Wednesday was Book Day. With so many other demands, Lucy felt it important to pick a day, name it, and savor it. By plopping it in the center of the week, she secured a shining moment to anticipate at the week's front end and a delicious one to revisit at the back. And in so doing she could endure the mercurial whims and incessant demands of her clientele any day of the week.

Book Day always began with the twist of the old key in the lock, the street still quiet, despite being located in the center of Chicago's Old Town, and a hip-check through the door that read Sid McKenna Antiques and Design. First Lucy would touch base with her favorite online booksellers, monitor the current auctions, and place bids, keeping a keen eye on special requests or tempting offerings clients might find irresistible. After, she'd open the mahogany corner cabinet first, the nineteenth-century breakfront second, and rub Fredelka Formula into her beloved books' soft leather covers, dust their gold-tipped edges with a worn linen rag, and gently separate any pages humidity had fused. And, if there was time, she'd relish a passage or two.

This Wednesday, Lucy silenced the shop's alarm and leaned against the doorjamb. She let her eyes roam, as it was one of the first mornings in which the sun beat her to work. Sid's gallery always brought a smile of satisfaction, one of complacency — as if the space was her own and not another's. But that thought never took root because she could never imagine possessing Sid's brilliance. Sid McKenna married substance with style — from the deep-red lacquered door mounted on the far wall next to the Louis XIV end table to the black-and-white monographs of unknown artists stacked on its top, and those resting beneath a carelessly laid Montblanc pen. Sid threw down a disparate but symbiotic alchemy of beauty with every flick of his wrist, and this mix of old and new with the something unexpected had firmly established him as Chicago's premier interior designer.

Lucy closed her eyes and absorbed the shop's scents. Underneath the jasmine, she caught the tang of the polish she applied to the furniture every other day, buffing each piece until it felt velvety and gleamed. She also caught the musty scent of ink on paper within the books stacked for sale, on their sides so as not to warp their fragile spines. And dancing beneath it all, she caught a hint of fresh pine from her favorite organic floor cleaner, the one she found at a one-man shop in Vermont.

She glanced to the corner. The books ... Lucy opened her bag and pulled out her latest acquisition. While it wasn't a particularly fine find, of no distinction and without provenance, the novel was one of her favorites. And it wouldn't take much to make it something special. A good inscription always helped. A story behind the story, the generational passing from hand to hand, always added interest and a few dollars.

She turned the pages, absorbing snippets — an unbroken hush; a demoniac laugh — low, suppressed, and deep; or a man growing quite savage in his disappointment — as she carried it to the right front corner of the gallery and opened the cabinet's glass case. Delicious.

"Welcome home," she whispered. She held it to her nose and inhaled the leather, dust, ink, and history in a single whiff before placing it on its side atop two others. "All the sisters, together. Again."

Lucy stepped away as a soft "Good morning" drifted across the room.

Sid McKenna leaned on the workroom doorjamb. "I tried to say that gently."

"You're not supposed to be here," Lucy moaned. "What happened to my quiet Book Day?"

Sid chuckled and held up both hands. "I know, 'trespassing on sacred ground' and all that, but I have a meeting this morning and need the Benson drawings. I'll be out of your hair in a moment."

He turned back into the workroom and grabbed things at random. At six foot two and lithe, Sid exuded an energy that, although twenty years younger, Lucy only dreamed of possessing. His brain and body moved like a kaleidoscope, myriad directions at once, but all congruent and, in the end, masterfully creative.

"What are you doing?"

"Veronica is wavering. She declared yesterday that she's 'not good at big decisions,' so I'm taking things to give her a sense of space and texture. Tactile stuff. She needs to feel that her home reflects her family and her wants and is not being imposed on her." He tossed Lucy a smooth leather ball slightly larger than a golf ball. "That ball has the same silky texture of the leather we selected for her study and the same relief stitching, but in cream. And this lamp carries the knobbiness and aesthetic of the small industrial sculpture we chose for her living room." Sid loaded his treasures into a box. "She better not like that more, though; I found it at Goodwill."

Lucy joined in the hunt. "Most of the cuttings have arrived; you can take this bag too."

"Excellent. Those have Seussian textures."

"They're smooth, they're bumpy, they're fancy, not frumpy? Something like that?" Lucy caught Sid's wink and continued to survey the room, looking for more inspiration. "Your sweater!"

Sid looked down. "What about it?"

"It's the exact color of the paint I prepped for her powder room. The one you're going to stipple with umber? Be sure to point that out."

"So it is. I knew something felt good about this color today." Sid narrowed his eyes at her. "Or you could give me a cutting of your hair."

Lucy grabbed the precisely clipped end of her low ponytail and held it before her nose. "Not funny. And it's auburn. A lovely auburn."

"You keep telling yourself that." Sid chuckled, hoisted the box high, and headed for the alley door. "Enjoy your morning and don't neglect any hapless soul who might invade the shop."

"I'll try."

She heard a faint "Adios, mi roja belleza pelo" as the door clicked behind him.

Lucy knew he was gone, but called out anyway, "Again. Not funny. It's auburn!"

* * *

Lucy usually savored the quiet. There was so little of it with Sid's clients calling at all hours and Sid himself moving in and out of the gallery like a hurricane. But today was different; eight hours with not a single walk-in or anxious client made Lucy ache for a distraction. Sid's morning meeting with the Bensons and their architect had gone long. None of her friends were free for lunch. And her mom was hosting an open house and couldn't chat.

While the gallery's price points kept most casual strollers away, the scented candles, Battersea boxes, fine pens, linen stationery, and assorted table smalls usually enticed a daily few — at this point, Lucy would settle for a daily one.

The door chimed and Lucy jerked the pen, cringing as an errant drop of ink fell to the page's corner. But eager to talk to another human, she quickly blotted it and placed the opened Moby Dick into her desk drawer to let the ink dry. She stood, smoothing both her skirt and her ponytail, and drew her hair over her shoulder as she scrambled to the front of the gallery.

"Hello?" a deep voice called as Lucy crossed from the workroom's concrete floor onto the polished wood. She slipped and caught herself.

"Whoa," he called again and hurried forward.

"All good." Lucy blew her long bangs out of her eyes and took in her visitor. He came back! The young man, about her age with dark brown, almost black hair and eyes...