Page 15 of The Book Swap

“You can do that, but what’s your starting point? Job Center? Gumtree? Shop windows?”

“The last one. Going to go for a walk now,” I say, looking down at my tracksuit bottoms and T-shirt, which I also slept in. “I’ll take something to tide me over while I figure it out.”

“The pub next door to me needs a kitchen assistant. Urgently. It was written in pen and stuck to the window, so they’re probably desperate enough to take you.”

“Well then, perfect.”

She sighs and I know she’s squeezing her eyes shut to try not to shout at me. She’s done it since we were kids.

“I just want you to be happy,” she says, and her voice breaks.

I frown and pull my phone from my ear to stare at it.

“Are you crying?”

“It’s been too long now, Erin.” She’s definitely crying. “I can’t help you if you won’t help yourself, so please try. I’ve got to go.”

Before I can say anything, she’s gone, and Isabella Gordon’s naked model shot reappears, her face looking even more smug than it did before I answered.

An hour later I send Georgia a photo from a shop window I’ve just passed. Just Stitch in East Dulwich is looking for a sales assistant. No experience necessary. Apply within. The shop’s full of beautiful fabrics and carousels of different threads.

I can see your tracksuit bottoms in the window reflection is all Georgia replies.

I wander to the café opposite and order a coffee. I could apply for that job. With my background in fashion I might even get it. But then what? My mind wanders to Bonnie’s postcard. About living my dream. About being happy, the way Georgia just told me to be.

I know I’m not, yet. I’ve gone against everything I promised Bonnie, but it’s not because I’m trying to let her down. She should still be alive and she isn’t, so every day without her doesn’t seem worth living. Not when she had everything ahead of her and she didn’t get to do any of it. She knew exactly what she wanted to do with her career. Where she wanted to live. What clothes she wanted to wear. She knew what her boundaries were. When to cut someone off, or to say no. She respected herself and stood up for what she believed in. The only decision I’ve made recently wasn’t even thought out. I’ve got no plan. No idea where I’m going in life. How come I’m the one still living?

Bonnie would tell me off for this attitude. It’s the opposite of what she wanted for me. If she were in charge of my life right now, she’d put her arm around me so the bright-colored sleeve of whatever in-season jacket she was wearing hovered in my eyeline, and she’d march me into that shop. She’d say, My friend here is the best person for this job and you should hire her immediately or, in the words of Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, it’s a big mistake. Big. Huge!

My life would be so much easier if Bonnie were in charge of it. She lived a life without fear. Had no shame about who she was or what she believed in. She would never have let a woman like Charlotte control her for a day, let alone seven years. The second she wasn’t enjoying it, she’d have left and she’d have made sure everyone knew whose fault it was. In fact, quitting my job is the most Bonnie thing I’ve ever done, and while I’m wallowing in it now, it felt good. It was the right thing to do. Maybe if I start living my life the way Bonnie would have, I’ll actually do something with it.

Tapping my foot, I stare at the glass jar of sugar cubes in the center of the table. Given my current circumstances it isn’t the worst idea I’ve ever had. Erin would never walk into that shop and apply for that job, but Bonnie wouldn’t think twice about it. Her attitude was to live in the moment and to go for what you want.

Downing my coffee, I stand up, cross the road and walk into Just Stitch.

“Could I take a job application, please?” I say to the woman behind the counter, whose face lights up at the question.

I don’t go as far as Bonnie would have on the speech front. I’m pretty sure that’s only something someone else can say about you.

When I walk out of the shop, application in hand, I kiss it and smile. My first official Bonnie act is done, and my heart is pounding with excitement. It doesn’t feel like I’m living my life; it feels like I’m living hers, and there’s something so much better about that.

On the walk home, I take a detour past the community library.

It’s the only exercise I’ve been getting up until now. I’ve walked here, once, twice, sometimes three times a day, just in case. The book’s never there. I know in my heart that it’s never coming back, but Bonnie wouldn’t give up and so I can’t either.

As I reach it, I take in the plaque. I’ve never noticed the words beneath it before. The dedication to Eileen on the brass plate that sits under the slanted roof of the cabinet, sandwiched between handwritten signs saying, Take One, Leave One and Everyone Welcome Here. I’m staring at the plaque because I can’t bring myself to look inside yet. If I don’t look, I get to hold on to the tiniest bit of hope that my book could be there. The small print in Eileen’s memory reads, “Her life and language were as colorful as this library.”

I look down at what I’m wearing. Gray tracksuit bottoms and a stained off-white T-shirt. The same clothes I’ve been in since I woke up without a job to go to. I get why Callum does it. Life is so much easier when you don’t have to decide what to wear every day. But now I feel both guilty and ashamed. I’ve been living in grayscale instead of in color.

The sandpaper-like roof of the cabinet is bubbling up in places. The pale yellow paint’s starting to chip, having withstood a few winters. I wonder whether this is what Eileen, purple-rinse set in place with rollers and surrounded by books and love, requested on her deathbed. Get me...a fucking...painted library.

My eyes land on the spine of a book I can see through the glass, and my heart jumps with such force that I can feel it in my throat. It’s black and white. It’s placed right in the center, as though it’s been waiting for me.

Flinging open the door, I reach in, hands shaking. I can’t believe it but it’s back. To Kill a Mockingbird. My copy with its yellow pages, the first few of them taped into place from my many hours of poring over the words. The inside of the front page is covered in my handwriting, breaking down the themes and characters alongside page references, and homemade tabs are taped in, marking the most important moments. There’s no chance Bonnie’s note will still be in here—but I flick though the pages anyway, and tears immediately fill my eyes because there, tucked in the center, among pages full of my notes from school, is the card.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

If anyone could see me now, they’d wonder what’s going on. A woman, dressed in what looks like pajamas, on her knees at the community library, clutching a postcard to her chest as she cries freely. But I don’t care. She’s come back to me. Bonnie’s come back.

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