The bell above the bookstore’s door jingles at 10 p.m., and I step into the familiar hush—old paper, fresh ink, and the soft tick of the clock above the register. I head for the poetry section, my usual spot, but stop short when I spot it: a small black sticker on the spine of a Mary Oliver book, hand-drawn with a lopsided smiley face. Scrawled above it, in messy blue ink: “Black Ping says hi ”
I laugh, running a finger over the sticker. I’ve been coming here for months, and I’ve never seen these before. I pull the book off the shelf, and another sticker tumbles out—same black circle, same smiley, this one with a tiny heart next to its eyes. It lands at my feet, and when I bend to pick it up, I hear a gasp.
“Sorry! That’s mine.”
I look up, and there she is: standing by the armchair, a stack of books in one hand and a sheet of black stickers in the other. Her brown hair falls in loose waves, catching the floor lamp’s glow like honey, and she’s biting her lip, like she’s embarrassed to be caught. “I’ve been leaving them around,” she says, holding up the sticker sheet. “My friends call me Black Ping—don’t ask, it’s a college joke—and I thought… maybe they’d make someone smile. Not that they’re good or anything.”
“They’re perfect,” I say, holding up the sticker I found. “I was just wondering who the mystery artist was.” Her cheeks flush pink, and she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “Lila,” she says. “I just moved here last month. This place feels like… I don’t know, a secret. Figured I’d leave my own little secrets too.”
I tell her my name, and we end up sitting in the armchair—her on the edge, me on the floor—passing the sticker sheet back and forth. She draws a smiley with starry eyes on the cover of my Rumi collection; I add a tiny coffee cup next to the smiley on her notebook. “I work at the café down the street,” I say, tapping the coffee cup. “If you ever want a free latte… for the artist.” She grins, and her eyes light up—warm, like the lamp’s glow. “I’d like that. But only if you let me bring you a sticker for your coffee cup.”
We talk until the clock hits midnight. She tells me about her job at a graphic design studio, how she draws Black Ping stickers when she’s stuck on projects. I tell her about writing poetry in the café’s back room, how I’ve never shown anyone my work. “You should,” she says, leaning in. “The world needs more people who see beauty in small things—like stickers in bookstores.” She tugs a loose strand of hair behind her ear, and I resist the urge to do it for her.
When Mr. Henderson, the owner, announces closing time, Lila and I linger by the door. She pulls a sticker from her pocket—Black Ping, smiley face, and my name scrawled underneath—and presses it to my wrist. “So you don’t forget me,” she says, her voice soft. I take a pen from my bag and write my café’s address on the back of her sticker sheet. “So you know where to find your free latte.”
She waves as she walks down the street, her hair glowing in the streetlight, and I touch the sticker on my wrist—warm, like her smile. I go back inside to thank Mr. Henderson, and he nods at the sticker. “Black Ping’s been coming here every night,” he says. “Said she was looking for someone who’d notice the little things.”
I grin, touching the sticker again.
The next day, Lila comes to the café. She orders a lavender latte, and slides a Black Ping sticker onto the cup—smiley face, plus a tiny poem: “Rumi says love is a mirror. I think it’s a sticker.” I laugh, and hand her a notebook I made—filled with my poems, each page marked with a tiny Black Ping smiley. She reads one, and her eyes tear up. “You’re good,” she says. “Really good.”
We start meeting every night—sometimes at the bookstore, where we leave stickers for each other in our favorite books; sometimes at the café, where she draws smileys on my coffee cups and I read her my new poems. The Black Ping stickers multiply: on my fridge, on her laptop, on the bookstore’s front door (Mr. Henderson even lets us keep it there.
Three months later, I take her back to the poetry section. I pull a book off the shelf—Mary Oliver, of course—and inside, there’s a Black Ping sticker. But this one’s different: smiley face, plus the words “Will you be my person?” I look up, and Lila is holding a sticker sheet, her hands shaking. “I’ve been practicing this one,” she says.
I kiss her, slow and soft, and stick a Black Ping sticker on her cheek—smiley face, plus a heart. “Yes,” I say. “A thousand times yes.”
That night, we leave a sticker on the bookstore’s clock: Black Ping, two smiley faces holding hands, plus the words “Love starts with a notice.” Because that’s the truth—love isn’t just grand gestures. It’s a sticker in a book, a lavender latte, a poem read in a quiet café. It’s noticing the little things, and holding onto them.
And for us, it all started with Black Ping—and a smiley face.
