The Bluestockings: Chapter One
“Bluestocking Books was a place that allowed Eleanor to escape. If she didn’t want to be reminded of her past..she would simply open the cover of a book and disappear.”
Welcome to The Nook! The Bluestockings is my latest novel, which I’m releasing in serial form one chapter at a time. These posts are free for you to read, but they were not free for me to produce. If you’d like to support my work, please consider becoming a paid subscriber or purchasing your own paperback/Kindle copy of The Bluestockings. Thanks for being here!
Eleanor
With his hand frozen above the touchscreen register, Eleanor’s dad fixed his face into a pleasant smile as their neighbor, Agatha, droned on about her broken ankle. It was an expression Eleanor knew well, a smile that said, “Please stop talking,” even though James would never be so rude as to speak the words aloud.
It was the only smile Eleanor had ever seen on her father’s face.
“Marty told me not to step up on that ladder, but I really didn’t think it was gonna hurt anything,” Agatha said, leaning on the mahogany counter. Her thick arms jiggled as she settled onto her elbows. Eleanor resisted the urge to reach out and squeeze them. She wondered if they felt the way her grandmother’s had, pillowy and smooth, like the dough in her homemade biscuits.
“Well, I’m glad it’s not too serious,” James replied with a wink at Eleanor. She turned her back to swallow the giggle that threatened to bubble up in her throat. “It’s a good thing you’re right next door. I don’t have to worry about missing my morning coffee.”
Agatha pouted, her face reminiscent of an overgrown toddler. “I hate being stuck,” she said, sticking out her foot to scowl at the orange cast. “I’ve never broken a bone before now if you can believe it.”
“Never?” asked James, still smiling with polite interest.
“Neither have I!” interjected Eleanor as she whipped back around to face Agatha. She couldn’t resist a chance to join the conversation, even if Agatha was the sort who talked a whole lot but never said much of anything. “I got a concussion once when I fell off my skateboard, but that wasn’t so bad.”
Agatha’s face brightened. “Say, that’s an idea!” she said with a finger pointed at Eleanor, who stopped shuffling bookmarks and frowned in confusion. Adults who pointed fingers at kids rarely had much good on their minds. “How about you do some deliveries for me while I’ve got this blasted thing on my foot? Maybe leave the skateboard at home, though.” When Eleanor hesitated, Agatha added, “I’ll pay you.”
Eleanor changed her mind about pointed fingers. “Really?” She glanced at her dad, who sighed.
“If you want,” he said. “Just as long as you don’t go too far.”
“Oh, don’t you worry about that,” Agatha said with a conspiratorial grin at Eleanor. “Most customers are right here in town, and, besides, everyone in Hawthorn knows our girl. She’ll be fine.”
Eleanor chose to forgive the “our girl” in favor of Agatha’s confidence in her. “Thanks!”
She pictured herself, messenger bag over one shoulder, strolling around the square from the hair salon to the antique store, dropping off coffees and baked goods to the adults who worked there. She’d hold her head high, long dark curls in a ponytail down her back, and call out names from the list of customers. She would never mispronounce them since she had known almost everyone in Hawthorn her entire life, and she would never, ever give them the wrong order.
Eleanor Black, Coffee Messenger. It had a nice ring to it.
“I’m already helping out here with Dad while we’re on winter break,” Eleanor added, her eyes bright with excitement. “But he doesn’t pay me, so this is way better.”
James scoffed and eyed Eleanor over his thin reading glasses. “Oh, thanks a lot.”
“You know what I mean, Dad,” Eleanor said, lifting her chin. “I love the bookstore, but a young girl needs to learn some fiscal responsibility.”
Agatha hooted and slapped the counter. “Got yourself a real smart kid there, Jimmy,” she said, pushing off with some effort. She pointed at Eleanor again, but this time Eleanor didn’t mind. “Come by and see me first thing when y’all open, and I’ll get you started on the morning orders.”
Eleanor nodded, bouncing on her toes. “I’ll be there.”
After Agatha made her clumsy way next door to the bakery she’d opened with her husband thirty years ago, James swiveled on his old, faded Converse and gazed at his daughter, lips pressed into a tight line. “You sure you want to work for Agatha?” he asked. “She’s a handful.”
“Of course, I’m sure,” Eleanor replied with more confidence than she felt. “I can handle her. It’ll be great.”
It had to be great. Eleanor was, quite literally, counting on it.
Two weeks ago, she had gone into her dad’s office to grab the stapler from his desk drawer and had found herself staring at a document with large, foreboding letters, the sort of words Eleanor had only ever seen in movies and had thought, until that moment, was the stuff of sets and scriptwriters. Her heart had pounded against her rib cage as she read the lengthy notice and felt sick enough to puke. She hadn’t understood much of what was written there, but she’d understood enough.
Unless Eleanor’s dad came up with more money than she’d ever seen in her life, they were going to lose Bluestocking Books.
The shop had been her parents’ dream even before Eleanor was born. Her mother had named it to honor all the women throughout history who had been scorned and punished for their love of learning, and now it was in danger of becoming a memory.
Just like Vera.
This was Eleanor’s chance to help. Surely, Agatha would pay her as much as any other employee. Maybe with that kind of cash, Eleanor could make a dent in what they owed and keep them safe for a little longer. After all, people in Hawthorn had been generous to the Blacks over the years. Eleanor thought back to times when the shop was filled with customers, back when she would run between shelves and gig- gle in delight as people called out to her. Bluestocking Books had been her haven. Her palace of dreams and magical wishes that always came true.
As she peered around at the quiet space now, Eleanor wondered for the first time if perhaps she was mistaken. Maybe the shop had only seemed that way because she’d been so small. Maybe the trouble had started a long time ago.
How Eleanor loved Bluestocking Books. She loved the way it smelled like dust and sea air, no matter the season. She loved how the old pine floors creaked and popped as they settled. She loved how she needed a ladder to reach the top of the bookshelves, as though she were a character in one of her favorite novels. The shop was dreadfully romantic, and Eleanor was determined to save it. She needed—they needed—a miracle.
Two miracles. And each one seemed as impossible as the other.
Eleanor shuffled papers on the counter into a stack and cleared off the crumbs from her breakfast bagel. “I can still help out here, though, so don’t worry about that.”
“I’m not worried,” James said. He removed his glasses and peered at Eleanor. “But you’re twelve. You need to have some fun on your school break.”
Eleanor shrugged, feigning indifference. “Work is fun.”
James shook his head and offered a weak chuckle. “I’ve ruined you. I’ve taken my lovely, bookish daughter and turned her into a workaholic. Profit is king. All is lost.”
Eleanor laughed, but his words made her stomach twist. She peered out the front window and took a deep breath in her nose to settle the anxiety that bloomed hot in her chest. She breathed out slowly through her mouth, just like she’d been taught, and pictured her fears disappearing into the air around them, swallowed by the cozy atmosphere of the bookshop. Her plan would work. It had to work. It was only three weeks until Christmas. Nobody would be terrible enough to close a family bookstore before Christmas. Right?
Eleanor watched her dad shuffle back to his office, his broad shoulders eternally slumped, and let out a heavy sigh. The clock on the wall behind her ticked away the seconds, a cruel reminder of every moment spent without the money they needed to keep Bluestocking Books in business. The multicolored lights Eleanor and James had draped on the bookshelves last week twinkled with a prism of warmth, but she only felt cold. Fingering the oval brass locket she always wore—a gift passed down first from her grandmother to her mother and then to her—Eleanor pushed her worries into the metal through her fingertips. A talisman to capture her anxious thoughts.
Everywhere she looked, Eleanor was reminded of her mom, no matter how they rearranged the layout or changed the decor. Vera had been the storyteller, the one who'd taught Eleanor to love words, and her stories were all around them. The bookstore was all they had left of her. Abandoned daughter or not, Eleanor couldn’t bear to lose it, too.
As a small handful of customers trickled in and out of the store, Eleanor cranked up the holiday tunes and worked to finish the new window display: a large book tree draped with white lights that blinked in time to the music. Regardless of what people might say about Eleanor’s mother, no one could ever say that Bluestocking Books wasn’t a delightful place to spend an afternoon. The walls were lined with shelves of books, some new and some used, in every genre. A soft, leather couch sat in the center of the store, encircled by shelves, with a worn wooden coffee table and a threadbare rug where Willoughby, the stray tomcat who wandered in and out of stores all over Hawthorn, seeking snacks and chin scratches alike, would sometimes curl up and sleep for hours. Origami birds Eleanor had made from the pages of recycled books spun in lazy circles above her head. Her mother had even set up a little free library by the front door so they could cycle out old inventory for people who came into the shop but weren’t able to buy anything.
“Everyone deserves books,” she’d said to Eleanor as they filled it to the brim with paperbacks and old advanced reader copies.
Bluestocking Books was a place that allowed Eleanor to escape. If she didn’t want to be reminded of her past, if the grief threatened to pull her under until Eleanor couldn’t bear the sight of the store for another minute, she would simply open the cover of a book and disappear.
At least her disappearances were temporary.
Back at the house that night, after James had closed the shop and they’d walked home, Eleanor set her grandmother’s old tea kettle on the stove and waited for the water to boil. James’ mom and dad had owned their house for years before Vera and James married, and the whole family lived in it together until both of Eleanor’s grandparents got sick and moved into the nursing home. Eleanor was ten years old the year they passed away, just months apart from each other, and she still missed them every single day.
Inside, the Black house was frozen in time. Floral wallpaper in every room of varying shades of rose or lilac. Wonky cabinet doors that didn’t fully shut after decades of Georgia’s coastal humidity had warped them. A poky fireplace that sometimes smoked. But the kitchen table was the same one where Eleanor’s grandmother had taught her to make biscuits from scratch, its surface marred by thousands of meals. And the fenced garden out back, her grandfather’s shed still standing sentry, bloomed in springtime with enough color and fragrance to make even the most skilled gardener pluck his beard with envy.
While Eleanor waited for the kettle to heat up, she peeked out the kitchen window into the garden. She giggled at the ancient porcelain Santa her dad had perched in the center of the stone path, his rosy cheeks weather-beaten and faded. The kettle whistled, and Eleanor prepared their drinks, careful to measure the cocoa powder for her hot chocolate in precise spoonfuls. She topped it with a dollop of whipped cream and then carried the mugs into the living room. James sat on the edge of the couch, glasses perched at the end of his long nose. A folder of paperwork was open on the table in front of him, and the furrowed line between her dad’s eyebrows as he scanned the papers appeared to grow deeper with each moment. He looked up at Eleanor and blinked as if to come back to himself from some other place. Then he smiled a weary smile.
“Tea?” he asked, taking a mug from Eleanor.
“Earl Gray for you,” she said and pretended to gag. “Hot chocolate for me.” Eleanor cast a glance over the papers, but her dad tidied them away before she could see what they were.
“One day, you will love tea, too,” James replied with a clink of his mug to hers.
“Unless it’s ice cold and sweet enough to make my teeth rot, no thank you.” Eleanor turned on the television and browsed for a Christmas movie. James wrinkled his nose like he smelled something sour.
“I think I’ll head to bed now,” he said, moving to get up from the couch.
Eleanor huffed. “C’mon, Dad,” she pleaded. “Don’t you want to see another small-town artist slash bakery owner slash dog lover fall in love with the big-city bad boy determined to open a chain store and shut down her business?”
James laughed then, and the sound of it was a warm blanket on Eleanor’s skin. “Maybe you should write those movie scripts, Elle,” he said. “You’d probably do a better job.”
“But then we wouldn’t be able to hate on them,” Eleanor replied, matter-of-fact. “Mine would be much better, obviously, and the cheese factor is what makes this so fun. I wouldn’t want to let anyone down with my clever wit and stunning dialogue.”
Besides, she thought, I’ve got my own bookstore to save.
James looked down into his mug, resigned to his fate.
“If you’re looking for an answer in there,” Eleanor chirped, “it’s ‘Yes.’ ”
Her dad sighed and sat back down next to Eleanor. Then he eyed his daughter with a raised brow. “I do this because I love you, young lady, and for no other reason.”
Eleanor gathered her feet up under the blanket and scooted close to his side. The Christmas tree twinkled at them from across the room, and Eleanor watched it with a tender ache in her chest, a bruise that wouldn’t heal.
“I know you do,” she said and pressed play.
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