Chapter 3
3
‘Cleo said a handsome man and his daughter bought you tea and cake from The Wonderland Teapot.’
There are many good things about working on Ever After Street – everyone knowing your business before you do is not one of them, even if that person is your best friend.
‘I think it was more the daughter’s idea and not the handsome man’s.’ I explain to Lissa about the past couple of days and meeting Ren and Ava, and the book we’ve found.
‘And now you’re going to the library with them?’ She waggles her eyebrows like she’s trying to turn it into something suggestive, because the most important fact of my explanation is the involvement of a handsome man and not the potential evidence of mermaids existing. ‘That sounds like a date. A very weird date with a teenager tagging along.’
‘Tena.m. on 26 July is the only part that makes it a date. He is astoundingly off-limits. I think he’s probably a nice guy deep down, but he’s obviously been hurt and seems determined to make sure it never happens again. He’s so prickly that he may as well be wearing a coat of angry hedgehogs. And he doesn’t get the theory behind a curiosity shop and clearly thinks that if there are worse places on earth, he’s yet to find them.’
‘Right, where does he live? I’ll go round there right now and punch him in the nose. No one insults my best friend and her shop, no matter how handsome they are.’
I can’t help giggling even though I love her for her protectiveness. ‘Luckily I have no idea where he lives and no desire for my best friend to commit acts of physical violence on my behalf.’
‘Maybe he’s just never met anyone like you before.’
‘I assure you, he never wants to again either.’ I shrug it off even though I know she was trying to give me a compliment. The less said about Ren and his opinions of me, the better.
‘Can I see the book? This is the sort of thing that should be displayed at Colours of the Wind.’
Lissa’s fairytale museum is the most incredible place. She has recreations of items from fairytales, displayed like true, real artefacts. Even the most grown-up of hearts could go in there and come out feeling like a child again. Children get to dress up as princes and princesses and literally walk in Cinderella’s glass slippers or spin silk on Sleeping Beauty’s spinning wheel. It’s the most magical place on the street.
‘How has it taken you this long to ask about the book?’ I grumble as I get it out for her. ‘You can only read up to the bookmark. We can’t go any further than that, I promised Ava.’
‘Aww, how sweet. She’s got you wrapped around her little finger already.’
‘I like her. She reminds me of myself at that age. Caught between the peer pressure to appear grown up and the desire to still be a little girl and believe in magic, and he is… I don’t know what he is, but he’s not conducive to believing in magic. And he’s struggling. He seems both angry and completely lost.’
‘You’ve learnt a lot about them in a couple of short visits.’ She waggles those eyebrows again.
‘It’s nothing compared to what I know about Mrs Moreno’s cat’s bladder issues.’ I gloss over it because Ren and Ava have both intrigued me like no other customers ever have, so I change the subject instead and go back to the book. ‘What do you think?’
‘I don’t know, Mick, it’s both exciting and too unreal to even consider. All I know is that you must text me updates when you read more or, even better, text me when they’re here and I’ll come over and meet him. There’s no point in working across the street from your best friend if you’re not going to let me come over and assess any potential dates.’
‘Not a date! And speaking of dates, I’m going to take it to the antiques fair at the castle next month, at least, I am if we can find out more about it before then.’
She squeals. ‘You’re definitely going to do it then?’
Lissa’s had a front row seat to my back-and-forth with my own self-doubt over the antiques fair and trying to live up to my dad. ‘I needed something spectacular to stand out, and this is spectacular . It could really turn things around for me. A real mermaid’s diary would get everyone talking, and hopefully, everyone buying some of this junk.’
‘Junk?’
Lissa’s never heard me refer to my stock as junk before, I don’t think I ever have referred to it that way before, but Ren’s words have made me focus on the doubts that I’ve been trying to ignore, and I keep looking at my shop through someone else’s eyes, and what I see no longer feels as magical as it used to feel. It doesn’t feel like a shop filled with possibilities, it feels like a shop filled with clutter, where a customer has genuinely been hurt because of it, and I’m filled with the feeling that I have to do something or it’s not going to survive for much longer.
I’m not ready to try to explain any of that, not even to Liss, and I’m saved from having to when an older couple come in the door.
They look around and glance at each other with a clear look of trepidation on their faces.
‘Hi! Can I help you find anything specific?’ I say brightly. It’s lunchtime and there have only been a few customers so far today, less than a handful of trinkets have sold, but every new person through the door brings the potential for a life-changing sale.
The woman peers at the carpeted floor like dust bunnies are creeping out of the corners, ready to attack her at any given moment, and the man clears this throat. ‘We’re Clarice Cliff collectors and someone online recommended this place as a source of rare finds. Have you got any?’
‘Yes!’ I say excitedly. I got some from a vintage fayre ages ago, and although no one’s given them a second glance yet, I knew they’d be a good investment someday. ‘The question is… where did I put them? Bear with me just a mo.’
Dammit, where did I put them? I look around the shop cluelessly. There was a whole box full of the colourful ceramics – they were over there, but I moved them to make room for something, and then I put them in the second room, and then something else was put in front of them… Panic rises as the memory of when I last saw the Clarice Cliff collection remains out of reach. There had been no interest, and stuff gets pushed aside in favour of new things that might attract more attention, and then it just disappears into the black hole that my shop is surely standing on top of, which is probably the most rational explanation for things disappearing at the precise moment I want them.
‘Won’t be a tick, I know they’re here somewhere.’ I flee to the second room of the shop, and stand there looking around, hoping they’ll magically hurl themselves at my feet, in the least breakable way possible. Come on , Mickey, think . They were down there… no, there , and then they… I look around with my finger hanging limply in mid-air like it might magically lead me in the right direction. Oh! Didn’t I move them over there and then put a display table in front of them? Yes, I did, I’m sure of it. I pull things aside and dive under the table, letting out an ‘ouch!’ as I bang both my knee and my head at the same time, and then scramble further in. Everything is at least three things deep in this place, and the things that haven’t attracted much interest get left at the back.
My crawling around knocks the table leg, and that knocks something else, and there’s an almighty crash as a well-loved life-size nutcracker topples and goes careening into a crate of vintage books that was precariously balanced on a shelf. The books go tumbling downwards and one of them somersaults straight into a display of candle holders, which sends them crashing to the floor where they smash into smithereens, and displaced book pages finish the gymnastic display by fluttering down around the mess.
It’s like a life-size game of Mousetrap, where you knock one thing and create a domino effect, but I finally spot the box I’m looking for and yank it out, sending everything around it wobbling too. ‘Got it!’
‘They’ve gone, Mick,’ Lissa calls out.
Oh, brilliant. I grumble to myself as I clamber out and avoid looking at the surrounding debris and how big the clean-up operation will be this time.
‘Did they say anything?’ I step over the broken china and poke my head back into the main shop.
She grimaces. ‘They muttered something about “chaos” and clicked their tongues a lot. Don’t worry about them. They just didn’t get it.’
I appreciate her being so nice and trying to save me from the worst of customers’ opinions, but as I stand there and survey the damage from trying to find one thing, I can’t help wondering how many more times I’m going to have to use that excuse. How many more times are customers going to ask for something that I know I have, I just don’t know where ?
Every time I look at that dragon fruit table, I wonder who the heck would buy it. What was I thinking in buying it? And how long will it take for another idiot like me to come along and think it’s fantastic?
I’ve always thought that the sentimentality behind my stock is what sold the items, but I’ve just missed what could have been an easy sale if I focused less on stories and more on organisation, and it makes me wonder again how I ever let things get this bad, and how much longer things can go on like this.