Page 16 of Finding Love at the Magical Curiosity Shop
‘Yes!’ I say excitedly. I got some from a vintage fayre ages ago, and although no one’s given them a second glance yet, Iknewthey’d be a good investment someday. ‘The question is… where did I put them? Bear with me just a mo.’
Dammit,wheredid I put them? I look around the shop cluelessly. There was a whole box full of the colourful ceramics – theywereover there, but I moved them to make room for something, and then I put them in the second room, and then something else was put in front of them… Panic rises as the memory of when I last saw the Clarice Cliff collection remains out of reach. There had been no interest, and stuff gets pushed aside in favour of new things that might attract more attention, and then it just disappears into the black hole that my shop is surely standing on top of, which is probably the most rational explanation for things disappearing at the precise moment I want them.
‘Won’t be a tick, I know they’re here somewhere.’ I flee to the second room of the shop, and stand there looking around, hoping they’ll magically hurl themselves at my feet, in the least breakable way possible. Comeon, Mickey,think. They were down there… no,there, and then they… I look around with my finger hanging limply in mid-air like it might magically lead me in the right direction. Oh! Didn’t I move them over there and then put a display table in front of them? Yes, I did, I’m sure of it. I pull things aside and dive under the table, letting out an ‘ouch!’ as I bang both my knee and my head at the same time, and then scramble further in. Everything is at least three things deep in this place, and the things that haven’t attracted much interest get left at the back.
My crawling around knocks the table leg, and that knocks something else, and there’s an almighty crash as a well-loved life-size nutcracker topples and goes careening into a crate of vintage books that was precariously balanced on a shelf. The books go tumbling downwards and one of them somersaults straight into a display of candle holders, which sends them crashing to the floor where they smash into smithereens, and displaced book pages finish the gymnastic display by fluttering down around the mess.
It’s like a life-size game of Mousetrap, where you knock one thing and create a domino effect, but I finally spot the box I’m looking for and yank it out, sending everything around it wobbling too. ‘Got it!’
‘They’ve gone, Mick,’ Lissa calls out.
Oh, brilliant. I grumble to myself as I clamber out and avoid looking at the surrounding debris and how big the clean-up operation will be this time.
‘Did they say anything?’ I step over the broken china and poke my head back into the main shop.
She grimaces. ‘They muttered something about “chaos” and clicked their tongues a lot. Don’t worry about them. They just didn’t get it.’
I appreciate her being so nice and trying to save me from the worst of customers’ opinions, but as I stand there and survey the damage from trying to findonething, I can’t help wondering how many more times I’m going to have to use that excuse. How many more times are customers going to ask for something that I know I have, I just don’t knowwhere?
Every time I look at that dragon fruit table, I wonder who the heck would buy it. What wasIthinking in buying it? And how long will it take for another idiot like me to come along and think it’s fantastic?
I’ve always thought that the sentimentality behind my stock is what sold the items, but I’ve just missed what could have been an easy sale if I focused less on stories and more on organisation, and it makes me wonder again how I ever let things get this bad, and how much longer things can go on like this.
4
I’ve always loved libraries. The smell of all those books, pages that have been turned and read and loved by so many pairs of hands, and offered so many hours of escape to voracious readers, like me when I was little and looking for a way to lose myself after my mum died.
It’s Saturday morning and I’m early because I figure Ren is the kind of man who isalwayspunctual and I don’t need to add ‘perpetually late’ to his list of reasons for disliking me, and sure enough, he and Ava are waiting in the library car park and he’s looking at his watch, even though we weren’t due to meet for ten minutes yet.
Ava squeals and runs over to give me a hug. ‘Have you brought it with you?’
‘Of course.’ I wasn’t expecting the hug and I pat her back awkwardly, and then tap the bag over my shoulder, which holds the book, wrapped in a blanket to ensure it doesn’t get damaged.
‘I can’t wait! We’re going to prove that his ship went down and a mermaid saved his life!’
‘We don’t know that,’ Ren says cautiously. ‘We have no idea how this ends. The mystery man could die from his injuries in the next entry, and it’s very unlikely that there really was a shipwreck at all. Don’t get your hopes up, okay?’
I can’t help noticing that’s the second time he’s said something similar to her, and I’m torn between appreciating his overly-cautious-parent approach and wanting to tell her to throw caution to the wind and believe in the impossible.
He turns to me. ‘Hello.’
‘Hi.’ Why am I blushing after just one word? The simplest word, at that. Why has my pace quickened as I follow Ava back to the sensible-looking car he’s standing next to?
He gives me a nod. ‘I almost didn’t recognise you without your costume.’
I touch my hair self-consciously. It’s tied up in a messy knot at the back of my head, and there’s no flower hair clip or shell necklace. I’m wearing jeans and a batwing top, and didn’t bother to plaster on the blue and green glittery eye make-up that I usually wear as a mask. ‘It’s not a costume. It’s a…’ I struggle for the right word. It’s not a costume, is it? It’s just a way of embracing the shop’s theme.
‘Shield.’ He finishes the sentence for me. ‘I know. I get it.’
Is it a shield? I’ve never thought of it in that way before, but now he says it, I realise that I do put things on like armour when I go to work. When my dad was ill, it washardrunning the shop, telling myself that I was temporarily looking after it for him while he recovered when I knew, deep down, that he never would. I plastered on sparkly make-up, used a brighter shade of hair dye, and amassed a collection of hair flowers, like becoming someone bright and mermaidy created a gap between the woman running the shop and the woman falling apart inside while her father was dying.
I tilt my head to the side and study Ren for a moment because it makes me think of the hurt behind his eyes and wonder about the apologies behind his ruthless words. Are they a shield of sorts too? Maybe he really does get it.
He looks exactly the same as he has on the other days. Black single-pleat trousers, a tightly buttoned shirt, and a navy jacket over the top, despite the fact it’s a warm summer’s day and a jacket really isn’t necessary. Black hair stuck fast with product and a look on his face that wordlessly says, ‘What am I doing here?’
‘Shall we?’ He eschews the need for small talk and gestures towards the library, and when we all walk over, he holds the door open and lets me and Ava go through first.
I stop to inhale the bookish smell, but the library is quiet and the librarian comes straight over. Ren asks her what information they hold about shipwrecks, and we wait while she looks it up.
