The Little Bookshop of Love Stories

by Jaimie Admans

  Between customers, I stack the display books to one side of the counter, knowing it’ll be fun trying to find the shelves they came from. There doesn’t seem to be any theme to Robert’s last window. On one side, he had children’s books displayed around Heathcliff’s bowl, and the other side displayed the most recent fiction releases and hyped books. Surely something more could be done with this window? It’s a good size, a wide shelf set back from a double windowpane that stretches across the front of the shop, and there’s plenty of space to use the display stands I found in the office and display books at different levels. Robert left most of the window clear so passers-by can see into the shop, but I think I could use the full window and really utilise the space.

  I pull out the faded spring garland that was wound around the edges of the shelf and give it a shake, watching dust float to the floor. This wonderful shop deserves better than this, and I can instantly imagine the seasonal displays I can put here. Spring reads displayed on fake grass, and beach reads displayed on shells and pebbles in the summer. I can scatter autumn leaves in September and fill the display with cosy books, maybe add in some acorns and conkers and branches of autumn foliage. Christmas will be amazing, with tinsel and fairy lights and festive rom coms – my favourite things to snuggle up with on a cold December night.

  The other shop windows on the street are quaint and cute, but this one doesn’t really say anything or catch the eye of anyone who doesn’t usually like bookshops. I once worked in a clothes shop where I got fired for allowing a very large man with a very small dress into the changing room and it didn’t end well. How was I to know he intended to try it on and then parade around in front of the other customers as it slowly split stitch by stitch until everyone saw his bare bum? The only saving grace was that the seam ran up the back and not the front.

  That shop’s emphasis was always on dressing the mannequins in outfits that would catch the eye and pull in people who didn’t already intend to come into the shop, and that’s what we need to do here too. Draw in people walking past who didn’t realise they wanted to buy a book until they saw this window.

  It’s amazing how quickly the hours pass as I empty the window. I’m still cleaning it when a little boy comes in clutching a teddy bear in one hand and his mum’s hand in the other, dragging her with him as he marches up to the counter. ‘Excuse me, Miss, have you got any books about monsters?’

  I can’t help smiling at his exquisite manners. And wishing I’d had a chance to study the children’s section because I haven’t got a clue what’s on the shelves and there’s no sign of a stock list of any kind yet.

  I figure he’s a kid who will appreciate honesty. ‘I’ve got to be honest with you – it’s only my second day here and I don’t—’

  ‘Now what sort of a bookshop would this be if we didn’t have books about monsters?’ Dimitri’s voice comes from the reading area and he leans forward until he can see around the shelf. ‘What kind of monsters are you after?’

  ‘Scary ones!’

  ‘Then you’re in luck because there’s a whole shelf upstairs dedicated only to scary monsters. It specifically says “No non-scary monsters allowed”. You’re going to find it on the fifth bookcase along, second or third shelf from the bottom.’

  The little boy thanks us both politely and starts dragging his mum towards the stairs, but then stops and comes back to the counter, pushing himself up on tiptoes to talk to me. ‘Have you seen our monster yet?’

  ‘You have a monster? Here in Buntingorden?’

  ‘Yes!’ He looks more excited than you’d think possible over the prospect of a monster. ‘He’s called The Stropwomble! If you’re new here, you need to know before he eats your brains.’

  ‘Charlie …’ his mum warns him.

  ‘He’s big and scary,’ Charlie says, ignoring her. ‘He looks hideous because his skin is all peeling off because he never goes outside, and he sets traps for anyone who goes in his garden, and he eats children for tea.’

  ‘Nah.’ Dimitri pops his head round the shelf again. ‘Think about it. He’s much more likely to eat adults for tea and then have children for dessert. Children are much sweeter. He’d definitely save them for afters.’

  Charlie looks like he’s giving this serious consideration.

  ‘But you’ve got a teddy so you’d be safe,’ Dimitri continues, nodding towards the brown bear clutched in the little boy’s hand. ‘Did you know that teddies are warriors? They fight monsters to keep their owners safe. If any monster came near you, your teddy would go into battle. You don’t know it but your teddy has got a whole suit of armour hidden away, ready to don the moment you’re in trouble. What’s his name?’

  ‘Fluffy.’ Charlie looks between Dimitri and his teddy in awe.

  ‘Ah, yes, I’ve heard of Fluffy the Warrior King.’ Dimitri tears a piece of paper from one of his sketchbooks and draws a teddy bear in armour swishing a sword around, even getting in the bent whisker of the little boy’s teddy with one flick of his pencil. It only takes him a couple of minutes, but Charlie looks like he might explode with happiness when he hands it to him.

  ‘Do you really have a monster?’ I ask when Charlie and his mum are safely upstairs and out of earshot.

  ‘I doubt it.’ Dimitri laughs. ‘You know the posh leafy streets on the outskirts of town?’

  I nod. Buntingorden is a village with a few big manor houses dotted around the outskirts – the kind that look like they should have a flag outside when the Queen’s in residence, or at the very least be part of the set for Downton Abbey.

  ‘One of the mansions there has fallen into disrepair so it looks a bit like a haunted house. No one’s ever seen whoever lives there, and you know what people are like. Stories get made up. Kids say it’s a monster or a ghost, adults say a vindictive troll, but it’s probably just a lonely old man who wants to be left alone.’

  It doesn’t take long for Charlie to bounce down the stairs and come rushing over to the counter where he slaps three monster books down in front of me. ‘Just these, please, Miss.’

  I hold back a laugh at how much he sounds like he’s just stepped out of a Charles Dickens novel as I tap the prices into the till. He tugs on his mum’s sleeve when she comes to pay, and can’t grab the books fast enough when I hand them back to him.

  ‘Keep your friend.’ His mum covertly points to Dimitri and fans a hand in front of her face. ‘If he’s not on the payroll, he definitely should be.’

  ‘He’s here all the time, apparently.’

  She glances back at him and pushes her bottom lip out with a noise of disappointment. ‘Clearly we’ve been coming in at the wrong times, and Charlie drags me in here twice a week. Maybe we need to come in more often.’

  ‘Well, I’m not going to disagree with that, am I?’ I say and she laughs.

  ‘And sorry about all the monster talk. He’s a bit obsessed with all things monster at the moment.’ She nods towards Charlie, who’s now showing Dimitri his new monster books. ‘He won’t stop going on about The Stropwomble of Bodmin Lane.’

  ‘Stropwomble?’ I repeat. I managed to hold back a giggle when Charlie said it earlier but now I fail miserably.

  ‘Believe me, the adults around here would rather call him something unrepeatable in polite company, but you know, little ears.’ She nods to Charlie, who’s now admiring one of Dimitri’s less bloodthirsty ogres. ‘That vile man is always in a strop about something – he may as well have a name to reflect that.’

  I snort again. ‘And Bodmin Lane like the moor?’

  ‘Yeah, but don’t insult the Bodmin beasts. Angry pumas would make better neighbours than that miserable old twit.’

  ‘That bad?’

  ‘It’s like he’s set out to ruin the town. He’s a grouchy old tyrant who wants everyone else to be as miserable as he is. He complains about everything. He got our Christmas tree taken down last year on the grounds it was a distraction to motorists and therefore an accident waiting to happen. He got jac
k-o’-lanterns banned at Halloween because they were a fire hazard. We’d organised a fireworks display and he got someone on the council to put a stop to that too. He’s always writing letters to the local newspaper complaining about this, that, or the other. People swimming in the river, tourists leaving litter behind on the riverbank, and for some reason he’s got a right bee in his bonnet about the bunting.’

  She points upwards, obviously meaning the strings of pastel-coloured gingham flags that criss-cross the high street. ‘Nearly every week, he’s writing a strongly worded letter to someone or other about it being dangerous. God knows what he thinks it’s going to do. Leap down and slurp up someone’s tea, my husband says.’

  ‘You can’t live in a village called Buntingorden without bunting,’ I say incredulously.

  ‘Exactly! Miserable old twit. He lives in this decrepit old house, his gate’s all rusty and chained up with big spikes on top – God knows who he thinks is going to get in. The bunting to take its revenge, maybe. And no one’s ever seen him. That’s the worst part. He hides behind his anonymity and makes all these complaints but never in person – never to our faces.’

  ‘There’s one in every town,’ I say, sounding like I’m well travelled and have much experience of living in different places when in reality I’ve only lived in three places in my life and never outside the Cotswolds.

  ‘Why can’t real life be like novels, eh? At least we’d know he’d get his comeuppance and meet an untimely and messy end then.’ She thinks for a moment. ‘Oh, even better – he’d learn the error of his ways and become a reformed character, wouldn’t he? Like Scrooge in A Christmas Carol. If only things like that happened in real life.’

  After they leave, I go back to my window display. It needs a theme … something summery … Something that a goldfish fits in to … Mermaids! Who doesn’t love mermaids, right? I find a beautiful limited-edition copy of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid and Other Fairy Tales with a baby blue cover and red shells surrounding a red-haired mermaid sitting in a seashell and put it at the front of the window. I’m aware of Dimitri’s eyes on me as I dash back and forth to the shelves, trying to hunt out any book even vaguely mermaid-related, and clatter around in the office, digging out the array of acrylic display stands, book holders, and props that Robert’s amassed over the years.

  I stop as I walk past him, and can’t resist peeking at what he’s working on – an ogre decorating its house with bones now. ‘Hey, you’re probably the guy to ask. Do you know what kind of pens I need to draw on glass?’

  He looks up with a grin, puts his pencil between his teeth, and starts digging around in his bag, and I can’t help watching in amusement as he pulls out an endless array of items. I’m starting to wonder if his satchel is some sort of endless magician’s bag because there doesn’t seem to be a bottom to it or any limit to the amount of things it holds as he sets item after item out on the table.

  ‘These ones?’ Eventually he hands me a pack of pens with ‘Glass Markers’ written across the front. ‘Oh, hang on, I’ve got these too.’ He digs out a pack of chalk markers and gives me those as well. ‘Both will work. The markers will need washing off with soap and water and the chalk ones won’t last as long but can be wiped away. Try ’em both and see which you prefer.’ He meets my eyes with a soft smile. ‘For the window?’

  ‘I’m going for a mermaid theme, with Heathcliff and all. I thought I could draw some scales around the edges or something …’ Saying it aloud makes it sound worse than it did in my head, although I’m touched that he doesn’t mind me borrowing the pens. I’d only intended him to tell me what was best to order from Amazon, I didn’t expect him to have any on him.

  ‘Sounds good. I’ve always said Robert could make better use of that window.’

  ‘Thanks.’ I feel a little jolt of pride that he agrees with me. Dimitri clearly knows a lot about this shop, and him thinking the same as I do makes me think I might not be that far off base after all.

  It all goes well until I actually start trying to draw mermaid scales at the edges of the window. This whole drawing back-to-front thing so it looks right from the outside is no easy task. That’s my excuse, anyway. It looks nothing like mermaid scales. A tin of baked beans poured over the window would make more accurate mermaid scales than this.

  ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘Oh, please don’t look.’ I groan. Of all people you want assessing your terrible attempt at artwork, an artist is not one of them.

  I hide my face behind my hands as Dimitri steps up behind me, so close that I can feel his body heat, and I fight the temptation to lean back just a tiny bit.

  His eyes scan over my attempt at prettifying the window. ‘Well, at least you used the chalk markers so we can wipe it off.’

  That says it all, really.

  He laughs. ‘I thought you were going for mermaid scales. Why have you drawn puddles all over the window?’

  Well, puddles are a step up from baked beans. ‘Because even with a book cover with a mermaid on it in front of me, I can’t figure out how to make them look right.’

  He grabs a cloth from the counter and comes back to wipe the glass clean. ‘Can I try?’

  Our fingers brush and we both hesitate for a moment, neither of us moving as I hand him the pink chalk pen, my fingertip pressing into the side of his, and then he looks away and somehow folds himself onto the empty shelf and sets to work.

  ‘I was intending to expand them out from each corner to fill the space, and then join them along each edge, like a frame around the window.’

  He makes a non-committal noise, and a customer goes to the counter, so I put the pack of chalk markers on the shelf beside him and go to serve her. She’s buying a stack of romantic comedies, and we have a chat about the pros and more pros of Sophie Kinsella’s books, and she somehow hasn’t read Can You Keep A Secret? so she goes back and finds that one too and adds it to her pile, and I’ve got a massive smile on my face as I ring up her total and load the books into a bag. It’s my biggest sale so far. If I could get a few more customers like her, we might have a chance.

  When I look back, Dimitri’s stopped drawing on the window and is sitting there grinning at me. ‘You were made for this.’ He shakes his head. ‘I mean the bookselling, obviously. No offence but you weren’t made for drawing mermaid scales on windows.’

  ‘But you were. Wow.’ My mouth is agape as I get out from behind the counter and go back to the window. ‘How did you do that?’

  Extending from each corner is an ombré mermaid’s tail that starts pink and fades into purple and then turquoise for the perfectly flicked fins that look like they’re diving down into each angle of the window. Instead of more scales joining the four corners, there are waves up each side and a line of shells along the top and bottom, all outlined and shaded in pastel colours.

  ‘I’ve only been chatting for ten minutes,’ I say in awe. ‘All right, I get a bit carried away when it comes to romantic comedies, but this is …’ I trail off because I can’t find the words to do it justice. ‘So you can give Mary Berry a run for her money in the kitchen and make Van Gogh weep. Can you plumb a sink, retile the roof, pilot an aeroplane, and charm some snakes on your way back too?’

  ‘Oh, stop it.’ He blushes again.

  I like how easy it is to make him blush. ‘You’re helping me instead of doing your own work again.’

  He clambers off the window ledge, holding on to the wall and stamping his foot to get pins and needles out of his leg, and something in my chest floods with warmth when he looks up and meets my eyes. ‘Believe me, it’s my pleasure.’

  For one moment, I think he’s going to hug me and we stare at each other awkwardly for an embarrassing amount of time, until he ducks his head. His quiffed hair flops over and then bounces back as he stands upright, and I find it impossible to take my eyes off him, especially when his meet mine again and the glint in them is just a little bit more sultry than cheeky.

  �
��Excuse me, I wonder if you could help me?’ The woman standing behind me makes me jump so much that I nearly topple over. I hadn’t even heard her come in. How can I have been so lost in Dimitri’s eyes that I’d even missed the bell tinkling? ‘I can’t remember the name, but I’m looking for a book that’s been made into a TV show where they all wear red.’

  ‘The Handmaid’s Tale,’ Dimitri and I say in unison.

  The lady smiles in recognition of the title, and Dimitri’s face crinkles in concentration for a moment before he says, ‘Aisle two, under Dystopian Fiction, which is on the third bookshelf along, four shelves from the top.’

  The lady looks as impressed as I am. ‘Ooh, he’s clever, isn’t he?’

  ‘He is,’ I say as he looks up and meets my eyes again with a grin, and she hurries off to follow his directions.

  ‘Wow,’ I say in surprise. ‘You know this place absurdly well. How long did you say you’d been sketching here?’

  ‘I didn’t.’ He rubs at the back of his neck. It doesn’t seem like he’s going to elaborate, but I hold his gaze, and eventually he looks away. ‘A while. It’s a big book.’

  ‘I’ve never seen you.’

  ‘I lurk.’

  He doesn’t seem very lurk-y. As far as I can tell, he sits in the reading area and takes up a not-small amount of space when the shop’s quiet. I’m surprised I haven’t noticed him before given how much time he seems to spend here. He is not the sort of man you don’t notice.

  ‘I try not to get in anyone’s way,’ he says when I don’t look away. ‘I told you, I go and hide in the Rare and Valuable aisle when things are busy. I treat this place like a library and Robert’s been kind enough to let me – I’m not going to take up space that valued, paying customers might want.’