The Bookshop of Second Chances by Jackie Fraser (e books for reading txt) 📗

‘Hey,’ she says. ‘I saw you come back in. What have you two been up to?’ She grins at me. ‘Nothing untoward, I hope.’

‘Good grief. No. He wanted to show me the plans of the Lodge.’

‘Oh aye,’ she says, raising her eyebrows. ‘Never heard it called that before.’

‘Jenny.’

She’s laughing now. ‘Ah. Now everyone will be wondering about the pair of you.’

‘I’m pretty sure they will not.’

Grinning, she says, ‘But apart from that, how’re you bearing up? It’s a terrible strain, isn’t it?’

‘Exhausting. Talking to strangers is tough. And these people are so fancy.’

She laughs again. ‘Aye, they are a bit. Come and talk to me – Alastair’s gone to the loo. I was just pursuing the canapé girl. Have you had one of the wee prawn things?’ I shake my head, relieved to be talking to someone more straightforward.

‘How’s work?’ she asks me, after we’ve both deftly swiped two canapés each (half a fig with goats’ cheese, and the aforementioned prawn, coated in spicy panko breadcrumbs) from the tray.

‘Oh yeah,’ I say, trying to shove half a fig into my mouth elegantly. ‘’S going well, I think. I like it.’

‘Do you?’

‘Mm. Yeah, it’s interesting, and Edward’s quite funny.’

‘You like him.’ That’s not a question, it’s a statement. She’s looking at me, curious.

‘I do like him, yes. I guess I’ve never seen him being really obnoxious; I can’t quite see why you all hate him so much.’

‘I don’t hate him,’ she says, ‘I just… He’s so spiky, I cannae be arsed with it. And it doesn’t matter how hard you try – we’ve invited him to dinner a million times – it makes no difference. I think he enjoys being miserable.’

‘I don’t think he is miserable though,’ I object. ‘He seems happy enough on his own. And I think he likes pretending to be grumpy.’

‘You’ve said before you think he’s pretending.’

‘You can make him really laugh, so I just don’t think he can be truly grumpy.’

‘I’ve never seen him really laughing,’ she says. ‘You must be hilarious.’

I test the idea that this might be the reason. ‘God, I don’t think it’s that. Maybe I just don’t… I don’t know. Because I’m new, so he’s got no history to me. Whereas for all the rest of you…’

‘Aye, that’s true. We’re used to him.’

‘Yes. Anyway, luckily for me, we get on okay. It would be a bit rubbish otherwise; after all, he’s basically the person I see most.’

On Monday, when I arrive at the shop, Edward’s unpacking boxes of new books. He glances up as the bell jangles.

‘How was the party?’

‘Oh God, awful.’

He looks amused, as well he might. ‘Was it? How come?’

‘I’m no good at that sort of thing. I hardly knew anyone; they were all really… posh.’ I put my bag behind the counter, sighing.

‘You must have expected that though, surely?’

‘I know it’s my own fault for going.’

‘Curiosity killed the cat.’

I glare at him. ‘Well, luckily I wasn’t killed.’

‘What were you, then?’

I tick off on my fingers. ‘Self-conscious. Anxious. Bored.’

He laughs. ‘Anxious? Why were you anxious?’

I lift a shoulder in a half-shrug. ‘I don’t like that sort of thing. I had to talk to strangers, I felt…’

‘You felt what?’ He’s focused on me, intent.

‘I don’t suppose you’d understand.’ I sit down in the green chair and shake the mouse to wake the laptop.

‘Try me.’

‘Fat, and old, and… common.’ He blinks at me. I laugh. ‘I know. Ridiculous. I mean, to feel common. The rest of it… Anyway, it’s my chip, I forget about it sometimes but it’s flipping massive.’ I laugh again.

‘The chip on your shoulder? Can’t say I’ve noticed.’ He looks perfectly serious but I’m suspicious.

‘Are you taking the piss?’

He grins at me. ‘Not really. A bit. Anyway, you’re not fat, are you, or old. And you’re certainly not common.’

‘I am, though. I mean your brother’s a lord. Not that I care if he is, or if I am. But it’s hard not to think about how all the women in my mum’s family were domestic servants. For the last two hundred years or something.’ I stand up and stretch, my elbows cracking. ‘Probably longer. It’s like a race memory. I’d have been scrubbing things, not flouncing about eating canapes.’ I deliberately don’t pronounce the accent. ‘A hundred years ago, neither of you’d have been speaking to me, would you, except to give orders, or…’ I can’t quite express what I mean. ‘It made me uncomfortable.’

‘A hundred years ago we’d have been drowning in mud at the Somme,’ he says. ‘Too busy to shout at the staff.’

‘Oh. Well. Perhaps. But you’re a bit old, aren’t you? I know you’re doing the same thing as me,’ I add, ‘thinking of yourself as a young man. Like I see myself as a kitchen maid, whereas I’d hope I’d have been a cook or housekeeper by the time I got to my age, and you’d be a general, or too old to fight.’

He frowns at me. ‘I suppose so,’ he says. ‘You’re right, I’m always twenty in my head.’

‘I know. Depressing, isn’t it?’

Ten

It’s the beginning of July and I’ve been working at the bookshop for nearly two months. I’ve taken over the window displays, which have improved one hundred per cent if I do say so myself. The Twitter account, much to Edward’s horror, is a resounding success and I’ve been Instagramming pictures of books, and actually posting things on the Facebook page Rory’s brother set up five years ago.

‘I don’t know why you bother,’ he says. ‘I won’t do any of this when you’ve gone.’

‘Make it part of my replacement’s role. E-marketing.’

‘Jesus.’

‘We’ve got more than five hundred Twitter followers already,’ I say. ‘I think that’s pretty good going. And loads of them are actual people, not just other bookshops.’ I’m opening boxes, three of which arrived this morning, and unpacking the contents. I stack books on the floor by the counter.

‘Ugh.’

‘If you get another young person, they’ll be happy to