‘Looks like it,’ I replied, and we both gazed at the book in silence for a few moments before he spoke again.
‘I’m also looking for something else.’
‘What is it?’ I asked, keen to alleviate the awkwardness of discussing bestiality with this handsome blond man.
‘A book called The Struggle. You don’t happen to have it, do you?’
‘Should have, but it’s a novel so it’ll be back through here.’
I waved him into the fiction area after me. The Struggle was a book as fat as a brick, one of the summer’s biggest sellers, partly because the Irish author had given a series of interviews in which he denounced anyone he was asked about. The Prime Minister? A gobshite. The English in general? A load of gobshites. The Queen? A rich gobshite.
I leant over to scan the table of hardback fiction to find a copy, suddenly very aware that the handsome man was behind me and I was wearing my biggest knickers, the ones with an elasticated waist that pulled up to my belly button and gave me a very obvious VPL. Mia had once insisted that I needed ‘to give thongs a chance’ and left a couple at the bottom of my stairs from one of her fashion clients. But when I’d carried them to the safety of my bedroom for further inspection, I couldn’t work out which bit to put my legs through, and when I finally got them on and glanced over my shoulder in the mirror, my bottom looked so exposed, so vast and white and wobbly, that I wondered why anyone wanted that effect anyway. I’d stashed them at the back of my underwear drawer where they’d remained ever since.
I found the book’s gold spine on the edge of the table. ‘Here you go,’ I said, sliding it free and handing it to him. ‘Have you read any of his others?’ I wanted to distract him from my enormous pants.
‘No,’ he replied. ‘Should I?’
‘I’ve only read his first one. This is better, but that was good too. A coming-of-age tale. Growing up in Dublin in the Seventies, trying to escape family politics, actual politics and then he…’ I stopped. ‘Well, I won’t give it away. But it’s good, yes,’ I said, blushing as he held my eye.
He turned the book over where, on the back cover, the author, Dermot Dooley, glared up at us.
‘Looks pretty angry with life, doesn’t he?’
I snickered. ‘True.’
Up close, he smelt fresh, of a lemony aftershave. Without moving my head, I raised my eyes from the book to his face. It was as if part of me recognized him. He felt familiar. But if he’d been in here before I would remember it, surely? Eugene and I would have fought to serve him and Eugene was normally quicker than me with the hot ones.
His eyes met mine and I blushed again. Busted.
‘Thanks for finding it. And my mother’s book. You’re brilliant, er…’
‘Florence,’ I said, smiling back at him, ‘and not at all. It’s my job.’
‘Thank you all the same.’
‘You’re into contemporary fiction then?’ I ventured, stepping back behind the till and taking the books from him.
‘Absolutely, when I get the time. Why?’
‘Sorry, nosy of me. Just…’ I stopped. ‘Well, I shouldn’t really say it but most men come in here looking for Wayne Rooney’s autobiography.’
‘Oh Christ,’ he said, clapping a hand to his forehead. ‘That was the other one I was supposed to pick up. Don’t suppose you’ve got a copy?’
I looked up from the till and laughed.
‘What about you?’ he asked.
‘What d’you mean?’
‘What do you read? I suppose I’ve never really thought about it before, but does someone who works in a bookshop have to read all of these?’ He gestured at the shelves.
‘No! Luckily not. We share it. I’m novels. Eugene, that’s my colleague, he takes on non-fiction and plays. There’s a system so that if someone comes in we can help them, er, find a book they fall in love with.’
I felt embarrassed for describing it like that but he didn’t seem to hear because he was concentrating on the cards in front of the till. ‘Sorry, can I chuck these in too?’ He handed me a pack of cards with Vermeer’s Girl in a Pearl Earring on the front, except the woman’s face had been replaced with a cat. It was part of a series of greetings cards that I’d insisted to Norris we should stock. And I’d been right. There had been Mona Lisa as a cat, a Van Gogh self-portrait as a cat and a cat dressed as Holbein’s Henry VIII, but they’d all sold out.
‘You like cats?’ He looked more of a dog person. Wellington boots on the weekend, three Labradors, a tweed hat.
‘I do. My mother has three Persians.’
‘Cute. And altogether that’ll be £36.45 please. Do you want a bag?’
He shook his head. ‘No, not to worry.’
‘But it’s raining,’ I said, nodding towards the windows. Outside, people scuttled under umbrellas like giant black beetles.
He grinned again. ‘A bit of rain won’t hurt.’ He tucked the books and his cards under his arm. ‘Not sure I’m going to fall in love, though,’ he said.
‘Huh?’ I said. I’d been gazing at his chest – at a small triangle of blond hair exposed at the top of his shirt – and misheard.
‘With him,’ the man said, flashing Dooley’s headshot at me again. ‘You said you find books for people to fall in love with.’
‘Right,’ I replied, laughing too loudly. He meant Dooley. Obviously he wasn’t talking about me. Come on, Florence. People don’t go about their lives falling in love with others they meet in bookshops. That only happened once in Notting Hill.
‘Thanks so much for all your help,’ he said.
‘You’re welcome,’ I replied as he made for the door. ‘I hope you enjoy it.’
He held his fingers to his temple, saluting. Then he was gone into the drizzle.
I felt a pang of disappointment at his disappearance but heard Norris coming upstairs, so tried to rearrange my face.
‘Pass us the order book,’ he said, standing on the other side of the counter. I handed it over in silence.
‘You all right?’ he added.
‘Yeah, fine. Why?’
‘Just look a bit flustered. Where’s Eugene?’
‘Upstairs, restocking travel.’
Norris opened the book and reached for a pen.
‘You missed Mrs Delaney,’ I went on.
‘My lucky day. She buy anything?’
‘No. But someone came in to collect an order and I sold another copy of The Struggle.’
Norris blew out heavily through his nostrils. ‘I’m not sure one hardback a day’s going to keep us open. Ah, we’ll see,’ he said, closing the book and handing it back to me.
‘I’ve been thinking about this and I’ve got a plan,’ I said, straightening up and deciding to broach my ideas.
Norris’s eyebrows waggled with suspicion.
‘We need to sort out the website. And I thought about a petition. Online and in here. I’ll get everyone who comes in to sign it.’
He didn’t