Chapter 6 #2
“Aha!” Diana said, turning to greet her. “Another of my favorite Capulets—I gather you’ve been giving those Montagues some grief.”
“Just as long as you’ve not got Roman and me down as Romeo and Juliet,” Jules counseled her. “Cos I’m more likely to kill
him than kill myself. And anyhow, don’t make it out that we’re the ones causing trouble,” she went on. “ They went and opened a crappy bookshop.”
“I’m not sure it is so crappy,” said Diana, cocking her head.
“How do you know?” retorted Jules rudely. “Don’t tell me you’ve been consorting with the enemy?”
“I was at the launch.”
“Traitor,” growled Jules.
“Ah, but now I am the bearer of potentially useful insider knowledge,” Diana told her.
“Go on, then,” prompted Jules a little more encouragingly.
“Well,” said Diana, draping herself more comfortably over the counter, “it’s had some serious dosh spent on it, I can tell
you that.”
“Some people have more money than sense,” Jules muttered, and then, catching Diana’s admonishing eye, made a lip-zipping gesture,
nodding for her to carry on.
“ Thank you,” said Diana heavily. “So... fancy fit-out, lots of wood, fabulous café on the mezzanine—you know? Where they used
to keep the saucy underwear? It’s all very elegant, spindly tables and chairs, proper linen napkins, patisserie from, I’m
guessing, Freya’s—”
“Freya?” burst out Jules in spite of herself. “So, she’s a traitor too!” Freya might have told her, she thought sourly. Maybe
she thought if she fessed up, Jules wouldn’t have agreed to do the maid of honor thing.
“Am I telling this story or not?” Diana queried, one immaculate eyebrow raised.
Jules nodded. “You are, you are,” she said.
“So, yes, clearly lots of money spent. What the staff are like I can’t really tell you, although I did talk to this glamorous
American girl, Cally? Kayley? Carly? She was awfully nice and very bright. I do wonder if the others he’s recruited have the
first clue—”
This time it was Aunt Flo. “He’ll get nowhere without the right staff,” she interrupted. “If they don’t know their stuff,
if they can’t make good reader recommendations...”
“Quite so,” said Diana, nodding sagely. “But I will say, it all looks very nice. Besides which, that Roman is distinctly easy on the eye and quite the golden boy among the Montbeaus nowadays. Apparently, he took New York by storm, and now the family expects big things of him. I don’t envy him the weight of expectation, I must say. ..”
“Don’t feel sorry for him,” Jules scoffed.
“Oh, I don’t,” said Diana quickly. “I admire him, though—and you—clever and energetic, with your lives stretching out in front
of you both... Bright young things, are what you are. You’d make quite the dream team,” she added naughtily, and then laughed
at the expression on Jules’s face. “I’m just teasing, darling, I’m well aware of the enmity, and the less said about the fate
of Romeo and Juliet the better,” she added, pulling a face. “But, as far as books are concerned, it does look an awful lot
like he knows his stuff, plus he’s got this glamorous what’s-her-name floozy, floating about with a clipboard, looking frightfully
efficient too. I do wonder if there isn’t a slight frisson between them, so perhaps the two of you aren’t fated to get together
after all.”
“Like that would be the reason,” Jules said, smiling to show she didn’t mind Diana’s teasing, although she was dying inside, just a
little bit. How ridiculous! Buy her a cup of coffee and she’s anybody’s, apparently. Infuriating how she couldn’t shake the
memory of his mocking laughter at her in her green silk dress when she was sixteen. It was ancient history, for heaven’s sake.
And teenage angst should be the last thing on her mind, with a business to save and an enemy to vanquish while she was at
it.
“Aaanyway,” said Diana, relinquishing her tormenting of Jules and turning her attention to Flo, “I’m here to order my book
club book. It’s going to be a good one, I think: P. D. James’s The Children of Men ?”
“Ooh, that is a good one,” said Aunt Flo, nodding approvingly. “Not the usual P. D. James thing at all—more like John Wyndham in many ways.
I think you’ll enjoy it very much. Whose choice?”
“Mine,” said Diana with a hint of smugness. “I’ve been meaning to read it for ages. Apparently if you love that whole postapocalyptic, dystopia thing—and I do—it’s an absolute winner.”
“Of course, there’s the usual ten percent off for you and the other book club members,” said Aunt Flo, making a note to herself
on the pad of scrap paper by the till. “I’m afraid it’s not in stock, but if the other ladies would like to come in this week,
I’ll get all the copies ordered on Friday.”
At this Diana looked shifty, apparently paying close attention to her shoes.
“Or,” said Flo, puzzled but not alarmed by Diana’s reticence, “to keep it simple, I could just go ahead and order a dozen
copies, and they can come in and collect whenever they like?”
“Best not,” admitted Diana. “Some of us might pick up a copy somewhere else, I suppose...” She stared at a point just above
Flo’s head.
“I do hope you’re not referring to the online-book-retailer-who-shall-not-be-named but might just also be the longest river
in South America,” asked Flo mock sternly.
“Oh God,” Diana burst out, “you forced it out of me. That Roman’s been sucking up to the other ladies—honestly, they’re such
tarts for a younger man, cougars to a woman, even Joan—and he’s offered to get in our monthly book club choices for a twenty-five
percent discount. There, I’ve said it.”
She looked miserable as she met Aunt Flo’s dismayed gaze, but Aunt Flo quickly recovered: “Diana, my love, you mustn’t be
upset. I can’t offer twenty-five percent, you know I can’t. I make little enough on the rates the wholesaler offers me anyhow.
If Roman can do that for you, then of course you must take it. You’d be mad not to.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” said Diana staunchly. “I’ll always get my books from Capelthorne’s, you know I will.” She sighed.
“But I can’t speak for the others.”
“Course you can’t,” said Flo stolidly. “It’s fine, isn’t it, Jules?
He’ll soon find running a bookshop is a marathon, not a sprint, and he’ll go under pretty darned quickly if he’s prepared to offer discounts like that every five minutes.
The other ladies in the group will find Capelthorne’s is a better bet in the long run.
” A thought suddenly struck Flo. “Will you be holding your meeting here again next month? I’m happy to do a thermos of tea and some biscuits as before. ”
Diana winced again.
“Don’t tell me,” Aunt Flo said with a sigh. “Roman’s laying on champagne and caviar if you meet over there instead.”
“Don’t be daft!” protested Diana. There was a tiny pause. “Actually, prosecco and sushi,” she admitted, flushing.
Jules thought she had never seen Diana look so uncomfortable.
“But nothing’s decided. Not yet,” Diana went on apologetically, her eyes pleading with Flo to understand.
“Well, the offer’s there,” said Flo, pursing her lips.
Jules couldn’t imagine many in the book club preferring thermos tea and custard creams to the sybaritic lure of prosecco and
Japanese food. Healthy competition was one thing, but rank bribery was another. She and Flo would have to hope the book club
ladies placed loyalty over cheap glamour. They would know the answer soon enough.