The Bookshop of Second Chances Jackie Fraser (ebook reader macos .txt) 📖

battery-operated tea lights in a pair of turnip lanterns that I spent hours carving last night. I have a blister on my palm from hollowing them out; they’re much harder to work with than pumpkins, but more traditional. The pumpkins are just going in an autumnal pile. We’re going to lean a broomstick against the wall; it’s all quite subtle. Becky, the postwoman, breezes in with a parcel, sending the bell clanging.

‘Needs signing for,’ she says.

It isn’t very big, about the size of an egg carton, and is addressed to me, which is unusual. I scrawl my name unreadably on her electronic paperwork and look at the package. I haven’t ordered anything; I can’t think what this could be. I tear open the padded envelope to find an actual egg carton inside. Taped to the lid there’s a note.

I’m sending these so you don’t have to open them while I’m there. Consider this a late birthday gift. And none of your whinging about how I shouldn’t buy you stuff. Not interested. E.

I tut loudly. At the same time, I’m intrigued, and pleased of course. He was right – who doesn’t like presents? Even though I’m still a bit uncomfortable accepting gifts from my boss. But anyway. More spoons?

I slice through the tape sealing the egg box shut and open it. Each of the six egg compartments holds a wrapped something. I purse my lips and unwrap one.

Napkin rings. Silver and decorated, naturally, with a monogram of my initials. They’re beautiful, very plain and stylish. The hallmarks are on the back, rather than inside. I sit down at the laptop and look them up. These are Glasgow, like my tablespoon. 1857. By the looks of things, even though they’re not boxed, if they’re all the same – I pause and unwrap two more and see that they are – then they probably cost him the best part of three hundred quid.

‘I don’t think I can accept these,’ I say out loud. It doesn’t seem right, even if they’d come on my birthday. Bearing in mind at that point I’d only known him six weeks or something, it would have been extremely odd for him to give me expensive antique napkin rings. But say it was my birthday today – it still seems wrong. I feel very odd about it. As with my tablespoon, I assume he can afford it and doesn’t think much about spending three hundred pounds on a random gift. But that doesn’t make it okay. No. I can see they won’t be much good to him, or as a gift for someone else, but he’ll be able to sell them on eBay I expect, or maybe back to the person he bought them off. I rummage in my bag for my phone, and send him a message.

Hey. Thank you for the napkin rings. They’re lovely. I can’t accept them though. Sorry to be a pain, but you spending that much money on me makes me uncomfortable. It would take quite a lot of buns to make it up to you. I’ll put them in the safe. I appreciate the sentiment and everything, don’t think I’m ungrateful. T.

I put my phone down on the desk and sell some books to a young couple who are up here on their honeymoon. They’re both glowing with happiness and make me feel a bit tearful. They’ve each bought the other one of their favourite books – it’s very sweet. I wrap the books up for them. This is a new thing; I’ve hung a wide roll of lovely brown paper behind the desk, and bought string in a dozen colours. If it’s not busy – and it’s never that busy – I make beautiful brown-paper parcels. Everyone loves a brown-paper parcel tied up with string. The woman is delighted and has taken a photo for Instagram almost before I’ve finished.

‘Tag the shop,’ I say, and then we talk about Instagram for ten minutes and generally I feel it’s an extremely successful customer interaction, and one Edward would never have had. I’m an asset, it’s true, but not a three-hundred-pound-gift asset.

Next there’s an older couple buying some Noddy books in hardback, and one of our regulars, who buys new books here and has come in for the latest Ian Rankin. We don’t have a particularly wide selection of new books, but Edward always orders books by Scottish authors and we have two shelves of modern Scottish detective fiction.

I forget about the message I sent and don’t look at my phone again until I’m eating my lunch.

Fuck off, is all the response he’s sent me, which makes me laugh.

No, seriously. I text back.

Not interested.

Edward.

Thea.

Please don’t fight with me about this.

The phone rings. ‘I’m not fighting with you,’ he says. ‘Hello.’

‘Hi, yeah. Look–’

‘No, you look. It’s my business what I do with my money. I can buy you anything I want.’

I laugh at this. ‘You can’t.’

‘Yes, I can.’

‘No, you can’t. There are loads of things you can’t buy me.’ I empty the remains of a crisp packet into my mouth.

‘Such as?’

‘Love,’ I say, indistinctly through a mouthful of crisps. ‘Excuse me. Um, happiness. Famously, no one can buy those things. And other stuff that’s less’ – I wave a hand, not that he can see me – ‘you know, esoteric. I’d think it bizarre and inappropriate if you bought me underwear, or even outerwear, for instance. I suppose maybe a scarf or something would be okay.’

This has thrown him, I think. No response.

‘Um, sex toys – that would be wrong. Diet books. Any kind of self-help book, in fact. Pornography. It would be weird if you bought me perfume, or bubble bath, or Class As, or bedsheets.’

‘You are the strangest woman I’ve ever met,’ he says. I’m glad he’s not here, because this makes my face burn with embarrassment.

‘No, I’m not. How rude.’

‘You are. I hardly think buying you some napkin rings is the equivalent of buying you heroin. Or porn, or a vibrator. Jesus