City of Second Chances

by Jane Lacey-Crane

‘Sorry, would you mind if I squeezed past? Sorry, sorry,’ I mumbled as I squeezed my way past the beanie brothers, almost knocking some poor girl’s coffee right out of her hands in the process. In my defence, she had her face so close to her phone screen, she wouldn’t have seen me coming even if I’d been naked and wearing fairy lights strung between my nipples. Ignoring her obvious annoyance, I pushed my way past and back out onto the street. I was angry that my previous good mood had been ruined and frustrated that the bookshop was still closed; I resigned myself to having to wait in the cold until they opened their doors. I shoved my hands inside my coat and started walking across the street. I’d only taken a few steps when I felt somebody walking up behind me. Instinctively, I walked a bit faster but the person, whoever it was, just dropped into step beside me. Once I was safely up on the pavement on the other side of the street, I turned to face my pursuer.

  ‘Look, I’m really sorry if I made you spill your coffee or whatever, it was just an accident.’

  The man in front of me smiled. At least I think he did, his eyes seemed to crinkle a bit at the corners, but I couldn’t see most of his face since it was tucked behind a pale grey wool scarf. Something about his eyes made me do a double take but, since he hadn’t spoken to me, I was eager to get away from him, assuming that he was obviously a weirdo. I didn’t recognise him from the coffee shop queue, but I presumed that was where he’d come from.

  ‘You didn’t spill my coffee,’ he said. He sounded English. I figured he must have heard me mumble my apologies to the assembled crowd of hipsters and decided to follow me because we were both from the UK. Maybe it was a ‘thing’ in New York? Like when you meet a stranger and realise you’re both obsessed with the same TV show or something; you feel an instant kinship.

  ‘Well, I’m glad about that,’ I said, ‘but if you’ll excuse me, I have to be going.’

  I’d noticed someone inside the bookshop had turned on all the lights and was now unlocking the shop door; it was still a few minutes to nine, but I didn’t want to wait. Turning away from the weirdo in the scarf in front of me, I ventured inside. I saw him watching me through the window, so I walked as far into the shop as I could get before I unwound my scarf and took off my hat. ‘Bloody freak,’ I said out loud to no one in particular. Looking around at the shelves nearest me, I realised I’d wandered into the science and technology section in my eagerness to get away from the man outside. Definitely not my cup of tea, I thought, and crossed the shop floor to look at a map of the store that was framed in gold and hanging on the wall at the bottom of the spiral staircase that took you to the upper floor. There was a dizzying array of categories listed but the one that caught my eye first was ‘Stationery and Writing Tools’, up on the first floor. Perfect.

  I made my way up the staircase, running my hand along its wrought iron banister rail. The first floor ran around the edges of the building, like a huge galleried landing area. It contained rows and rows of dark wooden bookcases and glass display cases that I assumed held some of the rarer books. It was just beautiful. I wandered about for a few minutes, pulling out books on subjects I knew nothing about, before I found what I was looking for. It was probably slightly over-egging the pudding to call it a stationery department; in reality it was an old round dining table that was piled up with notebooks of all sizes and colours and a stand that held a selection of pens and pencils. I wasn’t complaining though – the side of my personality that was obsessed with stationery was more than content with the selection on offer.

  I picked up book after book, some hard cover, some soft, some spiral bound, some not. I finally decided on an A5 size notebook, with pale cream unlined pages and a soft brown leather cover. It was perfect. I also chose a black fine liner pen and a pencil with a rubber on the end. That was just to appease the swotty schoolgirl in me. Happy with my choices, I made my way back downstairs and headed for the shelves that held the second-hand fiction. The store had only been open for twenty minutes or so by this point, but it was already busy. People were browsing the shelves or sitting in the armchairs that were dotted around the shop. I turned my attention back to the bookcases in front of me and quickly found an old copy of one of my favourite books, Jane Eyre. It wasn’t a rare copy – the information inside told me it was printed in the nineteen fifties and it had a battered red hardback cover embossed with some kind of emblem; it was the handwritten notes inside it that made it interesting. Inside the front cover someone had written, in perfect cursive, ‘This book belongs to Miss Amelia Gordon, Class 4J.’ It was obvious from the notes written in the margins that it had come from a school at some stage.

  I was engrossed, flicking through the pages and smiling at some of the notes that Miss Amelia had made. It was obvious that she was unimpressed at Mr Rochester’s attempts to woo Jane and appalled at the way he treated his first wife. Phrases like, ‘He’s not a nice man,’ and, ‘What kind of woman would go along with this?’ kept cropping up. At the point where Jane discovered the truth about the first Mrs Rochester, in the church at her wedding, for heaven’s sake, Amelia had written, ‘I’d leave that place and never go back,’ pressing her pencil into the pages so hard it had almost come through the other side. By the time it came to the end of the book, with that immortal line that started the final chapter – ‘Reader, I married him.’ – Amelia seemed to have completely despaired. She’d written the words ‘NOOO!’ and ‘WHY?’ and drawn a cartoonish sad face. This made me laugh; Amelia must have been quite the girl. I had to have it, even though it was priced at fifty dollars. Money well spent, I decided.

  Whilst I’d been leafing through the book, two women had appeared opposite me. They seemed to be more interested in peering through the bookcase in front of them, rather than looking at anything on it. I heard one of them whisper to the other, ‘Is it him? It’s hard to tell with that scarf on.’

  The other one took out her phone and surreptitiously snapped a photo of a man standing on the other side of the store. They looked down at the screen on the phone. ‘Look, I’ll zoom in. There. See, it is him!’ They looked at each other and squealed quietly. I had no idea what they were doing so I just went back to looking at the books.

  ‘OMG! He’s coming over here. What do we do?’

  ‘I think I’m gonna faint,’ I heard one of the women say as the man I’d met outside, the weirdo Englishman with the scarf, headed in their direction. He still had the scarf on, but it wasn’t covering his face so much any more. He stopped in front of them and leaned down to say something that made them both giggle like schoolgirls. I shook my head and walked away, making a beeline for the romance section towards the back of the store. I was happily browsing the shelves when I sensed someone was standing behind me.

  ‘Hello.’

  It was him again, scarf man; his voice was unmistakeable. What on earth did he want? I spun around to confront him.

  ‘Look, I don’t know what your problem is, but would you mind just leaving me alone, please?’ I wasn’t about to be intimidated by a man wearing a stupidly oversized scarf. I was carrying a hardback copy of Jane Eyre that could be used to jab him in the eye if need be.

  ‘Evie, it’s me. Daniel Roberts. Dan. From college.’ He unwound his scarf so I could see his face properly.

  ‘Daniel?’ Not for the first time, I realised I probably should start wearing my glasses all the time. How had I not known it was him? Over his shoulder I could see a couple of people had also recognised him now he’d taken off his scarf. They were trying to play it cool, but it wasn’t every day you saw a bona fide movie star in your neighbourhood bookstore. Or maybe it was – this was New York after all. I didn’t know what to do so I stuck out my hand for him to shake. He looked at my hand and then took it, shaking it gently before pulling me towards him so he could kiss me on the cheek. I heard a murmur go up from the crowd and I thought someone took a picture, but I couldn’t be sure.

  ‘Jesus, it’s been years. How have you been?’ he asked, seemingly oblivious to the stir
he was causing.

  ‘Fine, fine. You know how it is,’ I replied. No, you dumbo, he’s a famous actor, he knows nothing about the kind of boring life you lead. ‘What about you?’ I asked. ‘How are things with you?’ Great question, Evie, you tool.

  ‘Yeah, fine. You know how it is,’ he replied, with a small smile.

  I smiled back and then we just stood there, grinning inanely at each other, for a few seconds. He was still holding my hand and people were now making no attempt to hide the fact that they were taking pictures of us. I gently pulled my hand out of his. ‘People are looking,’ I whispered.

  His smile faded. ‘Always,’ he said. ‘Comes with the territory, unfortunately.’

  I looked around at the crowd, which seemed to have grown in the space of a few minutes.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked, bringing my attention back to his face. That face, the one that I was more used to seeing staring at me from the sides of buses or out of the pages of magazines.

  ‘Um… er…’ What was I doing there? ‘Oh… yes… visiting my sister.’

  ‘She lives in New York now?’

  ‘Yes, has done for a few years.’

  ‘That’s great. Are you here for long? Perhaps we can meet and have a coffee? Talk about the good old days.’

  Meet for a coffee? Me and Daniel Roberts? I looked back at the small crowd – was it my imagination or were they inching closer? Suddenly the bookstore seemed very small and Daniel seemed to be standing very close – too close.

  ‘I have to pay for these and get going, really. I … need to get back, my friend will be waiting for me, so…’

  Daniel’s smile faded. ‘Right, yes, of course. Sorry, I didn’t mean to hold you up.’ He stepped back so I could get past.

  ‘It was nice to see you, Dan,’ I said. ‘Take care.’ I walked over to the cash desk and put my books onto the counter. The cashier was too busy looking past me, over to Daniel, to notice so I coughed theatrically.

  ‘Wow, sorry, I didn’t see you. Just these for you today?’ she said, without taking her eyes off him.

  I shook my head. ‘Yes, just these.’

  I don’t know how she managed to bag my purchases, take my money and give me my change, all without looking at me, but she did. ‘Thanks very much. Your bookstore is wonderful,’ I said.

  ‘Uh-huh,’ she replied, squeezing out from behind the counter and going over to where Daniel was now signing autographs and posing for pictures with excited fans. I watched him for a few minutes; he was friendly and patient with everyone, making sure each person had got what they needed before moving on to the next one. The ease and grace with which he moved from photo to photo, person to person, reminded me a bit of Judy, my new favourite waitress, so familiar with the demands of her job that she didn’t even have to think about it any more; it just happened. Daniel was obviously just as comfortable with his role as a celebrity too; no longer having to question it, knowing exactly what everyone expected and demanded from him and delivering it without thinking. By the time I’d wrapped myself back up in my scarf and bobble hat, the crowd around Daniel had got quite big and quite noisy. From out of nowhere three massive blokes in dark suits appeared to wrangle the crowd into some sort of order. I thought I heard someone call my name as I left the shop, but I didn’t go back.

  As I made my way back to Kate’s apartment, my heartbeat started to return to something resembling normal. I couldn’t believe I’d just bumped into Daniel – honestly, you couldn’t make this shit up. Tom always used to joke about my ‘celebrity boyfriend’ and how he could never compete with that. I told him there was no competition; Tom was the love of my life. From the minute we met to the day he died, no one else ever came close. All through those horrific few months after Olivia disappeared, he was there, despite the fact that we’d only been on one date before my trip to New York. I’d grown up with a dad who cheated on my mum for most of their marriage, but Tom restored my faith in men and showed me what a good husband, and eventually father, looked like. To me he was perfect. And trust me, I tested that theory a lot. I put him through some pretty tough trials. Almost from day one he had to deal with the unpredictable nature of my depression and anxiety. Having been diagnosed in my late teens, by the time I met Tom, I’d learned to recognise the signs; the days when I opened my eyes in the morning to be greeted by my personal ‘black dog’ sitting on my chest. It was hard to explain that feeling to someone as positive and self-possessed as Tom but he never let me down. He followed me into those long dark tunnels of days and he stayed with me until I found the light again. No matter how many times I told him he’d be better off with someone else, someone less complicated, he refused to give up on me.

  ‘You’re my everything, Evie. My world starts and ends with you. And there’s nothing either of us can do about that.’ He wrote that inside a card he gave me the night before our wedding. We were saying goodbye at our flat, tradition dictating that we shouldn’t see each other the night before the ceremony.

  ‘I’ve left something for you on the kitchen table,’ he said, holding both my hands in his.

  ‘What is it? Not laundry. I’m not doing any washing the night before our wedding,’ I joked.

  ‘Ha, ha. No, not laundry. We’ve got the rest of our lives together for you to do my laundry.’

  ‘Oi!’ I slapped his arm and he pulled me close and kissed me.

  ‘It’s just a card. I wanted to write some things down. Probably silly but I wanted you to know that I love you, forever and always,’ he said.

  ‘I love you too.’

  No, I thought as I strolled down 4th Avenue towards the East Village, no matter how exciting life with a movie star might have been, it could never compete with the life I’d made with Tom.

  Ten

  ‘Bloody hell, I was about to send out a search party. I thought you’d got lost in the snow,’ exclaimed Rachel, as I let myself back into my sister’s apartment.

  I’d gone for a walk after I left the bookshop and I’d made it all the way to Battery Park before the weather had started to take a turn for the worse and I figured I should head for home. By the time I made it back to Kate’s apartment it was one o’clock and a full on snowstorm was raging. Actually, that’s probably a bit of an exaggeration but it was certainly coming down. My nose was frozen and glowing like Rudolph’s and my feet were almost completely numb. Rachel, by comparison, was tucked up snugly on my sister’s sofa clutching a steaming mug of coffee. I stamped the snow off my boots and hung up my damp coat.

  ‘I see you’re feeling better, then?’ I said, walking into the living room and heading straight for the radiator on the far wall. I rested my bum up against it, enjoying the fact that it was giving me some much needed feeling back.

  ‘Yes, much. Sorry about that. I don’t know what came over me.’

  ‘It’s fine.’

  ‘Did you tell Kate about everything that’s going on with me and Martin?’

  ‘No, of course not. It’s not my story to tell. But she was a bit worried about you, so if you’re planning on getting shitfaced every night we’re here you might want to consider letting her in on everything. Just so she doesn’t assume that you’re a rabid alcoholic.’ I hadn’t meant that to sound so snippy, but it obviously had.

  ‘Are you angry with me?’ asked Rachel. ‘I’m really sorry I buggered up our first morning here.’

  ‘No, it’s fine,’ I said. ‘Don’t worry about it.’ I turned around to warm my hands on the radiator. ‘You would’ve been bored anyway. I ended up at the most amazing bookshop.’

  ‘A bloody bookshop? You’re mental.’ She laughed. ‘We come all this way and you get excited about a bookshop. I’ll bet you walked past tons of amazing fashion outlets to get to it too.’

  I nodded. ‘Yep. Loads of designer shops, chock full of handbags and Manolo Blahniks.’

  ‘Seriously?’ I’d piqued her interest and she was sitting forward on the sofa eagerly.

  I burst out laug
hing. ‘How would I know? Since when has any of that stuff interested me?’

  Rachel sat back on the sofa again. ‘Killjoy. Well, tomorrow we are going in search of Laboutins and lunch. My treat. The lunch part, I mean, not the Laboutins. I can’t afford to buy you a pair of those.’

  ‘You can buy me lunch after we’ve been to the police station,’ I said.

  ‘Are we doing that tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes, we are. It is why we came, after all. We should have done it today, but you spent the morning with your head stuck down the loo.’

  ‘I said I was sorry,’ she mumbled. She looked like a pouting teenager rather than a grown woman. With everything she was dealing with, it seemed churlish to hold a grudge. I’d had a brilliant morning, after all.

  ‘Fair enough,’ I said, slumping down onto the sofa next to her and grabbing the edge of her blanket. ‘Give us a bit,’ I said, wrapping myself up in its softness. ‘Bloody hell, is this cashmere?’ I searched the edges until I found the label. ‘This must have cost a fortune,’ I said.

  ‘Probably,’ said Rachel, ‘but it was worth every penny. It’s so comfy under here.’ She snuggled further down to emphasise her point. ‘How much does your sister earn exactly?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t ever ask. More than me and you, that’s for sure.’

  We both sat in silence for a minute, watching the snow fall outside. It was very nice when you were watching it through the window rather than trudging through drifts of it on the pavement. I was so warm and cosy, the feeling had returned to my hands and feet, which was nice, and within minutes I could feel the effects of jet lag start to overcome me.

  The next thing I knew I woke up with a stiff neck and a dry mouth. The apartment was dark and when I checked the clock on my phone it said it was almost six o’clock in the evening. I’d been asleep for nearly five hours! I’m going to be up all night now, I thought. And where was Kate? She wasn’t home, and she hadn’t called me. I remembered her saying she didn’t know what time she’d be done with work, but I had thought I would hear from her at some stage. What were we going to do about dinner? I got up and went over to the window; it had stopped snowing for the moment, but the parked cars and pavements were still covered in a thick layer of glistening white.