The Wish List: Escape with the most hilarious and feel-good read of 2020!

by Sophia Money-Coutts

  ‘Thank you,’ I replied over my shoulder, making my way back to the till. I couldn’t face getting into an argument with Zach today. Or any day that week, in fact, as I became increasingly nervous about Thursday evening.

  He’d launched the shop’s Instagram account – @Frisbeebooks – on Monday afternoon with a photo of Fumi and an announcement that she’d be speaking at the bookshop. She duly reposted it to her 973k followers which meant that, by the time we closed that evening, we’d sold all seventy tickets.

  By Tuesday lunchtime there was a waiting list of over two hundred people and, as I walked home that evening, all I could hear in my head was the shriek of the shop phone over and over again as Fumi fans rang to beg for a space. ‘Sorry, sold out,’ I apologized, even when one girl cried and insisted that she needed to be there because Fumi was her ‘religion’.

  The calls continued until Wednesday afternoon when Norris declared he’d had enough and unplugged the phone. ‘I’m SICK of all this technology,’ he bellowed across the shop floor, making a customer drop a cookery book on her foot.

  ‘The telephone was invented in 1876, it’s hardly modern,’ muttered Eugene, as Norris thumped downstairs to his office again. But we were all grateful for the peace that followed.

  On Thursday morning, I dressed more carefully than usual. Same outfit (navy T-shirt, navy trousers) and same face (tinted moisturizer, mascara), but I took more care. I made sure I wasn’t wearing my biggest knickers so I wouldn’t have a VPL. I dried my hair properly, running a brush through it instead of my fingers. I rummaged in the drawer of my bedside table for a pair of gold hoop earrings I rarely wore.

  ‘Get you, Liz Taylor,’ said Eugene, clocking the earrings as soon I arrived.

  ‘Don’t. I’m feeling sick already.’

  ‘You’re going to be fabulous,’ he replied just as Zach shunted the door open with his shoulder because his arms were full of snacks. He staggered to the counter and dropped the various packets. Bags of Haribo, ready salted crisps, boxes of herbal tea, apples and small bottles of fizzy water.

  ‘What’s this for?’ I asked.

  ‘Her rider,’ Zach replied.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Oooh, it’s what celebrities have in their dressing rooms,’ explained Eugene, picking up a pink box of tea. ‘Like, if you’re Mick Jagger, it’s what you need to have before you go on stage.’

  ‘I’m pretty sure Mick Jagger doesn’t demand Fangtastics before going on stage,’ said Zach, ‘but this is what her publisher emailed me last night. Oh, I nearly forgot these.’ He reached into his back pocket, pulled out a box and held it up for us to see. ‘Organic chicken biscuits for the dog.’

  I gave a snort. ‘She’s not Madonna.’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Can you put it away somewhere other than here? We’ve got to open up.’ I’d spent that week obsessively tidying, putting books back into their rightful places. Running my fingers along the shelves, I’d played Consequences. If there was an even number on a certain shelf, Thursday evening would go without a hitch. Odd? I’d do something awful like fart on stage.

  Zach gathered the shopping up. ‘Your wish is my command. The publisher also asked about a dressing room. Where shall we put Her Majesty?’

  ‘Stockroom?’ suggested Eugene.

  ‘That’ll do,’ said Zach, heading downstairs.

  By lunchtime, I felt so ill I couldn’t eat my cheese and tomato sandwich.

  By teatime, I wondered whether I could fake my own death to get out of it. Fake my own death and disappear to live in Africa like Lord Lucan, although I’d find it very hard to leave Marmalade behind. Why had I let Zach force me into this? Why wasn’t he doing it? I raised my eyes to the ceiling above me. Zach was the one in charge, after all, thundering about the shop like a matador ordering Eugene to move chairs and tables.

  I tried to distract myself by writing my questions on Frisbee notecards, before unpacking four boxes of Fumi’s book and arranging them in even piles on a signing table beside the till. The door jangled and I looked up to see a gaggle of teenage girls come in and glance nervously around them.

  ‘’Scuse me,’ one of them asked. ‘Is this the right place for the Fumi talk?’

  I looked at my watch. It was only 4.28. ‘Yep,’ I replied. ‘But it’s not for another couple of hours. Do you have tickets?’

  They nodded simultaneously. ‘We just want to make sure we have good seats,’ said the ringleader.

  ‘The chairs aren’t out yet,’ I replied, just as there was a thump on the floorboards above my head and another shout from Zach. ‘Come back closer to six?’

  They nodded again and left. But the door kept swinging open. Ring ring. Ring ring. Ring ring. Every few minutes another herd of fans would appear to check that they were in the right place, to see if there were any spare tickets or cancellations, to plead with me for a space.

  Norris appeared upstairs from his office at one point to see what the ‘commotion’ was.

  ‘Close it early,’ he said, his face darkening at the sight of the crowd outside the shop windows. ‘Put up a sign. Too much noise.’

  I pulled a sheet of paper from the printer and wrote in neat black capitals: ‘Please queue here for the Fumi event. Doors will open at 6 p.m.’ I stuck it to the door-pane, flicked the lock and texted Rory – Have locked door so if you get here early, ring and will let you in xxx.

  Upstairs, Eugene was unfolding chairs in lines across the Turkish rugs. Zach was sitting on the floor, leaning up against the shelves, phone clamped to one ear, hands flying over his laptop keyboard.

  ‘OK,’ he said, ‘OK, great. Yes, all fine here. That’s perfect. Looking forward to it.’

  ‘That was Fumi’s agent,’ he said, lowering his phone. ‘They’re on their way. Can I just get you to do a sound check?’ He pointed to two chairs at the front of the room, a microphone stand between them.

  I felt a wave of adrenalin soak my insides but said nothing. Mustn’t show fear in front of Zach. Instead, I walked forward and perched on one of the two seats, then positioned my mouth over the microphone. ‘Er, testing, testing, one two three.’

  ‘Bit more,’ shouted Zach, not looking up from his screen.

  I couldn’t think of what else to say. And if I was this tongue-tied now, in front of a room which contained just Eugene and Zach, what would I be like in front of seventy people?

  ‘Tell me your deepest, darkest secret,’ said Zach.

  ‘What?’ I squeaked.

  ‘It’s only for sound. But never mind. Just tell me what you had for lunch.’

  ‘Nothing,’ I snapped, ‘because I’m so nervous I couldn’t eat.’

  He grinned at me from behind his laptop. ‘You’re going to be fine.’ Then he shook his head. ‘Scrap that, not just fine. You’re going to be great.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘I am,’ he said, head back down, tapping at his laptop. ‘But that’s all good to record.’ He looked up expectantly. ‘Ready?’

  ‘Think so,’ I replied but my voice gave me away. It was like a vole had swallowed a helium balloon.

  Fumi arrived with her agent and a bodyguard the size of a mobile home. He had a Russian accent as thick as his neck and was called Igor. Against a backdrop of shrieks outside, where the queue now snaked down the street, Zach introduced everyone. Fumi was wearing a short pink dress under a furry coat, spotted black and white like a Dalmatian. Her feet were laced in a pair of black ankle boots, her nails were long and silver and her hair was bubble-gum pink. The dog was asleep in her arms. Norris’s mouth fell open and he gasped as if seeing the Pyramids or the Coliseum for the first time.

  ‘This is Percy,’ Fumi said, holding one of the pug’s paws out for Norris to shake. She had a girlish American accent and didn’t seem like the sort of diva who’d demand fizzy water and apples in her dressing room. Standing between the twin pillars of Igor and Norris, she seemed more like a schoolgirl.

  Norris extended a hand and shook th
e paw. Zach lifted his camera from the strap around his neck and quickly took a picture. ‘Hello and welcome,’ said Norris. ‘We’re delighted to have you here.’

  ‘The pleasure’s ours,’ said the agent. She was an American called Jennifer who looked like she’d never eaten a carbohydrate in her life. ‘Where can we put ourselves?’

  ‘Downstairs,’ said Zach, ‘follow me. Watch your head there, Igor.’

  Norris told me to open the door and let the ticket-holders in; Eugene directed them to their seats, mostly gangs of teenage girls.

  I smiled at snippets of chat I overheard as they filed past.

  ‘I saw her hair!’

  ‘I saw Percy!’

  ‘Do you think she’ll do selfies?’

  ‘I need that coat in my life!’

  Ruby was hovering at the back. ‘Hi, Flo, I was waiting for Rory but I can’t see him.’

  ‘Don’t worry. He’s not here yet. Will you just save a seat? And I’ll text him your number.’

  She nodded. ‘How you feeling?’

  ‘All right.’ This was a fib. I was now so nervous I thought I might throw up on my shoes.

  I apologized to the dozen or so fans left outside without tickets, locked the door and texted Rory with Ruby’s details in case he needed to be let in. Upstairs came the scraping of chairs and murmur of excited voices; downstairs I could only hear Jennifer’s undulating American murmur. I picked up my notecards and headed for the stockroom.

  ‘Everyone ready?’ I said, sticking my head inside it. Igor was holding Percy, a ludicrous sight in his tree-trunk arms. Fumi was sitting on a chair, busy with her phone. Jennifer turned and smiled brightly at me.

  ‘I think so. Shall we do this?’

  Feeling as if a strange, autonomous power had overtaken my legs, I led them upstairs and gestured at a couple of reserved seats for Jennifer and Igor, who handed the dog to Fumi. As she, Percy and I made our way to the front, the room went quiet. We sat and I squinted at the back to see Zach holding his thumb up. I glanced at Fumi, who was clutching a copy of her own book. Percy had settled on her lap and closed his eyes.

  That was when I realized I could hear my own heart beating. It seemed unfeasibly loud.

  ‘Hello, er, everyone,’ I said, leaning forward into the microphone. ‘And welcome to Frisbee Books for an evening with a special guest who needs very little introduction, the supremely talented poet Fumi and her dog, Percy!’

  I glanced at Percy as the claps and cheering filled the room. His eyes remained closed. Presumably he was used to this.

  ‘Thank you. Thank you all, thank you so much for coming,’ Fumi said, her voice hushing the applause. ‘I’m delighted to be here in London with you all to celebrate my new book, Bad Fairy’ – a few whoops in the audience at this – ‘so I’d like to read a few extracts if I may.’

  She read to silence in the room while I tried to stop my notecards from wilting in my clammy hands. There was another rowdy burst of clapping when Fumi finished the final haiku. Called ‘Apocalypse’, it was about the time she broke a nail.

  ‘Thank you, Fumi, that was brilliant,’ I said when the room had fallen quiet again. ‘And as you said, this is your new book, your second anthology by the age of twenty-one, following on from your debut last year. When and why did you start writing in haikus?’

  Just as Fumi opened her mouth to respond, Percy woke and sneezed in her lap.

  The audience laughed.

  ‘Please excuse him, I think he’s got jet lag,’ she said, to more laughter. ‘So, I started writing when I was very young, my father taught English in Kyoto and…’

  As she talked, Percy jumped down from her lap and sniffed my feet. I tried to continue listening but found it hard to concentrate while he snuffled around my ankles.

  ‘I’m so sorry, is he bothering you?’ Fumi asked, breaking off from her answer and looking down at my feet.

  ‘No, no, not at all!’ I said. ‘Please go on. He’s fine.’

  But as she started talking again, Percy reared up on his hind legs, his front feet on my knee, and started humping my ankle.

  Nervous laughter rippled across the seats in front of us.

  ‘Oh, goodness, Percy! I’m so sorry,’ said Fumi, her silver nails flying to her cheeks. The laughter grew as Percy continued to shag my trainer.

  ‘No, no, it’s OK,’ I hissed, recrossing my legs, shaking Percy off in the process. I sat back and smiled at Fumi, encouraging her to continue. But that didn’t fool the nymphomaniac dog for long. Within seconds, he’d wrapped his paws around my calf and was at it again, his bottom pumping back and forth, dry humping my foot.

  The audience had now fully lost it and the room echoed with their howls as I tried to swivel my legs away, only for Percy to leap right back on my ankle and redouble his efforts. What was wrong with this dog? Why was it so obsessed with my hideous shoes? It was going at my leg like a teenage boy.

  ‘Get off,’ I growled, leaning over to try and pull him away with my hands. I looked up at the audience and smiled, as if to reassure them that this was all fine, but all I could see was phones. A bank of phones. Everyone was taking pictures of me, gurning at the camera, while Percy the pug made love to my foot. How could I stop it? How does one stop a sex-crazed dog? I couldn’t kick him, could I? Christ, the laughter was getting louder.

  Suddenly, a meaty pair of arms appeared in front of me and Igor picked Percy up by his collar. I felt my panic subside as he carried him back to his seat. My cheeks were on fire, I’d started sweating (obviously) and my trouser legs were covered with fine, pale, pug hairs.

  ‘Well,’ I said, a few moments later when the laughter had finally stopped. ‘I’m very flattered. But, sorry, Fumi, shall we pick up where we left off? You were talking about why you began writing haikus?’

  Unruffled, Fumi carried on while I sat back in my seat, arms clamped to my sides, waiting for the heat in my cheeks to subside.

  The only good thing about the foot-shagging debacle was that Rory didn’t see it because he hadn’t arrived. I realized this downstairs as I stood behind the till. Fumi was sitting at the table beside me, signing books for the long queue of fans who wanted selfies with her and Percy. He’d returned to her lap and was sitting proudly as an emperor. I narrowed my eyes at him. Say what you like about cats but they’d never do anything so impolite.

  ‘Where’s Rory?’ I mouthed at Ruby, who was hovering by the door.

  She shrugged and shouted back, ‘Not sure. But I’ll wait for you.’

  It took over an hour for the shop to empty. Fumi, with another wave of Percy’s paw, said goodbye and thanked us before carrying him to a black people-carrier parked outside. Jennifer climbed in after her. Zach and I watched from the shop door as Igor heaved himself into the front of the car and they drove off.

  ‘Well, that was a disaster,’ I said, turning to him.

  ‘Rubbish! You were great!’

  ‘Zach, that animal was out of control. I’ve never been so mortified in all my life.’

  ‘You were amazing, Flo,’ said Ruby, behind us. ‘I’m Ruby, by the way,’ she said to Zach, grinning at him.

  ‘I’m Zach, hi. I work with your sister.’

  ‘I guessed. It’s very rude of her not to mention you before.’

  ‘She can be pretty rude,’ he replied, before leaning in closer to Ruby, ‘but don’t tell her I said that. I’m quite scared of her when she’s angry. You should see her with a mop.’

  The exchange made me want to kick them both in the shins. Oh Ruby, surely not? She couldn’t be into Zach. He dressed like a teenage gamer and needed a haircut. His arms were more tattoo than human being. He was arrogant and bossy. He ate food like a hungry Labrador. He was… I stopped running through my list of the things I least liked about Zach as he and Ruby carried on chatting in front of me.

  ‘A model! I can see that about you,’ he said, which made Ruby laugh and flick her hair to the other side of her face.

  Urgh, flirting was dis
gusting.

  ‘Drink!’ shouted Norris, appearing on the shop floor with a tray bearing a bottle of champagne and several mugs. ‘You were all brilliant, especially Florence, and I want to say thank you.’

  He balanced the tray on the non-fiction table, covering up the faces of Cromwell and Queen Victoria, and opened the bottle with a pop.

  ‘I got a selfie with the pug!’ said Eugene, handing the mugs around.

  ‘Don’t mention that dog,’ I said, peering into the mug he’d given me. Its sides were dark brown with tea stains. Could I drink champagne from this?

  ‘Cheers!’ said Norris, holding his mug in the air. ‘We’ve sold 126 copies of that daft poetry book, on top of the tickets.’

  ‘I got some great photos,’ said Zach, lifting the camera from around his neck and scrolling through them. ‘I’ll post them online tomorrow.’

  ‘I don’t want to see them,’ I said.

  ‘I do!’ purred Ruby, stepping closer to Zach to look at his camera screen.

  So much for that self-imposed period of abstinence, I thought. If I came downstairs in the morning to find Zach in our kitchen looking for tea bags, I would move out. What if I bumped into him in a towel? Gross. Or what if I had to watch telly while they snogged on the sofa? Nope. Oh my God, what if he and Ruby ended up getting married and we all had to spend Christmases together? The thought was unbearable.

  ‘Where’s your man, Florence?’ Zach asked suddenly, looking up from his camera. ‘I thought he was coming?’

  ‘Yep, he is. I mean, he was, but I think he’s been held up in the office.’ I didn’t know this for sure, since Rory still hadn’t messaged, but I didn’t want to admit to as much. I felt a strange sense of conflict, annoyed at Rory and yet keen to defend him against Zach.

  ‘Maybe he’s been held up by the Prime Minister,’ suggested Eugene, before gasping, ‘What if it’s a matter of national importance?’

  ‘All right, let’s not exaggerate,’ I said, jumping at a rap on the shop window behind me. ‘See? There he is.’

  I put my mug on the tray and hurried to open the door.