Chapter 14
14
Tuesday rolls around and that means I’m back to the bookshop after a weekend that didn’t quite go according to plan. Eloise is really driving the point home about returning to London and it makes my heart ache each time I have to tell her no. I thought I’d enjoy having a three-day weekend, since the bookshop is closed on Mondays, but in actual fact, I found myself a little unmoored yesterday while Eloise was at school and my parents at work. It’s a relief to get back to the bookshop.
‘Bonjour.’ I welcome happy faces as I pick up novels from the floor and reshelve displaced tomes. It’s just after lunch and my entire body aches. Now all of Valérie’s warnings make perfect sense. This job is not for the faint-hearted. Or it’s a matter of fitness and building my stamina.
I mention the library upstairs to customers who look like they’re in no rush and it soon fills. The table service bells sound off for the rest of the interminable day and I rue the fact I’m such a conscientious employee. The Devil’s Loft, I’ve renamed it, due to the countless times I’ve run up and down the stairs. It’s almost a full-time job on its own. This is why Valérie doesn’t mention the space to anyone. I’m going to have legs of steel and will be asleep standing up if it doesn’t abate soon.
There’s a heavy knock on the service door. ‘Delivery!’ a voice calls out. I go to the door to find it locked.
‘Just looking for the key, won’t be long.’
Valérie is nowhere to be found, so I open drawers and cupboards. I finally see a set of keys on a hook by the bar. The delivery driver has gone but a towering pile of boxes sit on the pebbled ground. And just my luck, the bright spring day darkens as fat raindrops fall.
I cart one of the smaller boxes inside and it’s shockingly heavy; that or my muscles have given up for the day. I call out again for Valérie. Nothing. Where is she? There are a handful of customers milling about, but I’m not sure what the protocol is on leaving customers unattended. I don’t want boxes of new books to be drenched in the rain either. This is why employee manuals come in very useful. Would Valérie consider one if I do the hard work? It would help in situations like this, to have a clear plan in place. Let’s face it, she would hate the idea, but I might push for it anyway, since she admitted she does have a revolving door when it comes to staff.
‘Valérie!’ I call one more time, but I’m met with no response; instead, I come face to face with Henri.
‘She’s not here,’ he says.
‘Do you know where she is?’
He lifts a casual shoulder. ‘What do you need?’
I have an internal debate about asking him for help, but as the rain comes down harder, the decision is made for me. ‘We’ve had a delivery of books that are currently getting soaked but I don’t want to leave the bookshop floor if she’s not around to keep an eye out.’
‘I’ll bring them in, you watch the bookshop.’
Before I can thank him, he disappears. Does Henri often help around the bookshop? He knows the layout and the processes. I help a few customers with queries before Henri comes back. ‘I put them in the storage room for you.’
‘ Merci. Where is the storage room?’ The bookshop is like a labyrinth, with hidden spaces and small rooms and doors. A surprise at every turn. Restocking is one of the most important aspects of the job, and so far Valérie has just left boxes stacked by the bar in the mornings ready for me to unpack whenever there’s been a lull, so I don’t know where to find them when she’s not here.
‘The green door, just off the kitchen. It’s a jumble, and there’s almost no room to manoeuvre, so if you need a hand getting the boxes out later, let me know.’ I’m about to thank him, enjoying our newfound connection, when he says, ‘I can’t see you being able to lift those boxes somehow.’ And he’s ruined it.
‘Why? Because I’m a woman?’
His face colours. ‘No, not because of that. They’re heavy, is all. Like, seriously heavy. I’m sure half the boxes in the stockroom have been abandoned because they’re back-spasm inducing.’
I slip my hands in my jean pockets. ‘Wouldn’t a rather easy solution be to simply open the box and remove the books by hand?’
‘Now you mention it.’ A grin splits his face. ‘You’re going to be good for this place, Coco.’
He stands close enough that I can smell soap on his skin, an appley cinnamon scent which seems at odds with the gruff macho man persona he’s got going on.
‘Why does that sound insincere coming from you? ’
‘ Moi? ’ He does his best impersonation of an innocent person as he takes a seat in his usual leather chair.
‘ Oui . You often come across hot and cold. Is that on purpose?’
He cocks his head as if genuinely surprised by my comment.
‘Do I? I’m sorry if I’ve upset you, Coco. Lately I’ve viewed the world through a much harsher lens. Not an excuse, but there it is anyway.’
Is Henri another victim of heartbreak? How does Valérie determine such a thing? She said something about how it was written in every line and plane of my face. In the way I held myself. I survey Henri’s features, searching for telltale markings of heartbreak, but all I see is a very good-looking man. If I were pushed, I could admit maybe his eyes hold a touch of sadness, but I couldn’t say for sure. I’m overthinking the whole thing! Valérie is simply a marketing genius and has constructed the perfect business to woo bookworms and the lost and lonely among us, and even Henri has been swept up in the hype. I remain dubious.
Why is Henri here every day then? When Valérie planned our upcoming imaginary wedding, she mentioned he is a journalist. Does he use this space to write? He does have a laptop but he mostly stares through it.
Ah, maybe it’s nothing to do with his heart and he’s suffering a case of writer’s block! For some reason, I don’t feel on an even enough keel to ask him.
‘I get it,’ I say. ‘I feel a little like that too at the moment, and so far men are mostly copping it.’ Where did that come from? I don’t share my feelings, I push them into a box and lock it and throw away the key.
‘Now it makes sense. You have a broken heart just like the rest.’
‘Don’t tell me you believe in all that?’
‘Don’t you?’ he asks.
‘No, I don’t.’
‘Is it your broken heart that makes you so hostile to the idea?’
‘ Excusez moi? ’
‘Sorry, there I go again. I told… someone… about our confrontation by the Eiffel Tower and she told me in no uncertain terms that I’d behaved very badly indeed. In fact, she accused me of victim blaming and gender assumptions. Told me I was not to use problematic phrases like “asking for trouble”. You were right; apparently I am a dinosaur. So, with that in mind, I promise to do better.’
Who is this woman he’s referring to? Has she waved a magic wand and fixed the mansplainer? Whoever she is, she deserves a medal.
‘You’re… apologising ?’
Henri hesitates for a fraction too long.
I narrow my eyes. He narrows his.
It should surprise absolutely no one that the transformation is only skin deep!
He wiggles in his chair as if suddenly uncomfortable in his own skin. ‘I will apologise if you think I need to, but there’s also the matter of the lack of thanks that we haven’t resolved. You’ve never thanked me for stepping up and saving you from the pickpockets. Wouldn’t it be sensible if we agreed we both weren’t at our best that day and move on? We can shake on it.’
‘What a load of word salad! Shake on it? What are we, making a bet?’
‘Word salad?’
‘Word salad,’ I confirm in a clear, strong voice.
‘I don’t think you’re hearing me. ’
I huff. ‘Because I’m a banane ?’
I get a little thrill when his cheeks pinken.
Henri rakes a hand through his hair. ‘You’re not going to move past this unless I apologise, are you? I understand, I do. But you must admit that you were annoyed too. Oui , I shouldn’t have called you a banana. There are many other fitting words I could have used.’
Is he for real? ‘You are the limit. I hope you replay this conversation with the woman who tried to guide you. If you do, I expect we’ll meet again here tomorrow, and you can apologise to me twice. ’
I walk to the bar area and serve a customer asking for a bottle of sparkling water. My mind is still on gruff Henri though. He doesn’t seem the type to get bent and twisted over love. It would probably break his steely heart if he didn’t get the last word in. That’s more his speed.
Henri saunters casually over to me as if we didn’t just come to loggerheads – another red flag. Why do hot men saunter like that? How do they even know how to? It must come naturally, or it’s their big ego energy that has them swaggering as if they’re king of the world.
Well, Henri is the king – the king of idiots, that is.
‘You’ll get used to it,’ Henri says, placing his empty coffee cup on the bar. I’m about to tell him I will do no such thing when he says, ‘Valérie disappears a lot.’
I should ignore him but I’m worried that if the place gets really busy again, I’ll be out of my depth, and I may actually need to call on him. ‘She does this often then?’ My pulse speeds up at the idea I’m in charge when I really don’t know the first thing about cocktails, and certainly nothing about potions and passages.
‘ Oui . Perhaps she needs a time out. Like we all do occasionally.’
‘Some more than others.’ I shoot him a laser-like glare, implying that I need time out from him when he goes off on one of his I-didn’t-thank-him-for-rescuing-me tangents. He’s the one who needs the time out from saying all the wrong things, of that I’m certain, but in light of this new development I let it go for now and focus on the important question.
‘Where does she go?’ It seems an odd way to run a business, but so far nothing in the bookshop has been done in the usual way.
‘She never says.’
I unpack the boxes of books Henri carted out to the storage room for me and decide to make a display featuring them. They’re all spring romances with gorgeous sun-drenched sea vista covers which should sell well if customers can find them more easily. I search the bookshop floor for a table I can use. I find one tucked down a pathway stacked with dusty guidebooks. I move them to a shelf closer to the front door, where they’ll be easily seen. And then I navigate the table through the tight pathway, trying not to knock books as I go. I set it up close to the bar area where there’s more foot traffic. By the time I’ve organised a spring display, complete with cocktail glasses and drink umbrellas, I turn to find that Henri has gone but that he’s left some euros for his coffee. Not even an au revoir. It shouldn’t bother me; he leaves at the same time every day, which I couldn’t help but notice, only because I’m keeping a record of the bursts and lulls and not for any other reason.
There are only a few customers perusing the shelves so while it’s quiet, I take Valérie’s laptop and design some flyers about the upcoming book club meeting. I print a stack to leave on tables around the bookshop and bar and hang some outside in the book garden by the leaning tower of books. The more members we can get to join, the more chance we have of selling them the monthly book club pick.
An hour later, Valérie waltzes back in with no explanation about where she’s been. There’s something different about her, a quietness that I interpret to mean now is not the time to quiz her about the absence. Instead, I show her that I’ve moved the guidebooks to a more prominent position in case she needs to find them and tell her about the new stock that Henri helped bring in, which I’ve displayed on a table in the hopes they’ll be snapped up quickly.
As usual, Valérie glides straight past any business talk. ‘Isn’t Henri a gem? Such devilish good looks too.’
‘Devilish good looks are one thing, a modern-day sensitive man with a good heart is where it’s at, and sadly, Henri fails at the start line.’
‘Ah.’ Her face falls. ‘Why don’t you take off for the day? You’ve done a great job while it’s been so hectic and I know you must be feeling it after running up those steps to the book loft.’
I glance at my watch. I’m too late to pick up Eloise from school but if I leave now I should get home in time to make dinner so Maman doesn’t have to. ‘ Merci . I’ll see you tomorrow.’
We kiss cheeks and I leave the bookshop, but I can still smell it – the lemony vanilla scent that clings to my clothes, my hair, the pads of my fingers. I take a moment to reflect on the day and sense there was a shift in Valérie, something that stole the edge of her smile. Or I’m seeing things that aren’t there? Maybe like me, her feet are sore and her face is aching from all the smiling; plus, she has the added pressure of performing that joie de vivre for her potions and passages customers…