Idon’t

know how to say this, Chuck, so I’m just going to say it. I think it’s been long enough now that I can tell you this without you getting mad. Someone came into the store while I was doing my morning Sudoku—I looked up from the jingle of the bell and immediately, I got that feeling. That feeling I got when I met you at the Miller Pool all those years ago. I still remember the water pressing the hair flat against your chest, that crooked grin across your face when you saw me looking at you. It was like that: my insides all jumbled up like the cords in my junk drawer.

“Hey there,” she said, more cautious than friendly. Even so, those two words caught me off guard.

“Yes, um, hello, hi, welcome to my store.” I swear to god, Chuck, I almost said auf wiedersehen, I was so out of my head.

“I’ve never heard of a Divorce Store before.” She was wearing a scarf but not a hippie scarf, rather a warm scarf that looked homemade. It’s not even cold yet, just the beginning of fall, the end of September.

“I like your scarf,” I said, which was neither true nor untrue: just something to say to show I was noticing her. I’ve been out of the game a long time, Chuck, and you know I’ve never even thought that way about a woman before. Well, okay, I’ve thought it but I’ve never acted on it. I was always faithful. And since you, celibate.

“Do you want it?” she said.

“Want what?” I asked, startled.

“The scarf. I’ll sell it to you. You can sell it here.”

“Oh, no, I’m not a pawn shop. I just meant it looks nice on you.”

“If you’re not a pawn shop, what are you?” She had been standing still, her arms hanging by her sides, but now she crossed the store and began picking up tchotchkes on shelves and running her hands along fabrics.

Chautauqua

“I’m so glad you asked,” I said. “I’ve been practicing my elevator pitch to the mirror. I’m thinking about franchising.”

“Then pretend I’m an investor.”

My first role play. I was ready for it. I said, “This place is logistical and practical. It’s good advice from that kooky aunt. It’s all the things freshly divorced people haven’t thought of. We carry power strips and box fans, paper plates, vibrators, modems, toilet brushes, wax kits, snowblowers. We’ve got toenail clippers and condoms and spice racks, spatulas and tool boxes already filled. Yard gloves, first aid kits, crock pots, pot holders, those little rubber things to open jars. Day planners, to do lists, umbrellas. Floss. Candles that smell like men, candles that smell like women. I keep the place stocked with necessities: little things the other person has now; things my shopper never considered—that were just there or things they didn’t need until now or weren’t allowed. I like to think of this place as the answer to the question, ‘Where do I begin?’”

When I finished, she clapped. She said it was the best pitch she’d ever heard for a divorce store.

I chose to take it as a compliment. I blushed and moved the service bell to the left for no reason but to give my hands something to do. When I looked up, she was turning a deck of cards over in her hands. “What are these for?”

I have an unmarked area of the store I call Deeply Divorced. It’s things like decks of cards, zipper helpers, dollies. The freshlylaunched divorcees don’t make the connection. They haven’t tried to move a bookshelf alone yet, or worn that dress from when they were proposed to or had the loneliness set all the way in yet.

“Solitaire,” I said.

“Hmm,” she said without appearing to give it thought. “Speaking of cards, why don’t you sell Hallmark cards here?”

“They don’t really make cards for this occasion.”

“They should.”

“Oh, I agree. They would be a huge seller.”

“You know,” she said, pausing thoughtfully near the weighted blankets, “I make cards. I could make you some.”

“What do you mean, you make cards?” I’ll admit, I was picturing

Holly Pelesky

some real arts-and-craftsy, amateur stuff. Glue sticks, glitter in big clumps, maybe even stickers.

“Do you want to see some of my stuff?” she asked. She rummaged into the bag at her hip and pulled out a notebook. She walked up to the counter and as she approached, I could smell her lotion. It was something sensible: Cetaphil or CeraVe. You know me, Chuck. I was positively aroused.

Then she opened up her notebook. The first thing I saw was pubes. Then I noticed thighs without a gap: bitable, demurely crossed. I love the curve of your thighs, it read on the left. The script was too curly, in my opinion.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. Her cheeks were reddening. It was cute; she was cute.

“This isn’t my normal stuff. This is just recent doodles. My partner and I broke up recently and it’s been—” she looked around, searching for something. “Hard. It’s been hard.”

I almost made a joke, but the atmosphere felt too tender and I would’ve hated to spoil it.

“I write for Hallmark,” she says, flipping quickly to another page.

The next page was expected greeting card stuff. A sketch of a girl on a picnic blanket beneath a big dark sky full of stars. You can do anything, it said.

“That’s more Hallmark’s Signature,” I said, nodding.

She laughed at that. Chuck, she understood even my most niche jokes. I’ve never met anyone who understood my nuanced humor before, except you.

“But I was thinking …” she pulled a pencil from my countertop and erased the words from the center. Then, in perfect letters she wrote, The world is so big without you.

When I saw it, I gasped. The words my mind wasn’t capable of forming: right in front of me.

“how are my cards selling?” she said two weeks later, dropping her bag onto the counter. She had a dress on: flowery, fluttery. God I’d hate to be such a cliché and say she looked like an angel, but I’ve been reading greeting cards as poetry lately. She cradled her face in her hands, her elbows greasing up the woodgrain I’d just finished polishing.

“You know, the cards have been great. Some people really love them.”

“Some people,” she said, too slowly to be comfortable.

“I mean some people don’t,” I said.

“How could anyone not like them? I have cornered the divorce card market.”

I propped the broom I’d been holding against the door to the storage room.

“Well, all the options are a bit …” I paused, carefully choosing how to say it.

“A bit what?” This woman was so fucking cute but had the patience of a squirrel on meth. Not that I’ve ever seen one.

“Sappy.”

“Sappy,” she repeated.

“Yeah. I mean, some people find exactly what they’re looking for in what you have here. But it doesn’t resonate with others.”

“How could that be? My cards are full of longing.”

“Sure, longing for someone. But there are all sorts of things people long for.”

She was picking something out from underneath her fingernail. I could tell I was losing her, and the profit on these cards was astronomical. I was selling them for $7 apiece and getting them from her for $2. She was getting ripped off, honestly. I felt a little bad, in fact.

“Your cards are incredible. They speak to a specific experience that I believe is close to your own. But I’ve run this store for twelve years now and I’ll tell you, people come here not only in mourning but also in celebration, in melancholy, in fear, in tepid joy.”

She didn’t say anything, but I could tell that she was thinking. She traced her initials into the counter with her fingertip.

“You know what I think?” she said finally.

“I have no earthly clue.”

“I should work a few shifts. Get to know the range of divorce. Understand the nuances. I mean, if I’m trying to corner the market on divorce cards—”

“Which you will. You’re building an entire empire.”

She smiled. “What do you say, Diana? Want a day off?” for her first shift, I put Catherine behind the counter. I figured it’d be good for her to make change and small talk. She is much friendlier than I am. Some days I’m afraid I’ve become curmudgeonly, and I know I’m only a few years away from downright surly. Catherine’s first customer came up to the counter without bothering to look around the store and laid a gun down on the counter. A Ruger P90. Looked like it had only been used once, maybe twice.

I didn’t take a day off. I was ready, at long last, for some company.

“How much?” she said.

“How much what?” Catherine said coolly.

“Money. How much money will you give me.”

“Honey,” she said (and I grimaced: it sounded patronizing, even I would admit), “I’m not paying you for an unregistered gun. This is a legitimate business.”

“What makes you think it’s unregistered?”

“What makes you think that’s the kind of business I run?”

I bit my tongue but inside me there was a girl shouting with a bullhorn to her lips, This is my store, my hard work. You just make the cards, some of them with pubes.

“I saw the sign.”

She meant the sign outside with the changeable letters. I’ve taken to putting a new little pop culture quote on it every day. Today it said Conceal, don’t feel / don’t let them know / Well, now they know / Let it go, let it go.

“The sign has lyrics from a Frozen song. It doesn’t say to bring me your weapons.”

The woman with the gun looked around wildly. She must’ve seen the practicality of the place, the items wrapped in cellophane, new and smelling still like factory. “I’m sorry,” she said, dropping the gun back into the bag she’d brought it in. “I saw the sign and next door is a windshield repair shop and I just figured.”

“It’s okay,” I piped up from the dishes shelf. “Happens all the time.”

“So how often do people think this is a pawn shop?” Catherine asked after the door closed.

“I’d say three out of every four customers.”

“Well, I know you’re just paying me for a shift, but what about if I offered some business advice?”

I hadn’t agreed to pay Catherine, but I suppose that was the ethical choice.

“What’s the advice?” I asked.

“When they bring in stuff that you know you could resell, offer them cash. You’ll be able to resell it at a giant markup. People would basically give away their ex’s shit. You give ’em a few bucks, turn around and sell that toolbox for $100. No getting price gouged from manufacturers. You be the price gouger.”

She had a point. I scratched at the rash on my arm.

“And if people aren’t after used stuff, we wrap it up, make it look new. Isn’t that stage two of divorce anyway?”

Catherine was wearing a low-cut shirt today, I noticed. Push-up bra probably, for them to look like that at what I assumed her age must be.

“Okay, we’ll try it. I’ll figure out the logistics.” i’m not sure if there is a formal application to be a pawn shop or registration or whatever, but I know Catherine’s idea was genius. It doesn’t matter what I offer; they take it. No one is in the mood to argue here. I’m happy to take their record players and hand saws and rice cookers, unburden them: let the tools become useful again. I’m happy to give new home to the abandoned.

I told Catherine what a great idea pawning was, and now she has a dozen more ideas. She suggested marketing the windshield repair shop next door. We slip a coupon into the bag with the receipt. Herb next door reports his business has tripled since. Maybe it’s coincidence though. You’ve been behind a gravel truck before.

I’ve been letting Catherine make a lot of choices around here and she’s taken to calling herself my business partner to customers. I don’t let on that I mind because she’s good with people and she has expanded her card line and my bank account is brimming and she’s still wearing those shirts and she put on a few pounds which means now I can tell she has a dimple and Chuck, I swear to god, she’s so fucking cute. catherine seems to think this dinner is just about business. She keeps talking about adding a photo booth. She says if we raise our sign outside above people height, then duplicate it inside, we could start making money off the people who take pictures by it with their tongues out or their fists balled up by their eyes or kissing someone new. “Monetize, Diana!” she said at least five times since the soup came.

On days she doesn’t come in, I find myself mindlessly sweeping the floor over and over, forgetting I had just done it. She keeps suggesting new merchandise. Some of them were misfires. Wedding rings or weapons or picture frames, how to books, booze. Sometimes I think this is just a business opportunity for Catherine, whereas I know its necessity.

I made her head of purchasing because she is a little younger and trendier than I am. I cringed when she added party favor stuff to the shelves: plastic shot glasses and balloons and those little paper horns. She even gave out little champagne shooters when customers walked in. I told her we should probably get a liquor license but she shut it down pretty quickly anyway. I think she’s realizing what I was trying to tell her about her first cards: we shouldn’t be telling people how to feel. We shouldn’t be leading with a “celebrate” narrative. I remember my era of inspirational second chance framed quotes, knitted Kleenex box covers from my nostalgic phase, when I was watching a lot of Meg Ryan. My narrative doesn’t define my store’s. I think Catherine is learning that. She might not be a bad business partner after all. I invited her to dinner to discuss on Friday after close.

“While we’re talking about business, I have an idea,” Catherine said apropos of nothing but her own sentences birthing new sentences. I feel like I haven’t said anything in three months now.

“What’s that?” I ask and I realize my voice comes out tired.

“We should sell weed.”

“Yeah, I don’t know. Probably. You can take care of that part. You’re so good at all that back-end stuff. I’m the CCO. You’re the COO.”

Actually, I’m the owner, I thought but didn’t say.

I’m selling glass pipes at the counter and marijuana if you’re a regular customer I can trust. Chuck, I love this shit. Every day I look forward to lighting up my pipe and chilling the fuck out. Today I got really stoned and remembered that time we did this and your smile split so wide it looked like a halved orange. You laughing so loudly, I was paranoid you’d get arrested for disturbing the peace. Yesterday I thought of you bringing me two towels straight from the dryer when I stepped out of the shower and my body turned warm and soft.

It’s hard to believe I started this store right after you left. In twelve years, no one has ever asked me about my story, although they love to tell me theirs. I’ve heard it all, mundane to outrageous, and it’s always the same refrain, although they never say it. They don’t know where to begin again.

I want to tell Catherine about you. She must wonder. How couldn’t she? Today she is dressing a mannequin. She has big ideas of sprawling her diagonal across a double bed. I think the bed takes up way too much floor space for what it’s selling (a single nightstand) but Catherine said people come here for the aesthetic. I can’t argue with her. We are untethered people looking for something to tether ourselves to here, anything. Even something as small as a yoga DVD or a fruit bowl that hangs bananas is a place to start, a direction to point ourselves into.

Chuck, I should tell you, I signed papers with Catherine. Made it official. She’s my business partner. That’s what makes me feel comfortable enough to tell her about you. That I’m not divorced. I don’t want to get into the details, but maybe it would be helpful for her to know, what with her putting all her energy into this place, what happened to you.

Lately something has been happening where I feel like I’m slipping into invisibility behind this counter. I feel only like a store owner now. Correction: half store owner. I’m playing a lot of solitaire again. Did you know it was made up by a man who lost his wife in a fire? I don’t know if that’s true. Actually, I know it’s not, but I tell the people who pick up the deck of cards and start to cry that as if it’s true. Truth is, there are a lot of widows and widowers who come in here but they don’t say it. I can read it in their trembling fingers, their faces crossed with cloud. All the things I carry here could be useful to them too. After all, it’s all the things I learned to need after you died. I think you’d be proud of me, how I’ve made myself a life.

—Emily Dickinson