Chapter Four: The Call

I planned to be at the counter when the door first opened and meant it.

Then the phone lit up with one word that ends conversations.
“Stat.”

There are jobs you can ignore for an hour. Mine is not one of them. And when that call comes, you go. Fast. I started up the ’67 and it roared awake like a battle-dragon torn from its tether, hungry for the road. It took me to the city fast and loud, the kind of sound that turns heads and clears lanes.

I don’t talk much about the work I do outside the shop. It’s the kind of calling that demands all of you when it calls, hands steady, mind sharp, no margin for hesitation. It needed me, and you don’t ask if it can wait until after your grand opening. I choose to trust my team, my court as they like to be called and trust the magic I built into the shop.

Around noon, the tent outside The Velvet Chapter was too hot. They pulled the snack table inside, cold drinks still sweating in tubs of ice, little snacks turning the line into a moving picnic. The line wrapped through the shop, curling past the table where fantasy and romance kiss, voices low and warm, like the hum of a story being told in many threads at once.

I was two counties away, gloved and focused, while a different kind of story opened without me.

When I finally pulled back in and parked at the shop, I cut the engine and felt the fatigue from the hours before still in my bones. Beneath it, though, ran a current of anticipation, an electric buzz to see what had unfolded here while I was gone. The Petaluma sky was clear and brushed with a soft pink from the setting sun, and for a moment, it just felt good.

The tally someone marked by the register read 422.

Four hundred and twenty-two people had come through the door!

I took it in piece by piece, like a post-op check. The counter. The stacks. The snack table now half-empty. The air still smelled like sawdust and candlelight and new paper. I wanted to be sad I missed the first hour, the first sale, the first everything. I wasn’t. Not exactly.

Because the pull that had yanked at me for months had changed. The ache that sent me searching through other shops felt quieter now, like a muscle that finally unclenched. Opening the doors did something I cannot explain. It set something right.

The silver hairpin sat above the checkout. Right where I placed it. Waiting. I touched it with two fingers. Cool metal. Familiar weight.

If she had walked in, I think she would have noticed. That is how I know she has not come. Not yet.

There is a wall in the shop with sticky notes in all colors. People wrote wishes, thank-yous, and inside jokes. Some were simple: “Congrats.” “This store is gorgeous.” “This place is magical.” Others made me smile for different reasons: “Save a horse, ride a cowboy.” “STFUATTDLAGG”… if you know, you know.

One note in particular made me pause. It didn’t give a name. Just a few words about magic.. I caught myself wondering if whoever wrote it felt the same pull I do. The sense that this place was meant to be, that it’s already becoming something larger than me, larger than her. A community. A living, breathing thing that’s only going to grow. And maybe, just maybe, that’s the path that will lead her here.

I found myself hoping that people would share what they saw here, the photos under The Velvet Chapter signs, the videos of the shelves, the notes on the wall, until they traveled so far they landed on her screen. I imagined those pieces of this place finding their way into her feed, filling it with velvet and paper and light, until she couldn’t help but come see it for herself.

I’m full of a different kind of happiness now.. watching strangers show up and make this space their own, seeing the shelves empty and the walls fill with color, knowing this story is already bigger than the one I started.

And still, I find myself glancing toward the door, listening for footsteps I’ve never forgotten. Every day this place grows, the chances grow with it. Maybe she’ll walk in next week, or next month, or on some ordinary afternoon when I’m not expecting her. Until then, the shelves will keep filling, the walls will keep speaking, and I’ll keep waiting…