not much.
Barely a blink of an eye.
Credit: Viking Books for Young Readers
But it’s still thirty-three thousand years.
Almost two million Mondays.
It’s not nothing.
The thing I keep coming back to is: Did they know?
But it doesn’t really delve into what they were thinking toward the end.
Their thoughts on their own extinction, like so many other mysteries, they took with them.
*
Fact: Dinosaurs still exist.
Here’s what they look like.
The sonthat’s me, Aaronslumps on a stool by the starving cash register, obsessively reading about dinosaurs.
We are a store full of left-behinds.
Ira jumps up from his seat, eyes wide and panicky.
“What was that?”
One of our largest shelves has split down the middle, like the chestnut tree inJane Eyre.
And anyone who’s readJane Eyreknows what that portends.
This is not his fault.
I lead him back to his chair, extract the weighted blanket, and lay it over him.
I turn on the kettle we keep downstairs and brew him some chamomile tea.
“But the books .
Ira’s voice is heavy with mourning, as if the books were living, breathing things.
Which to him they are.
Ira believes books are miracles.
“Twenty-six letters and some punctuation marks and you have infinite words in infinite worlds.”
He’d gesture at my book, at his book, at all the books in the shop.
“How is that not a miracle?”
“The books will be fine.”
The books will not be fine.
The teachers would have meetings with Ira and Mom about delays and interventions.
Mom was worried but Ira was not.
“It’ll happen when it happens.”
But every day that it didn’t happen, I felt like I was being denied a miracle.
And with that, my world changed.
All those worlds, in twenty-six letters.
If anything, I’d thought, Ira had undersold the miracle.
These days, the only book I can stomach isThe Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs.
I itch to hear thatfoofof the paper igniting.
I imagine the heat of the blaze as our books, our clothes, our memories are incinerated.
Sandy’s records melt into a river of vinyl.
“What about the shelf?”
The shelf is ruined.
Consider this a metaphor for the store.
But Ira’s brow is furrowed in worry, as if the broken shelf physically pains him.
Which it probably does.
And when something pains Ira, it pains me too.
Which I why I tell him we’ll get a new shelf.
And so it begins.
The next morning, Ira wakes me with a series of gentle shakes.
It’s still dark outside.
My head is full of cotton balls.
I blink until the digital clock comes into focus.
Ira insists on abiding by our posted times, even on snow days, even on sick days.
It’s part of what he calls the bookseller covenant.
“Can’t we get shelves in Bellingham?”
I’m still not fully awake, which is why I add, “At the Home Depot?”
even though I know Ira does not shop at Home Depot.
Ira remains committed to the small, independent store.
A dinosaur who supports other dinosaurs.
“Absolutely not!”
“We have always shopped at Coleman’s.
Your mother and I bought our first bookshelf from Linda and Steve.
Now come on!”
He yanks away the covers.
“Let’s get moving.”
Twenty minutes later, we are firing up the Volvo wagon and pulling out of the driveway.
It’s still midnight dark, dawn feeling very far away.
“Good morning, Penny!”
“You’re up early.”
“Oh, I’m always up this early,” Penny replies.
“That’s why I catch all the worms.”
“Well, we’re off to buy some new shelves,” Ira replies.
“See you later.”
“It’s run by a husband and wife.
Well, it was until Steve died.
Now Linda runs it with her daughter.”
“Kind of like you and me.”
Wood, after all, is as flammable as paper.
‘Ira,’ she’ll say.
‘How’s that display table working out?’
Even if it’s been years.”
What Ira is talking about is the hand-sell.
He is a big believer in the hand-sell.
Once upon a time, he and Mom were very good at it.
He and Mom used to sell a lot of books this way.
“And then we can organize a bit here and there and turn things around.”
Ira often talks aboutturning things around.
But what he really means is turning back time, to before the asteroid hit.
Still, I don’t blame him for wishing.
When we pull into Coleman’s, right at eight, the store is dark and locked.
I run out to check the sign on the door.
“It says it opens at nine,” I call to Ira.
“That’s odd.”
Ira scratches his beard.
“I could’ve sworn it was open from eight to four.
Linda arranged the schedule like that so they could be home with the kids in the evening.
Now we’re going to open late.”
“Well, since we have time to kill, do you want to get some breakfast?”
“Sure,” Ira agrees.
We get back in the car and drive toward a shopping center.
On one end of the parking lot is one of those giant health food emporiums.
On the other side is a bookstore.
All signs of a bookshop thrivingin Amazon’s backyard, no lesshaving survived algorithms, pandemics, TikTok.
A reminder that not all species went extinct after the asteroid hit.
“Just go grab me something.”
Ten dollars a pound.
The egg breakfast at C.J.
’s is five bucks, including juice and coffee.
I set off for something more affordable.
The cheapest one is twenty bucks.
They go up, significantly, from there.
A tattooed hipster mans the table.
He wears a fedora with a feather in it.
I can’t tell if it’s a Halloween costume or just his “ironic” style.
“You collect vinyl?”
“I don’t like records, or CDs, or music, for that matter.”
The hipster rears back as if I just informed him that I mutilate kittens for fun.
“What kind of person doesn’t like music?”
My reply is automatic, an age-old distinction I don’t even question: “A book person.”
“Hello,” Ira calls, leaping out of the car.
“Are you open?”
“We open at nine.”
“Could we come in now?”
“I’m an old friend of Linda’s.”
“Who’s Linda?”
Owner since nineteen seventy .
“Oh, yeah, they sold the store,” the guy tells us.
“To your family?”
“To Furniture Emporium,” he replies.
“Does your family own that?”
“No, it’s the chain.
They kept the name, though, because people know this place.
But it’s really a Furniture Emporium now.”
“Oh,” Ira says.
“I see.”
The clerk is friendly enough.
He opens the door.
“Browse if you want.”
Set loose, Ira is adrift.
“How about this one?”
“How much?”
I peer at the price sticker.
“On sale for four hundred and forty-five dollars.”
I have no idea if that’s a lot for a shelf.
Or if we can afford it.
Though I technically own the bookstore, Ira still takes care of the business end of things.
“We’d like the red oak shelf,” Ira calls to the clerk.
They start filling out the paperwork.
When Ira gives our address, the clerk is not familiar with our town.
I show him on my phone.
“Oh, man, that’s far.”
“Linda always delivered for us.
Steve used to drive the truck himself.
Charged fifty dollars.”
“Delivery that far is gonna be .
He types into the computer.
“One fifty.”
He looks at Ira.
“You’d be better off buying it online.
Get free shipping.”
You’re better off telling Ira to sell his kidney.
Which he wouldn’t.
Yes, but not sell it.
“Ira,” I try.
“He has a point.”
“I won’t buy online.
From a chain.”
“But thisisa chain.”
“But this is where I’ve always bought my furniture.”
He nods to the clerk, who tallies up the total.
“Four forty-five, plus tax and delivery.
That comes to six thirty-four.”
“Six thirty-four,” Ira repeats in a reedy voice.
“Maybe we should forget it,” I begin.
“No,” Ira says.
“We need a shelf.”
With a shaking hand, Ira counts the bills in his wallet.
“I have two hundred in cash.
Charge the rest,” he says, pulling out a credit card.
“Where’d you get that card?”
“Oh, I’ve had this one for years,” he replies.
Before I can point out that he must know I know this is bullshit, the card is declined.
“Try this one,” Ira says, forking over another one.
“How are you getting all these cards?”
And it was also meant to wipe their credit clean.
Ira’s not meant to be eligible for new cards.
“They won’t hurt the store.
They won’t hurt you.”
“They?How many cards do you have?”
“Just three.”
“It’s not a big deal.
Sometimes you have to borrow from Peter to pay Paul.”
When the third card is declined, Ira bows his head.
“Linda used to let me pay on installments,” he tells the clerk.
“Sure,” the clerk says.
“We can do that.”
Ira looks up, a painful smile on his face.
Is it okay if we pay two hundred now?”
“Yep,” the clerk replies.
“The balance is due before we deliver.
We’ll hold it for ninety days.”
His mouth goes into an O shape, like a fish gasping for air.
“Ira, he means layaway.
You have to pay before you get the shelf.”
“O-oh,” Ira stutters.
His breathing picks up and his eyes bulge.
I know what’s coming next.
“Excuse us a moment.”
I lead Ira to a bench outside and help him to take deep, slow breaths.
“Let’s just forget the shelves.”
Ira’s voice is raspy, desperate.
“We can’t.”
Then let’s order online."
Ira hands me his wallet.
“Just go get something.”
I begin, the frustration twisting in my stomach.
Because sometimes I just want to shake him.
Why can’t he see it?
A shelf won’t magically transform us into a bookstore like the one in this shopping center.
It’s over for us.
Time to accept our extinction.
Like Linda Coleman apparently has.
“Fine,” I say, closing my fist around the wallet.
I go back inside and slap two hundred dollars out on the counter.
“What will this get us?”
What it will get us is metal shelves.
This turns out to be important.
