The Bookstore Sisters

by Alice Hoffman

Tuesdays were meant for accidents, disappointments, and bad news. Long ago, the day was considered to belong to Mars, the god of war and blood. Now it just meant trouble—it meant that your past could come back to haunt you. Isabel stuffed the letter, which was postmarked from Brinkley’s Island, into her pocket without looking at it, since no news was good news as far as she was concerned, then she promptly forgot about it. She was good at forgetting; she had practiced for years, and it was now a skill at which she excelled.

She could even forget that she had once been considered the girl most likely to become somebody, when she’d turned out to be nobody in particular.

She’d had promise back then—all her teachers had told her so—but promise can disappear if you leave it to flounder,