Page 38 of An Enchanted Moment on Ever After Street
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It turns out that a lot of people want new friends. I never realised my idea would hit such a nerve, or that I wasn’t the only adult who found it hard to meet people with the intention of friendship. I posted my idea about friendship dates on Ever After Street’s social media, and within a couple of hours, my inbox was inundated with requests to be matched up with potential new friends, and now I’m running around like a headless chicken trying to find its head blindfolded.
After a few conversations with Darcy this week, we decided the best thing to do was to put the friendship form online for locals to fill in and then invite everyone to a friendship evening in the bookshop. Display tables have been cleared of books, covered with pretty tablecloths, and I’ve ransacked the nearest supermarket for a selection of party food. Ali is manning a tea, coffee, and hot chocolate station, and we’re having an evening of no-pressure, easy-going bookish chat to see if anyone hits it off naturally, and I’m going through the forms, trying to see if anyone’s favourite book choices suggest they’d have something more in common, and any matches are being sent on a friendship date in Darcy’s garden.
Cleo’s here, supposedly for her friendship date with me, but I haven’t had a chance to breathe yet and she’s running around like the decapitated chicken’s head trying to find its body, having unwittingly taken on the job of co-organiser and started spotting potential friendship matches right alongside me.
Darcy has taught me how to use a chainsaw so my hedge is neatly cut now, apart from the uneven chunks where I accidentally scalped parts of it, but at least there’s a wide walkway so I’m no longer afraid of customers being attacked by delinquent foliage if they dare to set foot outside.
Six sets of tables and chairs are set up next door, our gates are open, and matched couples are being directed out of my garden and into his, where there’s tea and a buffet provided by Lilith, and Darcy’s nowhere to be seen. I’m hoping he’s at least watching from a window or something. I was hoping he’d find a way to get more involved, but so far his only involvement has been setting up the date area in his garden and babysitting Mrs Potts for the evening because she wouldn’t be happy with this number of extra people inherbookshop.
‘Look, those two are hitting it off.’ Cleo points to Mickey from The Mermaid’s Treasure Trove and Lissa from the Colours of the Wind museum.
‘Those two are already best friends, but good spotting. Look, what do you think of these two?’ I point out a man and a woman whose forms are in front of me. ‘She put Rachel Joyce as her favourite author, and he saidAway with the Penguinsis the favourite book he’s read this year. I think there’s some crossover between those authors… Maybe those two would have a lot of book recommendations to share.’
‘And these two guys both put Adam Kay as their favourite author.’ Cleo points to two men, both standing awkwardly in different places, sipping their respective mugs, and both looking like they’re having second thoughts about coming tonight.
‘And look, these two both say they like romance novels, which you don’t often hear from a guy.’ Cleo and I are sliding forms around likeBritain’s Got Talentjudges trying to decide on finalists, and she points out the man in question and, on the other side of the shop, a woman who wrote a comment on her form about loving romance novels for the belief in a happy ending. There’s something about them that seems like a good match, and I meet Cleo’s eyes and know she’s thinking exactly the same.
I didn’t expect to be doing this with anyone, but it feels nice. I nudge my arm into hers. ‘This is fun.’
‘We make a good team.’
For the first time, I feel like I’m an integral part of something important. Me, Cleo, and… I glance towards the wall that separates my shop from The Beast’s Enchanted Rose Garden. There’s just one part missing. None of this would be happening without Darcy and it doesn’t feel right that he isn’t here.
Cleo goes to collect the two Adam Kay men, and I take the Rachel Joyce woman over to theAway with the Penguinsman and introduce them. After a quick chat with me as intermediary, I learn that he’s Italian and has only just moved here, and she’s a single mother and was living in Manchester but recently came back here to raise her daughter close to her parents.
‘My bad grasp of the language makes me avoid conversations usually. I am too scared for romantic dates,’ the man says, ‘but a friendship date is less intimidating.’
‘Exactly,’ the woman agrees. ‘I’m not ready to date again after my divorce, but there’s never a bad time to make friends.’
‘And bookish friends are the best kind of friends,’ I say, directing them through the children’s section to the back door and round to Darcy’s.
The man goes first, and as she passes me, the woman fans a hand in front of her face and whispers, ‘The bookish gods of gorgeous men are smiling upon me tonight.’
‘We should do a singles night next.’ Cleo bounces up, nodding towards the two grumpy-looking men who are now deep in conversation and looking much less grumpy than before.
‘I was just thinking that.’ I watch the retreating backs of the Italian man and Manchester woman. ‘If friends can connect over books, why can’t people connect romantically over them too?’
She waggles her eyebrows as we send the two guys on their way round to Darcy’s garden too, and then goes to introduce the two romance lovers.
The matches just keep coming, to the point where the six tables and chairs aren’t enough, it’s too late to get any more, and we’ve got a waiting list of couples to go on a proper platonic date round there. Cleo’s not wrong that the bookshop setting is conducive to getting people chatting too, and a lot of people who haven’t been matched via forms have started talking to each other over books, and broken off into couples or small groups to have a natter. A Tale As Old As Time is filled with chatter and laughter, and although tonight wasn’t about selling books, people keep coming to the counter with books they’ve found, and I’ve done better business in this one evening than the rest of the week put together.
There’s an ease that we’re all in the same boat. A sense of camaraderie. Everyone here tonight has come because they would like to meet new friends and each one of us knows that’s not as simple as it sounds.
People are chatting, laughing, leafing through books to share favourite paragraphs or illustrations with other once-were-strangers. People are swapping numbers. Someone’s set up a WhatsApp group and is inviting everyone to join. Someone else has suggested that we could start a monthly book club, and I’vealready been asked twice if this will be a regular thing. People have bought tickets to the upcoming festival and are chattering about it enthusiastically. It’s making my cold, jaded heart feel alive again.
I had given up on ever finding people like me. Accepted that I would always be on the edges of society, never really fitting in, but as I stand by the counter, that sense of fitting in fills me again, and I look around, warmed by the number of people who have thanked me for doing this platonic singles night.
This is what we always wanted A Tale As Old As Time to be – a hub that’s about so much more than just selling books, a place where people can find real connections, whether with fictional characters or with other people, and for a moment, it feels like my mum is standing here beside me.
I record a video, spinning my phone in a 360-degree turn of the shop so I can send it to Mr Rowbotham and the Herefordshire council as proof that aBeauty and the Beast-themed bookshop has something to offer Ever After Street and deserves its place here.
‘I never want to forget this night either.’ Cleo appears next to me having just returned from seeing off one friendship couple who are going on for a drink elsewhere, and sent another two women on their way to a friendship date with copies of Tilly Tennant books clutched in their hands. ‘It’s been so much fun.’
‘It’s kind of evidence.’ Apart from Darcy, I haven’t told anyone, but I can’t hide it any longer as I tell Cleo about Mr Rowbotham’s letter and the council’s threat.
‘Oh my gosh, no. A Tale As Old As Time is my favourite shop in the world. They can’t shut it down. It’d be like shutting down a piece of my heart.’
