Once in a Blue Moon by Eileen Goudge

the mood for lovemaking right now. Still . . .
    I’m thirty-eight years old , she thought. Why do I feel as if life is passing me by?
    Grant caught her eye as he was hanging up. He let out a low whistle. “Better hurry up or I won’t be responsible for my actions,” he said, getting up and strolling over to her. He planted a kiss on the nape of her neck as she struggled to fasten the clasp of her necklace. She smiled into the curtain of hair over her face as she stood with her head bent forward, his breath warm against her neck. Okay, maybe she wasn’t going to be hanging it up just yet.
    She turned to give him a real kiss, but he’d already moved past her and was reaching into the closet for his jacket. “Shall we?” he said, holding out his arm.
    She smiled, doing her best to quell the tiny bubble of unrest lodged at her center. Together they stepped out into the cool of the evening, where a handful of high-flung stars glimmered.

    The following morning Lindsay was at work stacking books on the center island when she glanced up to find Miss Honi gazing thoughtfully at the display, her ruby lips pursed in disapproval. “Sugar, you got to save yourself before you can save the planet,” she said.
    “And what makes you think I need saving?” Lindsay tossed her a distracted smile, blowing at a wisp of hair tickling one of her eyelids that she couldn’t reach with her arms laden.
    “Here you are giving over valuable display space to books only a green Nazi would love, and you have to ask?” Miss Honi was taking a break after a spirited reading from James and the Giant Peach for a group of rapt preschoolers and their moms. She was seated in the chintz easy chair tucked into a corner by the front window, where she could keep an eye on things.
    “How would you know if you haven’t read them? I’m sure some of these are very interesting,” Lindsay defended her choice of titles. “And don’t forget, Earth Day is a big deal around here.” As if it would be possible to overlook with all the flyers circulating for the rally on Thursday, a small stack of which sat next to the cash register here at the Blue Moon Bay Book Café.
    “Sure, but folks want to be fired up, not put to sleep.” Miss Honi waved a hand dismissively toward the display. “We’ll be lucky to sell half a dozen of those dust catchers. The rest’ll end up in some landfill, polluting even more of the planet.”
    Miss Honi heaved herself from the chair and clip-clopped over to the island in her dainty, wedge-heeled espadrilles, from which her red-painted toenails peeked coquettishly. In her midnight-blue velour slacks and matching top, gold necklace the color of the hair piled in ringlets atop her head, and a whole percussion section of bangles jingling on her wrists, she was, as usual, impossible to ignore. As if to prove her point, she picked up a book bearing the less than scintillating title Sustainable Agriculture for the Modern Age , giving an exaggerated roll of her turquoise-shadowed eyes before replacing it on its stack.
    What made it so aggravating was that, in her heart, Lindsay knew Miss Honi was right. If the book café was struggling financially, it was mostly her fault. Too often she was guided more by her social conscience or personal preferences than what she knew would sell. She forgot she was running a business, not teaching a course. If it weren’t for Miss Honi, a self-proclaimed lover of “trashy” novels and tireless advocate for the kind of books that were a guilty pleasure for a number of their customers, they would surely have gone under by now.
    But Lindsay didn’t give in easily once her back was up. Growing up, she’d had to be tenacious in order to survive, the proverbial weed pushing its way through the sidewalk. “Whatever we don’t sell, we can always return,” she reminded Miss Honi, adopting a breezy tone as she set out one of the more approachable titles, an environmentally friendly book aimed at kids