Page 4 of The Good Girl Effect
“To Legacy,” the rest of us echo. Then we all throw the shots back, even my sister, who has replaced her angry scowl with an expression that looks vaguely like warmth and hope.
This whole venture will surely be a disaster. We’ve worked under Ronan and Matis for years, but have we really learned enough to do it on our own? We don’t have what it takes to recreate what Emerson Grant did nearly thirty years ago. Maybe if our hearts were in it, we could. But like Ronan said, we’ve lost our way. We’re all fighting for something other than this club. Our motivations go far beyond this business venture. But with any luck, my plan might work.
And just like that, the Legacy is born.
Rule #1: You’ll almost always find something exciting inside a book.
Camille
Ten months later
"Bonjour, Marguerite," I call pressing open the door of the bookstore. After dropping my bag under the counter, I stretch my arms over my head and move toward the aisles.
The early autumn temperatures have dropped, so the room is still cool with the shutters closed. Pulling them open, I let the heat of the morning sun shine through the dusty windows. Popping my earphones in, I flip through the music app on my phone, landing on an ’80s pop playlist and hitting Play. Pat Benatar guitar chords blast into my ears as I grab the cart full of books and push it toward the Littérature section.
Working at the used bookstore doesn’t pay much, but it’s enough to cover my half of the rent at the flat that I split with an obnoxious and annoying woman who works at the boulangerie. And I like working with books. At least with them, I can escape this mundane life for a moment. The measly pay is enough to get me by until I can get out of this village for real and go somewherebetter. Maybe London. Maybe Paris. Maybe Rome. But it’s not like a lonely girl with no parents, no money, no education, and no skill can just pick up and leave the village where she grew up. My stubborn curiosity and poor drawing skills wouldn’t get me far.
So until then, I’m stuck at this boring job in this boring village, living this boring life.
It takes me a few hours to get the cart full of new donations put away, but to be honest, I’m going slow on purpose. If I hurry, then I won’t have anything to do, and hardly anyone comes in now that summer is over, so if I finish too quickly, then I’llreallybe bored.
Marguerite is at the checkout desk now, handling customers while I peruse the books in the romance section because they have the best covers and titles. After peeking around to make sure no one is watching, I slide a book from the shelf. The spine is pink, and the text is bubbly, and on the cover are a pair of lips blowing bubble gum.
Blondie shouts “Call Me” in my ear as I pull a pen out of my back pocket. After another quick glance around, I flick open the front cover of the book and draw a tiny black cat with a spiky mullet blowing a bubble on the inside. It makes me chuckle as I finish the doodle before closing the book and sliding it back into place.
The drawings are just something I’ve always done. My father used to call them my little signature. He’d find them all over the house when I was young, shouting at me from the kitchen when I’d forget the rules: no furniture, no walls, no floor.
“Tu as encore fait des bêtises, Camille,” he used to shout.You’ve been causing trouble again, Camille.
But he’d still find tiny black cats or snakes or turtles popping up on a dinner plate or the leaves of a plant. He wasn’treallymad. He was never really mad.
I smile at the memory as I walk down the aisle.
My pen goes back into my pocket as I run my fingers along the shelf. I don’t know what it is about the next book that catches my eye. It’s an old one that hasn’t been picked up in years; I know every untouched book on these shelves by heart now. But something about it grabs my attention today.
It has a dark blue leatherette spine with the titleLe Passeport, which is a boring and strange title for a romance novel. But then I get the idea to draw a gorilla with a suitcase and bucket hat on the inside, so I slip the book from the top shelf.
As I thumb open the front cover to find the title page, something falls from between the pages and lands on the floor. I put the pen back in my pocket as I lean down to retrieve the beige envelope. I stare at it curiously, turning it over to see the messy, scrawled handwriting on the front.
It’s addressed to a woman—Emmaline Rochefort.
The top of the envelope is ripped open, so as the song in my ears changes to something slower and more romantic, I put the book back on a random shelf and peer into the envelope. Inside, there is a folded piece of paper and a small square photo.
It feels like an invasion of privacy, but I can’t help myself as I pull them both out. Flipping the photo over, I stare down at the couple smiling back at me. It’s a young, handsome man with his arm around the shoulder of a beautiful brunette woman. They’re both grinning, cheeks pulled tight from ear to ear and bright, pearly white teeth showing.
They appear so happy it’s almost hard to look at them. Two very real people in what looks like the throes of a blissful moment together. One small photograph has captured that, so now it’s like they’re inviting me to be a part of the moment too.
Tearing my eyes from the photo, I look at the letter next. It’s folded beige paper with scribblings all over it, from the front to the back.
At the very top, it says,Dear Emmaline.
The letter is scrawled in messy English.
I can’t stop thinking about you, it starts. But I stop reading there. It would be an invasion to keep reading.
Turning it over, I find the closing sentence sweetly signed:Love, Jack.
“Camille,” Marguerite calls from the front of the store.
