Page 11 of How to Find a Romance in a Bookshop

“Maybe I will,” he said, waving his new book in salute as he left. “And by the way,” he added, over his shoulder. “That joke? It was pretty funny.”

“Well!” declared Flo, after a pause. “He was handsome.”

“He was all right, I suppose,” said Petra, hearing all too clearly how unconvincing she sounded.

“We had better keep Diana away from him. She’d have him for breakfast,” Flo went on, examining Petra’s demeanor shrewdly and looking as if she would like to say a lot more on the matter.

Thankfully for Petra, the two women were kept busy by a steady stream of customers after that, although Flo kindly stayed, once the shop went quiet in the afternoon, to answer all the questions on Petra’s list. Even the silly ones.

The more Ross thought about his interactions with Petra that morning in comparison with the two prior meetings, the more depressed he became.

And when he was depressed, he walked.

The rented cottage was damp and poky, for all its thick-walled, oak-beamed charm, but the aspect that had really attracted him to the little house was through the gate at the end of the garden. The gate opened onto a narrow muddy path that led directly to the summit of the nearest hill. It was steep and rocky, but this walk had become his escape. His daily meditation. It was his opportunity to think and his opportunity to stop thinking. On this particular afternoon, it also led to needle-sharp rain, low clouds, and finger-nipping cold. But Ross didn’t mind. He barely noticed. He strode quickly, splashing through the puddles, the fragile, striated ice layer shattering under his boots. The icy water seeped inside, through the lace holes, but he welcomed the distraction of rapidly numbing feet. His face quickly felt numb too, with no beard to lend its warmth; the newly exposed skin felt raw, and then it felt like nothing at all. Ross welcomed numb. Numb was good. Eventually numb turned to pain. But pain was good too. It was all a distraction from the complicated, swirling feelings that had started racing through his brain again, scattering his thoughts and settling, as always, into a thick, blanketing fug of self-loathing.

And shame.

His mates had laughed, of course. Back in the time when he actually had mates, this was. Before he had kept saying no to those nights out. Before they got tired of asking him and drifted away. Before then, they had torn out the newspaper articles and brought them along to their pub meet-ups, those hateful, artsy, black-and-white photos of him that the literature review picture desks loved to use. His friends would deface them with speccy glasses, zits, and comical mustaches. “Not just a pretty face,” one article headlined. “Not even a pretty face,” they had bantered, joshing, punching him on the shoulder.

“Nice problem to have, buddy,” seemed to be the general consensus when he demurred at how the arts correspondents had gazed in wonder at his beauty and talent, gushing about his setting the scene for a new wave of talented young writers. To a man and a woman, they were rapt, not only burdening him with the weight of his own work but also casually loading onto his shoulders the dreams and aspirations of the entire literary world. He was, they informed him, the lodestone of an entire generation of young British writers.

So, no pressure.

And then, of course, there was the casual objectification: the deliberate placing of a heavily ringed hand on his knee by the mascaraed, leopard-printed literary page editor who invited him to have dinner one day soon, fluttering her lashes suggestively. Then, there was the esteemed arts critic of a national Sunday broadsheet who proposed Ross should come to his home because he, Ross, and his husband would “get on well” together. As a threesome.

Some of these people had clearly not even read his book. And that hurt, because he had been proud of his debut: a slim, dense, literary novel, crafted over the course of several years and a creative writing MA. The book had been endlessly described as a bold, brave concept, “a story of our time, told with precocity and exquisitely poetic wisdom,” as one reviewer had put it. He had poured out his heart to the world. And it had listened. And then . . . when the clamor and the flattery and the acclaim of his first novel had fallen silent?

Nothing.

He had—he discovered to his horror and bemusement—nothing further to say.

He had tried, of course. At first, flexing his writing muscles, allowing himself space and solitude, had been a relief after more human contact and fuss than had ever felt comfortable. Patiently—at first—he had waited for fresh writing ideas to take root. But they did not. And then being alone had gradually become painful, even more enervating than all those interminable discussion panels, readings, and interviews had been. Once the darling of the literary world, he found the commentators and the influencers had quickly moved on. Within its diurnal round, the publishing world had inevitably discovered newer award-winners, even younger geniuses, fresher and shinier ideas.

His agent had been supportive—he couldn’t fault her. His editor was less so. She, in the warm spotlight of success, quickly moved publishers for an even more elevated job title, and had leveraged her connection with him to suggest his second novel would come with her. But then their bond had soured in a blizzard of unprofessional bitterness and spiteful recriminations.

It had hardly even mattered in the end that he had been silly enough to mix business with pleasure. Because there had simply been no second novel.

For a year, two years, three years, the “just checking in” phone calls and emails from his highly regarded agent had become less and less frequent. The agent’s pep talks had morphed from euphoric anticipation to gentle enquiry, through bracing statements of expectations and then—finally—to imploring. It was Ross who had ended it formally. What use was an author to a literary agent when he was producing nothing they could sell? He wasn’t even producing something they could help to develop, to edit, to brainstorm . . . There had been nothing. Well, not totally nothing, but nothing the agent could go out on submission with. At one point, Ross had tentatively shared a couple of half-formed ideas with her, a panacea he had hoped would buy him some peace for a while. But—gently—the agent had declined to endorse these fragments with any confidence. “Not high concept enough,” she said. “Too quiet,” “Too derivative,” “It’s a brutal market.”

And Ross had agreed with her, he reminded himself, running his frozen hands through his soaked hair, tipping his head back to the lowering gray sky that nearly touched the summit of the little hill as he reached it, welcoming the needle-sharp rain on his face. Now very decidedly into his mid-thirties, he was no longer even the young, fresh-faced emperor of the literary world—he had nothing to say. Nada.

And what was the use of a washed-up writer to anyone?

Even if he did still have the looks.

Chapter Six

It had been a good day’s trade, and Petra felt much better about running the shop after Flo’s briefing but—alone again in the flat—cooking her supper, the anxious swirl of negativity infected her brain again.

As she peeled the garlic and chopped the mushrooms for her carefully planned omelet supper, Petra’s mind played an endless cine-reel of all her most recent and abject failures for her own delectation and entertainment.

The vaporizing of her career was up there, of course. As the inciting incident in the story of her life—a tragedy, obviously—it was an absolute banger. Since then, the narrative seemed to be spooling out as a series of opportunities to mess up any chance of a friendship with Ross. And that really hurt, she admitted to herself as she dropped the butter into the hot pan with a sizzle. Six months was going to be a long time without companionship. Although it wasn’t that people hadn’t been friendly. They had. Freya was a sweetheart but far too busy with the restaurant to entertain her, and Flo was fabulous, but Petra was wary of taking up time in her precious retirement, which was obviously full and delightful. Flo didn’t need Petra hanging around, being a burden.

Ross would have been the most likely contender for chief companion, but each and every one of their interactions so far had been a disaster. If he hadn’t been put off by her accusing him of being an alcoholic drug addict, no emerging friendship was going to survive her turning into a fawning, giggling imbecile at the sight of his freshly revealed good looks. And then there had been the luring of him in with a promised book bargain and then giving him the handsome discount of one penny. Petra groaned at the thought. And the whole “I know you from somewhere” thing must have sounded like a ploy.

Although she totally did know him from somewhere . . .

“Anyhow,” she said aloud, as she poured in the eggs, dragging the edges into the center as they set—if she knew nothing else, she knew how to make an omelet—she was going to be in Portneath for six months, and she needed not to spend the whole time alone, letting her thoughts and memories drive her mad. Tomorrow the shop was closed, and she needed to find something to do. The weather was set to be dry but fiercely cold. She would take the opportunity to explore the area, starting with the countryside just inland. The beach could wait. Flo had been telling her there were multiple footpaths on the hills she could see from the flat’s sitting room window: gentle, conical slopes, the closest of which was the hill just behind the castle at the top of the main street. She would put on her walking boots and see how far she got.