By Angus Stump

Book #1 landed just right in Newton, and I’m not going to pretend I wasn’t a little smug about it. The theory had worked. Once. Which meant it was either a genuine thing or I’d gotten lucky, and I needed to know which. So I went out and did it again. And again. And again and again. Four more stops. Four more pitches. Four more moments where I handed a book to a stranger and asked if they already knew who needed it. (Spoiler alert: They mostly did.)

Reverie Roasters. Wichita. 

Alex was behind the counter. I gave him the pitch. He looked interested. Actually interested, not politely interested, which are two completely different things, and the first one is a statistical anomaly.

“You know exactly who to give it to, don’t you?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said, grinning. “Me. I love science fiction.” He laughed.

“What’s funny?” I asked.

“I’m the dungeon master for a D&D group,” he said, “and whenever I ask them which way to turn, they always say ‘turn left.’”

I pointed him to the QR code sticker on the inside flap. He squinted at it. His eyes went wide.

“Oh,” he said. “This is so my thing.”

The theory held. Alex just happened to also be the answer.

Meeting House. Sedgwick.

That heading alone is notable, because it’s a meeting place in Sedgwick. Respectfully, the only thing I’ve ever known about Sedgwick was Cy’s Hoof and Horn, the region’s preeminent slab-of-meat purveyor. I did not know there was this cool little joint on Commercial Street, but here it is. Meeting House — not The Meeting House, just Meeting House — is a nonprofit, a 501(c)(3), a place with a whole story of its own, but that’s not today’s story. 

A teenage girl was at the counter. A volunteer. She blanched a little when I asked if she knew the regulars.

“Some of them,” she said, cheeks already going pink.

I gave her the pitch. Time travel. Sci-fi. Buddy flick. Humor. Romance. A mess. I told her I didn’t know who in this town needed the book, but I had a hunch she did.

“You’ve already thought of someone, haven’t you?”

“Yes,” she said, and blushed big time.

I slid the book across the counter, saloon style. “Give it to them.”

She was grateful in a way that felt outsized for the transaction. Which usually means it wasn’t a transaction at all. It was just a different sort of afternoon. For both of us, honestly. The book was a little reluctant to leave the nest. But it left.

Little Library, Wichita

There’s a little library on North Fountain Street in a nice neighborhood just north of College Hill. It was lopsided. Book #8 is a mess. They deserved each other.

Main Street Coffee. Valley Center. 

Self-serve. Quiet. A few people scattered around doing, one assumes, homework. The volunteer behind the counter was named Coda.

I gave her the spiel. She nodded politely. I asked the question.

“You’ve already thought of someone, haven’t you?”

She considered this with genuine honesty, which I respected and did not enjoy. “No,” she said. “Not really. But I can look into it if you want me to.”

Okay, the theory does not work every time. I thanked her, showed her the QR code, and started for the door.

Then I turned back and mentioned one more thing.

The last chapter of the book, I told her, is also named Coda.

She looked at me in a way that assured me it didn’t land.

I’m almost certain that book is staying in Valley Center.