I’m on the phone with Avery that afternoon, having seen enough architectural diagrams of a modern monstrosity to last me a lifetime. It would be a beautiful mall, one I’d love to shop in if it were located anywhere else in the city.
“What about a bookstore?” I ask, sketching out a Cleopatra reading a book with that Mona Lisa smile on her face. Why can’t she look any other way but sultry?
“Oh, that would be cool,” Avery says, because she’s that kind of friend. Supportive, even when you have dumb ideas. “Aren’t bookstores going out of business, though?”
“There’s really no way a bookstore can earn back what they put into it, not even if they sell a thousand books a day. Besides, it wouldn’t be the same.”
“The same as what?”
“This library… I wish you could see it. You’d just die. And prob
