Chapter Three
The article appears overnight.
It’s online, on the homepage of one of the local news sites, and I wake the next morning to find out via no less than eight text messages.
The last thing I feel like doing is reading exactly what Elizabeth has to say about me after our interaction yesterday, but it’s either that or go into the whole thing blind.
And while the crap lights in the shop mean I’m used to occasionally sitting – or stumbling – in the dark .
. . today that just doesn’t seem like a good idea.
So I close my eyes and I click on the link.
Bookseller who inspired Talking to Trees dedication still has bad lighting . . . and a mysterious attitude towards its author.
BY ELIZABETH MACKIE
It’s about what you might expect. Elizabeth (Mackie!) has leaned heavily on my lighting and the fact that Declan Archer is a local author – probably because I didn’t give her much else to work with.
But, despite her obvious feeling that I should walk around with a poster of Declan Archer pinned to my clothes, she also . . . isn’t horrible.
When asked about the book, bookshop owner Clarence Brooks simply says that she is interested in supporting all local artists.
The anticipation and dread that has been knotting in my chest since yesterday morning starts to ease.
Elizabeth really hasn’t been as cutting as I thought she might’ve been after our interaction.
She even describes Brooks’ Books as a ‘sweet, warm, family bookshop’, before going into more detail about Declan and the book itself.
Apart from a brief twinge of mortification in my chest when Elizabeth mentions she approached Declan and he declined to speak with her, I’m okay. And then I get to the last lines.
And yet it would be remiss of me, dear reader, not to mention that despite refusing to comment, Declan Archer himself paused when the bookshop was mentioned, and Clarence blushed when I spoke his name.
One can’t help but wonder what the history between the two might be, and what spark lit the fire of such a dedication.
And then it ends.
Seriously? Seriously?
Who does Elizabeth Mackie think she is? Jane Austen? And what is she, an entertainment writer or a romance sleuth?
A romance sleuth probably isn’t a thing, but my face is hot and I can’t think, my mind and my body both apparently stuck on the fact that she asked Declan about me. An image flits through my mind: a low cap and amusement dancing in eyes that I strongly suspect are green.
There are a couple of comments at the bottom of the article, but I can’t bring myself to read them.
Instead, I chuck my phone back on the bench and open the window, hoping for a blast of icy wind to knock me in the face.
Unsurprisingly, though, the day is stupidly mild, and I’m forced to resort to fanning myself with the closest book I can find.
Someone has written about me blushing in an actual article, and the fact that they have is making me blush again . I shove a piece of bread into my cheap toaster, staring at myself in the dull metal.
Just the thought of walking into the bookshop makes me want to hide under my bed.
I pick up my phone, ignoring the thirteen messages now sitting there staring at me, and just open the one from Yumi.
When she finally arrived at the bookshop yesterday, she swore that she hadn’t told anyone about the dedication.
Being Yumi, she also told me that she’d drafted three anonymous posts to different sites advertising the fact, but that she hadn’t actually posted any of them – she even checked while I was standing there to make sure she hadn’t done it accidentally.
I know that she’s telling the truth – it’s really not in her nature to lie – but it does leave the question of how the hell the press found out and why they even care.
She’s sent me a link to the article, and a comment that she’s drafted in response to it – something about me being a young, single, sexy bookseller.
U ok if I post this? .
No. Please be on time today?
It sounds a little earnest, so I send another.
Or I will probably dock your pay.
Yumi just sends back another winky face, but I know she’ll be there.
I change my top while the bread is toasting and my phone starts vibrating just as the toaster pops.
I look down, half expecting that Yumi’s posted the comment and someone is calling about it – only to see that it’s my mother.
I don’t have the fortitude to answer right now, so I stand and watch it ring, shovelling toast into my mouth until it seems like I’ve eaten enough to survive the next few hours.
The vibrating finally stops. There’s a pause, then the phone beeps once more as though it’s making sure it’s definitely had the last word.
I stare at it for another moment, swallow down the last of the dry toast, then brace myself, snatch it up and dial my voicemail, praying that she hasn’t seen the article.
‘ Good morning, Clarence. I hope this didn’t wake you .’
Her tone is brisk. I close my eyes, trying to tell myself that she’s just being kind, that she’s not being passive-aggressive and that I don’t need to read anything into the fact that she thinks I’m still in bed.
‘ I was looking at my calendar and it looks like I’m free at midday tomorrow. It’s been a few weeks since we’ve seen you so I’m going to book us a table for lunch. Let me know if you have any problems with that. ’
The dial tone clicks, and then the kind man on voicemail tells me I have no new messages.
I swallow again to try to clear the lump in my throat, thankful that at least she doesn’t seem to know about the article.
It’s not a bad message. There’s nothing overtly mean about it; in fact, she actually wants to have lunch with me.
But, just once, I wish that she would ask instead of telling.
Instead of making it my fault if I can’t come.
It’s always been like that between us, but things have been worse in the last few years. Since I’ve taken over the bookshop it’s as though she thinks she has to organise everything because I can’t be trusted to make decisions for myself.
But I can’t think about any of that right now.
I throw my phone into my bag, then shove my feet into my boots, trying to focus on what lies ahead instead of behind .
. . until I remember that the fallout from the article is what lies ahead.
My chest tightens and, despite knowing how much Yumi will tease me for doing so, I brush my hair and put on the lipstick she got me for Christmas.
I need all the confidence I can get today.
I only half recognise the girl staring back at me in the bathroom mirror. She looks flustered and worried, but she also looks something I haven’t seen her look in a little while – she looks like she’s anticipating something. Stupid, stupid.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I pick up my keys and walk out of the front door. I run down the steps from my apartment, and out into the unseasonably mild day at the exact same time as my neighbour Mrs Potts.
I haven’t spoken to Mrs Potts since the day my ex-boyfriend took and sold my Wolf toaster. In her defence, I did yell at her through the window and then sob for fifteen minutes into a piece of untoasted bread.
Since then, apart from the occasional glare through the window, we’ve largely ignored each other.
But not this morning.
Mrs Potts stops – fully stops in the street – and runs her eyes over me. Then she raises her eyebrows and sniffs.
Hot and cold shame washes over me. She’s read the article. Everyone has probably read the article by now. Everyone knows, and all the lipstick and neat hair in the world isn’t enough for me to hide.
‘Bold choice! I salute you!’
The words almost make me jump out of my skin, and a second later a woman on a bike cycles past and sticks her hand out in an unmistakable thumbs up.
Bold choice? Did she see the article? Is it code? What does that have to do with dedications?
I look down, to gather myself and to work out what to do.
Only to realise that I’m still wearing my pyjama shorts.
Idiot .
The crowd out the front of the bookshop is bigger than I’ve seen in the eighteen months that I’ve been in charge at Brooks’.
The sight of all the people makes me want to turn and scurry home, but just as I’m contemplating how to do just that Yumi swoops in from nowhere and hooks her arm through mine.
Her grip is solid and surprisingly firm, and she marches a path through the crowd, holding up her hand to fend off the bustle of sound that swallows us up.
‘She isn’t taking anyone’s questions right now,’ says Yumi loudly, pulling me forward. ‘But if you come inside and buy a book in just a few moments when we’re open, you can ask her one each while she rings up the purchase.’
‘Yumi,’ I hiss, but my rogue employee isn’t even listening.
She eyeballs every last person on her way to the door.
Then she pulls out her key – which is still the same very shiny silver it was when I got it cut for her six months ago – and dramatically inserts it into the door.
It sticks, and for the first time today I feel a laugh bubble in my chest. A slightly hysterical laugh, sure, but a laugh nonetheless.
‘Wiggle it a little to the left,’ I manage to breath out of the corner of my mouth.
Yumi sniffs, but she does what I say and it slides into place. She pushes the door open then turns back to the crowd.
‘We open in five minutes,’ she announces. ‘Remember: no purchase, no question.’
Then she sweeps into the bookshop, her purple hair bouncing behind her.
I slip inside too and Yumi pushes the door shut behind us, dulling the noise of the crowd to a muffled buzz.
‘Have you ever used that key before today?’ I ask her, in part to distract myself from the spinning in my head.
Yumi scoffs. ‘You know I haven’t,’ she said.
I walk to the counter and rest my head against it. The wood is cool against my skin.