Excerpt from Returns and Exchanges by Kayla Rae Whitaker, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

1.

Winter 1979–Fall 1981

It was December 24, your routine parade of customer service snarls: the woman who tried to return the Connect 4 set that had clearly been cracked by a human foot (It was like that when I took it out of the box). The two teenage girls in identical flares who'd attempted to shoplift mascara—teenage girls were legion: if you let one lift, they'd all lift—and began to cry when Gerald from security stepped in. By the time Fran arrived at the toy aisle to see a man and a woman wrestling over the store's sole remaining Atari VCS, their big seller that year, she'd been smiling for so long that her cheeks felt like meat.

After the standard Alright, folks, who had it first? then the ensuing He took it out of my cart and Oh bull and Sir, if you keep that up we won't sell it to you and I ain't never shoppin here again y'all got too expensive anyway, Fran had to call Gerald away from the comfort of the security nest and his Penthouse Forum—again—to escort the man, face appropriately pruned, to the parking lot.

She was relieved to hear Josiah pick up the intercom receiver at 7:55: "AttentionBakerTaylor'sshoppers the store will be closing in five minutes please make your final selections and approach the front forpurchasethankyou." Click.

Fran cruised by the front. "Warmth, Josiah."

"What, you want me to hop back on and tell them I love them?" The late holiday closure was new (the radio promo was Fran: Now open 'til eight Christmas Eve!), and she'd had to put her oldest boys on register: Josiah stared at her while Sam, younger by four years, tried to suppress a smile with his fist. Josiah had come home from his first semester at college insufferable—Henry Miller and Norman Mailer tucked under one arm, with a new favorite expression, uttered in response to anything from reruns of Mannix to pound cake: a cool not to my taste.

For a holiday that was supposed to make you feel good, she was always surprised at how tired, how irritable, how empty she felt at its end. She'd had a strip of twine pulled taut in her gut since the week before Thanksgiving, and the closer they came to the twenty–fifth, the tighter that twine became, the dull roar of the holidays swelling into the jaw–clenching panic it always, inevitably, became. And she hurt. The pinch in her spine, the strain in her left shoulder she'd acquired unloading cases of pop, and always, always, her jaw. She hurt, all over.

Fred appeared, holding the door open for a couple hugging packages to their chests. "This one ain't been good this year," he commented to the man, who chuckled and placed a hand to his woman's back. Fran caught her husband's eye and here he came, hustling over. Eager to please, today.

"Could you start straightening?" she said. "I'm trying to get us out of here by a quarter after. I have to start cooking."

Fred hated shelf duty, secretly considered it housework. But, "Yes, dear." Then he fell into step beside her and picked up the threads of their conversation, pre–-Atari blowout. "This is a big chance."

"It's a big risk."

"One worth taking."

She headed for the stockroom, winding her way through home and garden, hardware, kitchen goods, linens, health and beauty. Tidying up. Though there wasn't much need—other than an emptied pop can in the wrenches and a shipment of Pert that required a serious realignment, the mess was relegated to the toys.

"Say what you want to about how it's gone downhill in the past few years," Fred said from behind her, "Emmerson's is a solid name. We could really do something with them stores."

In makeup, she saw a Rubik's Cube lying among the blushers. Handed it to Fred. "Jack's on board to do this?"

Jack, currently on his Miami hiatus to, as he put it, build up the salt to stare down the rest of a Kentucky winter, likely with a drink in his hand and a faceful of suntan lotion. Fred, with a bounce—"Jack's on fire to do this." The word emerged as far. "He thinks we can put up part of the capital. Apply for a loan pretty easy for the other half." She parted the stockroom doors. "I'm just trying to get you to see it. We've got to move quick on this thing if we're thinking serious about it."

Excerpted from Returns and Exchanges by Kayla Rae Whitaker. Copyright © 2026 by Kayla Rae Whitaker. Excerpted by permission of Random House. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.