‘What do you think?’ I say to Heathcliff as I lean on the empty shelf and press my forehead against the glass to get a better view of the two men.
Heathcliff’s busy watching a French bulldog on the opposite side of the street who’s giving him ‘come hither’ eyes, and looks like he’s about to jump out of his tank and attempt to get hither.
Dimitri looks like he’s three seconds away from lamping Drake Farrer one, and I’m quite surprised by this chivalrous Jane Austen hero-esque side. No one’s ever fought my battles for me, and it kind of gives me a warm feeling inside that someone wants to, even though I’m far from a damsel in distress and the mere sight of me would make actual damsels even more distressed with my tomboyish dress sense and aversion to both skirts and high-heeled shoes.
I scramble backwards and nearly send Heathcliff’s bowl flying when the two men part abruptly and Drake Farrer strides off in the direction he came while Dimitri turns back to the shop.
‘Sorry about that.’ By the time he comes in, his easy smile is back in place.
I pretend to be tidying the stacks of books I’ve taken out of the window display, not wanting it to be quite so obvious I was watching them.
‘He pestered Robert for years, but I thought Robert handing over the shop would be the end of it. He obviously sees you as fresh blood. You’ve got chalk mermaid scales on your forehead.’
Great. That doesn’t make it at all obvious I was watching. I rub my forehead with the back of my hand and try to surreptitiously wipe it off on my ‘It was a dark and stormy night’ Snoopy T-shirt, knowing I probably look like a Labrador that’s been caught with its head halfway down the kitchen bin. ‘Do you know him well?’
‘No … Not really … Hallie, there’s something I should …’
‘I’ve never met a man who makes me feel so uneasy,’ I grumble. ‘I’m going to check for hidden cameras later. I don’t understand how he knows so much about this place.’ I take a deep breath and then blurt out the stupid thought that won’t leave my head. ‘Unless you’ve told him.’
‘Me?’ His voice is high with indignation.
‘He knows Robert hadn’t taken a wage for months, Dimitri. And about the books we’re going to hide. And the book club, and the till. And on that first day, he knew a lot more about the shop’s finances than I did. And so did you when you asked me about the book balancing. You weren’t surprised when I told you how bad things are.’
‘And you think he couldn’t have found any of that out in another way? You don’t think he’s observed Robert serving customers on the till and walked past on a Saturday afternoon to see the book club tearing into biscuits, or that he’s projecting what he knows from the ex-bakery and the trouble they were in? He’s a property developer. It’s his job to stay on top of the financial situation for this area. He’s making wild guesses and has hit a couple of lucky targets, that’s all.’
It does make sense. I know it does. There’s just something in the back of my mind that niggles occasionally.
‘He’s trying to spook you. Things are going well since you took over, Hal. You have to trust me on that. The books on the sale table are boosting the income and doing a lot better than they would be gathering dust on the shelf. We’re gradually getting the stock sorted out. People are coming in because of the window.’ He nods towards the now-empty display.
‘There’s still not enough money in the till to order the few thousand quid’s worth of new stock this shop needs. I’m spending money on mugs and notebooks and tote bags – things that aren’t books. And I have used my own money, just like he was hinting at. Without rent to pay, I thought I could stretch to it this month, but he’s right – all I need is one unexpected bill to come in and I will be in trouble. Am I going about this all wrong?’
‘No, but that’s exactly what he wants you to think. I watched him do the same with Robert, but he got nowhere because Robert had been doing this for forty years and had seen it all before. Farrer’s homed in on you being new at this and is trying to make you doubt yourself. Don’t let him. He doesn’t know the first thing about running a bookshop or about what the people of Buntingorden want, because it’s certainly not a leisure complex.’
‘Why does he think a leisure complex is better here than anywhere else? This is a tiny Great British high street full of “ye olde worlde” charm. A leisure complex is the last thing that would suit this area.’
‘It’s a hotspot for tourism. A lot of people come to visit the countryside. He’s trying to grab the crowd on rainy days when walking is unappealing.’
‘This is England. It’s almost impossible to go out in the countryside without getting caught in the rain. That’s half the fun of being British. Besides, have you heard the sound the rain makes pattering on the roof terrace? There is nowhere better to spend a rainy day than a bookshop. Why does he want to wipe out everything that’s charming about this street and make it shiny and modern and undoubtedly painfully expensive to get in?’
‘Because Drake Farrer gets what he wants. Robert refused him. Every other shop owner on this street has refused him too. The only thing he’s managed to get his hands on is the empty place next door because the owner got into financial trouble and needed someone to bail him out.’
‘What if he uses it to drive us out? He could do anything he wants with it. He could move a discount bookshop in. He could turn it into a nightclub. He could open a sewage works in it.’
‘I don’t think he’d get planning permission for a sewage works,’ Dimitri says with a laugh.
I pick up the canvas picture and walk over to the back wall, reaching up to hold it central above the display books.
‘I wish I was in a financial position to be able to buy it. I’d turn it into an art gallery with a little gift shop that sells artwork, sculptures, and stuff by local artists. Doing these greeting cards has made me realise how much I miss that aspect of art. I believe young artists don’t get enough support and encouragement so I’d have a section dedicated to their work. And I’d open a cake and coffee bar in the corner and go halves on the roof terrace with you so people could take their goodies up there and sit reading.’ He shakes his head. ‘But I’m struggling to get by as it is. I can’t even dream about that sort of thing.’
It’s not the first time he’s mentioned money worries, and I want to pry and push further, but he’s been unwilling to talk about it before, and it’s not like I can offer any help.
I pull a chair out of the office and climb on it to clear the books on the highest display shelves and make room for the canvas I’m still holding up on the wall. ‘Dreams can come true. I’m living proof of that. And there …’ I stand the canvas on the shelf and tilt it slightly so the wall is holding it up. ‘Your first piece is officially on display. First step to a gallery.’
He’s beaming as he looks up at it. ‘I can’t believe you like it enough to display it so prominently.’
‘Are you kidding? I love it.’ I look down at him from the chair, trying to gauge whether he is winding me up or not. ‘For someone who’s about to have a book published, you have a strange lack of confidence in your work.’
‘I’m weird, you know that.’ He holds his hand up to help me down and I grip it as I step off the chair, coming to a wobbly halt with my chest pressed against his body.
It takes all I have to stop myself adding ‘and that’s what I love about you’. It’s not right to say that to him even though I don’t mean it in a romantic sense. I mean, he’s lovely, and he’s adorably charming, and just weird enough to make me feel normal in my own weirdness when I’m with him, and like he won’t judge me for being clumsy and awkward, and getting excited about stupid things that other people don’t care about, like book release dates, pre-orders popping onto my Kindle at midnight, notebooks that are too pretty to write in, and tote bags with handles long enough to slip over your shoulder and fit a decent amount of books in.
I blink up at him as his hand slides to my waist to steady
me, even though I’m fairly sure I don’t need steadying right at this moment. Although I do usually need some form of steadying so maybe it’s just pre-emptive steadying. His eyes are dark and seductive rather than bright and twinkly and his head dips towards mine and I push myself up on my tiptoes on autopilot. I let out a shuddery breath, the proximity to him obviously making me forget how unstable I am on tiptoes because far from the sensuous kiss I imagined, I overbalance and fall against him, knocking him over too so we both stumble and crash into the counter.
He shakes his head like he’s trying to clear it and pushes a hand through his hair, manoeuvring us until we’re both safely on two feet and he can politely extract himself. He doesn’t say anything about the almost-kiss.
‘So what am I drawing on the window this time?’ He steps away and nods to the empty display like he can tell what I’m thinking and is determined to derail the thought from its track.
‘You really wouldn’t mind?’ I try to recalibrate myself and pick up Heathcliff’s bowl and carry it across to the counter even though I’m feeling more unsteady now than I was while standing on the wobbly chair. ‘I was thinking of doing a fairy-tale theme this time around.’
‘How about Pen—’
‘No giant lizards, bloodthirsty ogres, overgrown fleas, or anything else horrible from Pentamerone.’ It makes us both giggle, easing the weird tension and making it like that never happened. ‘I mean real fairy tales – we could pop in some for kids, and then intersperse them with modern-day fairy tales for adults and some great YA retellings.’
‘So how about an enchanted wood?’ He pulls the pencil from behind his ear and points it towards the window, showing me roughly where things would go. ‘Trees on either side with branches dangling over, red and white mushrooms and a couple of bunny rabbits and hedgehogs along the bottom, and then some fairies flitting around the upper half?’
‘That would be amazing.’
He grins. ‘Who needs a gallery to display their work when they’ve got a shop window and a pack of chalk markers?’
Chapter 12
That evening, we’re message hunting again. Well, Dimitri calls it ‘doing the inventory’ but I think of it more as seeing what other secrets these books are hiding.
‘Listen to this,’ Dimitri calls out from the Health & Lifestyle section two aisles over. ‘It’s great to see you looking so well after everything you’ve been through. Thought you might like this in the next chapter of your life. It’s in a book about switching to a plant-based diet. I wonder what she went through? I wonder if going plant-based helped her recovery?’
‘It obviously wasn’t a well-received gift if it ended up here,’ I call back, pre-empting his next words.
‘On the contrary, it looks well read. She must’ve got something out of it.’
‘You’re very chirpy tonight. All that glitter paint you used on the fairies’ wings must’ve got to you,’ I say, because he’s always the first to remind me that these books wouldn’t be here if they were still wanted.
Glitter-addled or not, the design he’s painted for me is spectacular. Green leaves tumbling from tall trees on either side of the window, an array of woodland creatures and toadstools dancing along the bottom, and fairies with sparkling wings flitting under the canopy. The reflection of the real sunlight makes their glittery wings glisten. We’ve filled it with a selection of old Ladybird classic books, YA fairy-tale retellings, and adult books with a hint of whimsy about them – the perfect enchanted forest.
I hear him peel a heart sticker off the crinkly backing paper and there’s a clunk as he slots the book back onto a higher shelf. We’re tackling shelves separately tonight and only meeting when we take the next pile of titles over to the counter and put them into the spreadsheet on my laptop before putting them alphabetically back into the shelves where they belong, which are rarely the ones they came from. Every day in this shop surprises me more and more by how much of a muddle it’s in. How has Robert stayed in business all these years? How has any customer ever found anything before now?
I hear the thuds as he pulls more books out of the shelves and the flip of pages as he goes through them. I try to concentrate on the Contemporary Fiction section in front of me, but Dimitri is distracting, with his insistence on smelling every book and the way he’s humming musical theatre songs to himself. Everything seems so much easier when he’s here, even the seemingly endless shelves of books that aren’t where they’re supposed to be and how many paper cuts my fingers are covered in.
‘We’ve got a treasure map!’ he suddenly shouts, making me jump so much that I crash into a pile of books and send it sprawling to the floor. ‘This is not a drill! We’ve got a treasure map!’
‘In what?’ I call out.
He appears at the edge of my aisle holding up a book depicting a blue and yellow map and a one-legged pirate. ‘Treasure Island, obviously. Look at this!’
He brings the book over and shows me a map drawn on the inside cover and spread across the front page too. It looks like it was drawn by someone very young, with a big ‘X’ in red pen and annotations in a child’s handwriting that say things like ‘the oak tree’ and ‘four paces past the bridge’ and ‘at the swan’s nest’. Apart from the X, there’s not much that even identifies it as a treasure map, but Dimitri’s practically bouncing on the spot, his eyes gleaming like he’s a little boy who’s found a treasure map. ‘What’s Treasure Island doing in the Health & Lifestyle section?’
‘Well, pirates arrrr a life choice, aren’t they? Ahoy, me hearties! It’s the Jolly Roger! Shiver me timbers! Avast ye, matey!’ He bangs on the shelf three times. ‘Grog, grog, grog!’
His innocence and excitement is palpable and I can’t stop myself giggling. He has no concept of how adorable he is. ‘If this kid is as young as his writing looks, isn’t Treasure Island a bit dark for him to be reading?’
‘Or he could be a criminal mastermind who’s disguised his writing to look like a child’s so everyone dismisses it. This could be …’ He trails off as he studies the map. ‘This could be here! Look at this, this is Buntingorden.’
I go over to him as he holds the book out to show me. ‘Look, this is the river.’ His finger runs along a wide space between two lines. ‘This old oak tree is right at the end of the path, just before the wooden bridge over the pool where kids go swimming in the summer. When you cross that, you come to a spot where the swans used to nest, and that X is at the base of the crab apple tree where the river goes under the viaduct and disappears into the hills.’
I squint at what he points out, but it looks like lines and squiggles to me. ‘I think you need a child’s imagination to work that one out.’
He grins, obviously proud of this fact, and I can’t help smiling again. His adult joy at childlike things is something sorely missing in this world.
‘We’re going to find this. Have you got a shovel?’
‘It’s nearly dark. And no, I haven’t. I’ve never lived in a flat with a garden – why on earth would you think I own a shovel?’
His face falls before he quickly perks up again. ‘I’ll bring one from home and we’ll go tomorrow.’
‘It’s a wild goose chase.’
‘Okay, maybe we’ll find some wild gooses. Geese. Maybe they’ll be so excited about the prospect of treasure that they won’t mind my complete butchering of English grammar. You know what I mean.’ He closes the book and clutches it to his chest as he backs away towards the office. ‘This isn’t going back on sale until we’ve found it.’
‘You’re mad as a hatter.’ I watch as he lovingly places the book front and centre of my desk, grabs a pen, and writes ‘shovel’ on his arm as a reminder, but there’s something about his excitement that makes me feel excited too, and makes me think about that childlike sense of wonder that disappears as we grow up, and how amazing it is to meet someone who’s not afraid to believe in fairy tales.
He sweeps back out of the office, and I go back to where I was and
pull a copy of Love in the Time of Cholera off the Literary Fiction shelf. I open the cover, not expecting there to be anything written inside, and stop in surprise.
‘Dimitri,’ I say before he gets back to the Health & Lifestyle section. ‘Have you seen the film Serendipity?’
‘Rom com?’ he asks, and I make a noise of agreement as he pops his head back round the edge of my aisle. ‘No, why?’
‘It’s about two people who meet in a twist of fate and feel a connection, but they’re both in relationships with other people, so they decide that if it’s meant to be, they’ll find each other again. They send two items out into the universe with their names and numbers on them so if they ever make it back into the other’s hands, it’ll be a sign. His on a five dollar bill, hers written inside the cover of Love in the Time of Cholera. Look at this.’ I hold up the book to show him the name and phone number written inside this copy of the same book.
‘Mindy,’ he reads it and the numbers aloud. ‘You think we’ve accidentally stumbled into a rom com?’
‘I don’t know, but it’s a bit weird, isn’t it?’
‘Movie prop they didn’t need after filming that somehow ended up here?’
‘No, it’s a different name. Kate Beckinsale’s character is called Sara.’
‘Shall we ring it?’
‘Noooo.’ I laugh, shake my head, and feel a flitter of excitement inside me at the mere suggestion. ‘Of course we’re not going to ring it. That would be … I don’t know. Invading someone’s privacy? It has nothing to do with us. It’s weird and …’
He takes my hand and pulls me towards the office. He uses his foot to kick out the chair at the desk for me to sit down, and uses his other hand to lift the shop phone and plonk it in front of me with a pointed clunk. ‘We’re going to ring it.’
The Little Bookshop of Love Stories: A gorgeous feel good romance to escape with this summer! Page 21