Page 2 of Charlie Sunshine
He laughs. The happy and unrestrained sound doesn’t fit his appearance. He’s clad in a black pinstriped suit that cost more than I earn in a month. With his tanned face, dark wavy hair, and big white grin, he looks expensive and entirely out of place in here.
He jumps as an old lady pokes him in the back. “You waiting or just taking up space?” she asks querulously.
I bite my lip to hide a smile. “He’s taking up space, Mrs Bishop,” I say in a loud voice as her hearing aid squeals.
“What’s wrong with his face?” she immediately asks in her overloud voice.
“We haven’t got enough time to list that.” I smile at her and gesture at her pile of books. “Those all coming back?”
“They are.” She leans close. “And I have to say there was a name and telephone number in the back of one of the books.”
“Oh, yes?” I say warily.
She nods. “I had such a lovely chat with the bloke.” She pauses. “Although he kept asking to see my zits. I’m not sure what all that was about.” She sniffs disapprovingly. “I’m a little too mature for acne.”
I manage to repress the huge laugh, but Bethany isn’t so lucky, and I nudge her to send her over to log a customer onto a computer.
Mrs Bishop moves away, and I look at Misha. “Lovely as this surprise visit is, haven’t you got millionaires’ accounts to juggle and the world’s financial markets to conquer?”
He shakes his head. “You have a very exotic view of my job.”
“Humour me.”
He shrugs. “Every minute of every day.”
Bethany laughs, and Misha grins at her.
“You moving after work?” she asks me. “Going to your swanky new riverside apartment?”
My friend Jesse moved out of our old flat last month, and I couldn’t afford to stay there on my own. I’d started to put out feelers about getting a new person to share, but Misha promptly asked me to move in with him, saying his old flatmate had moved out and he’d got a spare bedroom.
I sigh. “I am. However, I’m deeply regretting the impulse that made me allow Misha to share it with me.”
Misha shakes his head, and Bethany grins at me. “You management-level people make all the money.”
“We certainly do, young lady,” I say pompously. “And, if you apply yourself, you too can reach the dizzy heights of library management and the two-figure pension package.”
Misha laughs. “Why are you here?” I ask him. “We cleared most ofmy place last night, and I can pick up the last few bits myself after work.”
“I’ll help you with that stuff.” His tone is uncompromising, and I don’t bother arguing. He carries on speaking. “I popped in because you forgot something.”
I frown, trying to think what it is, but my head feels fizzy with tiredness. I shrug and grab the returns trolley, determined to beat this lethargy. “Walk and talk,” I instruct him and ignore his sarcastic salute.
We make our way towards the non-fiction shelves, and I start to group the books together by subject. “What did I forget?” I ask.
He holds out his hand. On his palm is a shiny silver key on my old Union Jack keychain. “Your new house key.”
I grin at him as I pocket the key. “You sure you want me moving in with you into that bastion of tidiness that you call your flat?”
Misha shakes his head disapprovingly. “Only you would make tidiness sound like one of the seven deadly sins. Anyway, it’s a bit late to change my mind now, seeing as you dumped most of your crap in the middle of my lounge last night.”
He holds out his arms for the pile of books. After depositing them, I take a book off the top of the stack and shelve it.
“It’s not crap,” I say automatically. “It’s highly useful stuff.”
“Like the beanbag which has already shed most of its beans in the hallway? I can’t tell you how happy I was with that when I stepped on them barefoot this morning.”
I laugh and shelve some more books. “And you popped in just to give me a key? That’s a bit out of your way.” Misha has a very high-powered banking job in the city, and the library is way out of his normal commuting distance and time. He’s usually at his desk before I’ve even raised my head off my pillow and greeted the day.
