Chapter 15
It’s called ‘ instalove’ according to Paris. It’s her least favorite trope.
“It’s love at first sight, basically,” she tells me, pausing in the act of shelving a new delivery of romantasy novels the morning after the book signing.
“When the two main characters meet and they instantly know they’re destined to be together.
The Snow Globe is one example of it, obviously, but there are loads more.
It’s, like, super popular, for some reason. ”
She looks at me as if she might be about to hold me personally responsible for this; which honestly wouldn’t surprise me.
“Was that what it was like, then?” she asks, curiosity getting the better of her, and forcing her to drop the ‘cool girl’ act for a second. “With you and Elliot? Was it just like in the book? Did your eyes meet across the bookstore, and then, WHAM! That was it?”
I take the books from her and start organizing them according to the color of their spines, even though I know she’ll just put them back into alphabetical order again as soon as I’m safely in my office.
“No, of course not,” I reply, my eyes fixed on what I’m doing. “We didn’t meet in the bookstore. And I don’t believe in love at first sight, anyway. Or ‘insta love’ or whatever you want to call it. It’s definitely not what happened to me and Elliot. Everyone knows how that turned out.”
“We don’t really, though,” points out Paris bluntly.
“No one knows. In the book, he waits for her in front of the Christmas tree in the village square, like they agreed, but she doesn’t turn up.
We never find out why. It’s like he meant to write a sequel at some point, but just never got around to it. ”
“The thing with the Christmas tree didn’t happen,” I tell her, still focused on the books. “Elliot just made that bit up.”
The question of what did happen hangs in the air between us, like a piece of mistletoe on an unsuccessful first date.
Strangely, not even Levi has ever dared ask me about the real ending of my relationship with Elliot.
No one has; not even Dad. Which means Elliot is the only person who knows; because, God knows, it’s as much of a mystery to me as it is to anyone else.
“Is it weird?” Paris asks, having allowed a respectful amount of time to pass between this question and her last one. “Him being back here?”
“Yeah,” I admit, pulling my hair back and securing it with a pencil I grabbed from my desk earlier. “It’s pretty weird. I wish I’d had some time to prepare for it, you know?”
“To, like, get your hair done and stuff?” Paris says, watching as I wrestle with the hair in question, which continues to evade my attempts to wrestle it into submission.
“I totally get that. That’s what I’d do too, if I was going to be seeing my ex.
And I’d make sure I was wearing something, like, super hot. ”
“Um, I just meant time to, you know, mentally prepare,” I reply, a little taken aback.
Now that she’s mentioned it, though, I suppose if I’d known I was going to be bumping into Elliot that day, I might have taken a bit more care with my appearance.
I probably wouldn’t have worn the ‘Jane Eyre’ dress, for one thing.
And maybe I should stop using stationery as hair accessories?
“Paris,” I say suddenly. “What would you wear if you were going to be seeing your ex? If you were me, I mean?”
I add this last bit because Paris is very much a ‘Gen Z’ dresser, which means she’s currently wearing jeans so wide I’m pretty sure I saw Ed the cat hiding under them earlier. She always looks amazing, but I’m not convinced the same would be true of me if I decided to try to ‘slay’ like Paris.
Paris takes a step back and looks at me critically.
“It depends what kind of direction you want to take, really,” she says seriously. “Like, are you thinking clean girl or cottage core? Edgy or party girl?”
“Um, I just want to look like me, but better,” I reply, making a mental note to look up all the things she just said later, so I can finally start to understand what the hell she’s talking about.
“Just so I can look him in the eye when I see him at the book festival and not have to feel like he’s the only one who’s moved on since … well, you know.”
“Okay, so what I’m hearing is that this is as much about confidence as clothes,” says Paris. “It’s about living your best life. Empowering yourself. Embracing your authentic self.”
“That’s exactly it,” I reply, too relieved by the fact that she hasn’t just laughed at me to question what embracing my ‘authentic self’ might involve. “That’s what I’m trying to do. But what do I wear, though? To empower myself um, authentically?”
Paris bites her lip thoughtfully.
“I’m thinking a kind of crossover,” she says. “The dark academia thing kind of works for you, but you need to sex it up a bit. You know? Because it’s one thing to love books — that’s why we all work here — but that doesn’t mean you have to dress like a Bronte sister. You know?”
I absolutely do not know, but I nod anyway, pretending to know exactly what she’s talking about. Paris, however, is not fooled.
“Holly, do you want me to take you shopping?” she asks, with the air of someone offering to do me a huge favor. “Or do you feel like you understand the assignment here?”
I glance over at her. I had thought I ‘understood the assignment’ as she puts it, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that I don’t understand anything, really; and definitely not ‘the assignment’.
“Shopping, please,” I reply meekly. “That would be amazing, Paris, thank you.”
She shrugs, as if it’s no big deal, but the corners of her mouth turn up ever so slightly.
“We can go during my lunch break, if you like?” she says. “There’s that new boutique on the high street. It’s tiny, but it’s got a lot of great brands.”
By ‘a lot of great brands’, I know she means ‘a lot of incredibly expensive brands’.
Post Snow-Globe Bramblebury is filled with shops which would probably be best described as ‘chi-chi’.
But I don’t have time to drive to the nearest big town just to wander around the charity shops I usually buy my clothes from, and I do have some money saved up, thanks to my habit of never actually doing anything with my life, so it’s going to have to do.
Plus, if someone as picky as Paris approves, that means it’s got to be good; which is why, just over an hour later, we find ourselves leaving the store together, both of us being very stiff and polite as we try to acclimatize to this unexpected new turn our working relationship has taken.
I’m just starting to entertain the beginnings of a daydream in which we become close friends, who’re forever popping in and out of each other’s houses, and borrowing each other’s clothes (Because I’m at least ten years younger and a hundred times cooler in this vision, obviously), when Paris suddenly says the four words guaranteed to ruin my day.
“Isn’t that Elliot Sinclair?”
I look in the direction she’s pointing, and, sure enough, there he is; strolling along the main street of the village, looking for all the world like a man who isn’t even remotely worried about bumping into his ex while wearing a pencil in his hair.
And not just because he doesn’t even have a pencil in his hair.
Actually, he looks like he could easily apply to be in a hair commercial, if the whole ‘bestselling author’ thing ever starts to get old.
It’s kind of unfair that he looks so good, while being so … him.
Maybe he’s the one with the portrait in the attic?
It’s not Elliot I’m looking at, though, great hair aside.
No, all of my attention is currently fixed on the woman next to him; a woman who also has spectacularly good hair, as well as a face I recognize instantly as the one I last saw waving goodbye to Elliot from the doorway of her cottage a couple of days ago.
It’s Katie Hunter: and she’s smiling up at Elliot as if he’s some kind of tasty treat she’s saving for later.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, a memory attempts to fight its way to the surface, before being abruptly drowned out by the wave of inexplicable jealousy that comes after it.
“Holly? Are you okay?”
I tear my eyes away from Elliot and Katie, to find Paris watching me warily, as if she’s already deeply regretting her offer to take me clothes shopping.
“I’m fine,” I reply brightly, in a tone that sounds unconvincing even to me. “Just … just looking forward to my makeover, that’s all.”
“I didn’t say anything about a makeover,” Paris replies, her horrified look casually destroying my vision of our future friendship. “I’m not a miracle worker. But look, here’s the place I was telling you about.”
She steers me through the doorway of a little boutique, which is about half the size of the bookstore, and decorated entirely in stark white, with items of clothing displayed like works of art.
I wander around cautiously, too scared to touch anything, while marveling at the fact that a place like this even exists in Bramblebury; a village which, until recently, boasted an Oxfam shop and a place selling equestrian gear as its only source of ‘fashion’.
The Snow Globe effect strikes again, I guess.
Within minutes, Paris is herding me into a changing room with an armful of clothes, which I dutifully try on, waiting for the moment when I’ll look in the mirror and think, “Yes, that’s it. That’s the woman I want to be. My life is now changed.”
But the moment doesn’t come. The clothes are all beautiful, even to my unpracticed eye, but nothing looks quite right; by which I mean nothing makes me look like Beautiful Katie Hunter — or Bloody Katie Hunter, rather, who has suddenly become the gold standard of attractiveness to me.
And meanwhile, no matter what I try on, I’m still just Holly.