On second thoughts, scratch that.
“I’m really glad I bumped into you again.” He grins widely, then comes striding across the room until he’s standing right in front of me. “Because I thinkthisis you, too. Or someone who looks very like you, anyway.”
He reaches into his coat pocket, then pulls something out, which he holds up to the light to show me.
It’s the old snow globe I picked up at the market earlier; which, now I have the chance to see it up close, is definitely supposed to be Bramblebury village square in miniature. I can even see a tiny version of the building that would one day become Hart Books in the background, snow piled on its roof like the icing on a cake.
It’s not the bookstore that the American wants me to look at, though: it’s the little couple standing kissing in front of it — her ina red winter coat that’s vaguely similar to the one I was wearing this morning; him in what seems to be an Army uniform, but with thick dark hair, and …. is that a pair of glasses he’s wearing?
The woman doesn’t really look like me at all: it’s just the color of the hair and coat that’s the same. The man, however, bears more than a passing resemblance to the one currently standing in front of me; and, judging by the way he’s smiling down at me, it looks like I’m not the only one who’s noticed.
“Here,” he says, handing the ornament to me before I can object. “I really think you should have it. It was obviously destined for you.”
“Uh-uh. We’re not doing this again,” I reply, passing it back with a smile. “It’s definitely yours. You bought it; you can’t just give it away. And I don’t believe in destiny, anyway.”
“It was only £5,” he says, looking amazed at his good fortune. “I felt a bit like I’d robbed the woman who sold it to me, if I’m honest. So you’d be doing me a favor if you’d just take it. It would help assuage my guilt.”
He hands it to me again, and I instantly pass it back, as if we’re playing Hot Potato.
“Seriously,” I tell him. “I don’t want it. I… I don’t evenlikesnow globes.”
“You don’t? But who doesn’t likesnow globes?” he asks, feigning amazement.
“I’m … not much of a Christmas person,” I tell him, trotting out my old faithful excuse.
“A Christmas person?” His eyes crinkle with amusement. “I’m imagining some kind of giant human here, with, like, a Christmas tree on their head, and cookies for eyes.”
“And fairy lights wound around their legs,” I join in. “Flashing ones.”
“In that case, I don’t want to be a Christmas person either,” he says firmly. “Because that sounds terrifying. Cute store you have here, by the way. Is it yours?”
He turns and looks around at the empty store, which is more messy than it is ‘cute’, with dust lining the bookshelves, and a log fire we can’t risk lighting until we can afford to have the chimney swept. Which will be never, at this rate.
“Sort of,” I tell him, hoping he hasn’t noticed the giant cobweb near the door, which I’d have taken down by now if the thought of destroying it didn’t make me feel bad for the spider, who I’ve named Shelob. “It belongs to my dad.”
“Family business, huh? You’re lucky. I’d love to spend my days surrounded by books.”
I consider telling him I’d much rather be writing books than selling them, but everyone I’ve ever admitted this to in the past has smiled indulgently, the way you do when a little kid tells you they’re going to be an astronaut when they grow up, so I just nod as he plucks a book from one of the shelves at random and starts flicking through it.
“Any recommendations for me?” he asks. “I thought I saw you putting a book away when I walked in earlier?”
This is a very generous way to describe what I was doing under the counter, but I can’t think of a way to deny I was reading anything without effectively calling him a liar, so I pull out the book and shamefacedly show him the cover, which is one of those illustrated ones, with a bright pink background, and a cartoon couple on the front.
“It’s just a trashy romance,” I mutter, embarrassed. “It’s not the kind of thing I usually read, it was just… it was just the first thing that came to hand.”
The hundreds of books that line the walls of the store look on accusingly as the lie leaves my lips. I can almost hear them sigh in despair.
“Oh, I wouldn’t call romance ‘trashy’” says the American, surprising me. “It’s just another type of story, isn’t it? I don’t think you could claim it’s any less worthy than anything else. I doubt Jane Austen would call her work ‘trashy’, do you?”
I look down at the book in my hand, which is definitely noPride and Prejudice. But, then again…
“I like it because I know there’s nothing in it that’s going to hurt me,” I say in a rush. “No one’s going to die, or even suffer, particularly. There’s always going to be a happy ending. I … I appreciate that.”
I don’t tell him that books with happy endings are the only kind I’ve been able to read since Mum died. That when I pick up something new, I always flick quickly to the end to make sure there are no dead mothers, abandoned children, or other unbearable plot twists waiting to ambush me. And it doesn’thaveto be a trashy romcom, but itdoeshave to be a book that won’t hurt me; which can be surprisingly difficult to find. Whoever it was who started that rhyme about how sticks and stones can break your bones, but words can never hurt you had obviously never read the scene inBlack Beautywhere Ginger dies, had they?
I don’t tell him any of this, but he’s watching me as if he already knows — or at least suspects — that there’s more to this than I’m telling him.
“Well, I think we can all appreciate a happy ending,” he says softly. “Don’t we…?”
