Page 17 of The Book Swap

“Wasn’t mine,” she says. “I found it in there a while ago and thought I’d give it a go, but all the notes were too distracting. Couldn’t get on with it at all.”

She walks off and I look back down at the book, flicking to the opening page, where all the useful quotations are written out, with the page number beside them. This has to be a sign. Maybe I don’t have time to do anything creative right now, or to take classes outside of my job, but I have time for this. Reading what someone else has discovered. Learning from the greats. The classics.

A postcard drops onto the floor at my feet and I pick it up. Don’t forget to make all your dreams come true! it says, and I flinch. How did they know? I turn it over, smiling at Pooh and Piglet, then tuck it gently inside.

“Cheers, Eileen,” I say toward the library, tapping it on its disheveled roof before carrying my new book back toward the tube.

I stay up way later than usual reading it. I enjoy the commentary on the depth of Harper Lee’s characters, or the clarity between good and bad people, but it’s the other messages that I keep on reading for. I know, from about halfway through, that it’s a woman. She refers to Atticus as “dreamboat” and wants to change her name to Scout. There’s so much character within her comments, that after a while it isn’t enough to just read them. I find a pen in a different color and, for my own amusement, I start replying.

Bit heavy! Time for a tea break at this point, I think, it says.

Nice way to avoid the pain of a good book, I reply. I see you’re an avoidance reader. Does tea taste better with tears in it?

There is no other book ever written that has better names for its characters. Atticus! Jem! Scout! Finch! Everyone else should just GIVE UP! she writes.

I laugh, and write below in red.

You genuinely mean that because of the names, no one should ever write a book ever again? If that happened, you’d miss out on crackers like...Jack Reacher?

It doesn’t just feel like I’m replying to someone’s notes; it somehow feels like I’m talking to a mate. A mate I don’t always agree with—they seem pretty hard on most of the characters—but someone I can discuss writing with. I didn’t realize how much I’ve missed it. I used to try with Elliot, but he and his husband had normally seen the film rather than read the book. And Joel would let me talk about it but I could always tell he wasn’t interested. He was just trying, because of me. With this person, with Margins Girl, it feels like we could talk for hours.

On the train to work in the morning, I open Notes on my phone and without thinking too much about it, I start typing. It isn’t a continuation of my original chapter that got shortlisted; it’s my story from college. The one I always wanted to write. I decide to go with it.

It’s everything Joel reminded me of, combined with everything that has happened since. I have people in my life I need to apologize to, and this somehow feels like the beginning of that. It isn’t a letter, but it’s close. By the time I look up, I’ve passed Highbury & Islington, my stop, and have sailed on through two more. For the first time since I can remember, I didn’t even notice my commute.

When I make it to the office, there’s a load of emails in my inbox. A flash of one of the comments in To Kill a Mockingbird appears in my mind. Margins Girl had written something about how Atticus just got even sexier for caring about his passion, more than the money. For taking a case he knew he’d lose, because it was the right thing to do. I’d like to think that if I actually cared about the job I did, I’d do the same. I’d choose the right thing over money every time.

At lunch, I go to the local bookshop and stop at the classics section. I run my eyes along the spines. What if, by chance, Margins Girl uses the library regularly? Could I repay her somehow for what she seems to have ignited in me?

Great Expectations. We did a vote on whether to study this book in our English class. We could choose Dickens or Emma by Jane Austen. The class was mostly girls, and they went with Emma. I always told myself I’d read Dickens in my own time. Mr. Carter absolutely raved about him. About how well he could tell a story.

Pulling the book out, I turn it over, opening it on a random page. I don’t know if I’ll be able to make notes the way Margins Girl has, but perhaps I could try. My eyes lock onto a sentence I can’t seem to move on from: “Life is made of ever so many partings welded together.” My mind passes through Elliot and Mum and Dad, even Helena, before landing on the person I miss most of all. The person I shouldn’t miss. For the last few months of her life, taking both of us by surprise, she became my best friend. The biggest secret I’ve ever had to keep, because if it ever got back to Erin, it would destroy her. The person I’d long for one more parting with—because it would mean she was still here. That I’d see her again. My mind lands on Bonnie.

7

ERIN

The office never called again, but my last month’s pay arrived in my account, followed by a pink slip to my email in November, sent by HR. Charlotte’s given up and I don’t know whether to be proud or disappointed.

“Definitely proud,” Bonnie says one evening, staring down at her nails, which are painted turquoise, a sleek black bobbed wig on her head. “You think she’d have let them pay you if she wasn’t secretly in awe of what you did?”

“They did pay me up to the end of the month, and I left way before that.”

“Exactly!” She grins at me, pride written all over her face, and as always, my heart lurches at the sight of her smile. “You walked out on your awful boss and you’ve managed to get your sister off your back by taking that job—which, by the way, I knew you would get.”

“I know you did. That’s why I applied,” I say, taking a sip of wine.

“That’s my girl. What did Cassie say about it?” Bonnie raises one perfectly plucked eyebrow. Her eyebrows always looked like she’d just been to a brow bar, until the day they disappeared. That night she took me to the pub and gave me the card, they were back, drawn perfectly by hand.

“I haven’t told her,” I say. “I wanted to tell you.”

Bonnie leans back in the chair and folds her arms.

“You should tell her. Invite her out for a celebratory drink.”

“We didn’t really hang out much outside the office,” I say, picking up a jumper from my bed and folding it, before placing it in the wardrobe.

“One way to change that.”

---