Page 21 of Finding Love at the Magical Curiosity Shop
Before I can overthink it, I blurt out something that’s been haunting me since Wednesday. ‘I’m sorry I called you defective the other day.’
‘Don’t worry about it. Iamdefective, and…’
I meet his eyes as his sentence grinds to a halt, and in that moment, I canseea much softer man underneath, someone with sad eyes who’s clearly built a wall around himself and is working frantically to keep adding bricks to it.
‘…and it’s always enjoyable to have that pointed out by complete strangers, especially ones who are like quirky, energetic children’s TV presenters.’
I don’t think it was meant as a compliment but it makes me smile. ‘Thanks.’
He smiles too, like itwasn’tmeant as a compliment but he doesn’t mind me taking it as one, and then he takes a mouthful of his tea without checking the temperature first and lets out a yelp because it’s clearly still at tongue-burning temperature.
He sinks down in his seat when other customers look in our direction at the sound, his cheeks blazing adorably red with embarrassment as he tries to hide behind his hand.
I take a forkful of gooey, glazed chocolate cake and let out such a moan of pleasure that I’m probably moments away from re-enacting the famous scene fromWhen Harry Met Sally, which gives the other diners another reason to look over at us, and Ren dips his head further behind his hand in embarrassment. I’m used to people looking at my red hair and bright clothes and if they’d all tried the chocolate cake, they’d know where that moan of pleasure came from. I nod towards his cake. ‘That’s not as good as it looks, it’swaybetter.’
He takes a forkful too and lets out a moan not unlike mine. ‘Oh, that is unfairly good. So good that I don’t even care if people are looking. I don’t know about you, but I’m not leaving here without having another slice of that.’
He blows on his tea before taking another sip and lets out a long, overdue-sounding sigh. ‘I have no idea when I last…’ He looks at me, blinks a few times, and seemingly decides to be honest. ‘…let myself enjoy something. A simple pleasure with no pressure to do something else or be somewhere or just…’ He sighs again and shakes his head, like he doesn’t know what else to add to that, and I fight the urge to slide my hand over his where it’s resting on the table and give his fingers a squeeze. Judging by the arm touch earlier, that would not be met with approval.
Another sip of tea makes his shoulders slump, like the pin-straight rod that seems to go through them has started to bend, and after another mouthful of cake, it feels like he’s loosened up just a tad.
‘Hey, speaking of seconds – can I ask you something? Do you think a crew of two is quite small for a ship?’
‘I guess so…’ he says slowly, like he’s wondering where this is going.
‘It’s just I’ve been thinking…’ I put down my fork and get out one of the pages from the Missing Vessels books that I printed in the library and run my finger down it. ‘Look at these logs. Crew of sixteen. Crew of thirty. Crew of thirty-two. Crew of fourteen. But there were only two men on our mystery sailor’s ship. What if we’ve got this wrong? What if she’s describing it wrongly or ifallvessels would seem like a ship to a mermaid? What if it wasn’t a ship, but a small boat? It wouldn’t be logged as a shipwreck, and the vessels logged as missing are generally much larger…’
‘It’s feasible, I suppose, although “feasible” is the wrong word foranythingto do with mermaids or this diary being anything other than complete fiction. And it doesn’t narrow down our chances of tracing the boat.’ Ren gives me the same look I gave him earlier – annoyance because he knows I have a point – and then sighs, shoves another forkful of chocolate cake into his mouth, and gets out his phone. ‘There’s something in this cake that’s making me take leave of my senses. Every time I look at you, I find myself believing that we’re actually looking for arealship that really existed.’
Lately I’ve been feeling so small and insignificant, like I just keep plugging away in the shop but no one ever notices and it never makes any difference, and the thought thatIcould make someone believe in anything – especially someone as cynical as him – makes something flicker inside me.
‘Maybe we are.’ I watch as he types a question on how to find historical small boat sinkings into Google, his eyes flick over the results page, and then he hands the phone to me.
‘Consult regional newspaper archives from the area. Local authorities will have an archive of historical articles from their locality at the time of the sinking,’ I read aloud and then look up at him again. ‘So we just need to knowwherethey are, and then we can go to the local council and ask for copies of newspaper reports from 1899 and that might give us some proof.’ I hand his phone back and take another forkful of cake, trying not to think about the way he’s watching me thoughtfully. ‘What?’
‘Nothing. Just… how can you be so positive? How can you reallybelievein this? With Ava, I get it, she’s a child, she wants to believe in the fairytales she loved when she was little, that Prince Eric was on that boat and Ariel has just saved him from drowning, but you…’
‘How can you think people ever grow out of that? The older I get, themoreI wish fairytales were real and that magic and fairy dust solved real-life problems, and underdogs really would get happy endings. Something like this is a hint of possibility. It might be nothing, but it might be something really special too. It would be naive of us all to believe that what we know about the universe is all thereisto know.’
He looks like he wants to protest, but another forkful of cake mellows him out enough to reluctantly mutter, ‘Can’t really argue with that point.’
‘Hurrah. So far we’ve agreed on two things today – chocolate cake and that. Progress, right?’
He lets out a chuckle that slowly builds into a full-blown burst of laughter, and he shakes his head, but there’s definite progress because it’s in a fond, despairing way this time rather than a ‘this woman is a lost cause’ way. ‘What’s your story, anyway? You have all these stories for every item in your shop, but what about your own?’
‘I’m the one thing in my shop that doesn’t have a story.’ I sound too abrupt because the thought of sharing it makes a prickly feeling break out across my skin. I’d rather make up a thousand stories than talk about my own, even once.
‘I find thatveryhard to believe.’ His blue eyes are intense and my face has heated up, but it’s impossible to look away even though I find myself squirming under his watchful gaze, and I’m strangely tempted to spill out my entire life story in one cringeworthy fell swoop, despite my usual misgivings. If no one ever sees behind the bright and sunny mask, no one ever asks, and I’ve always preferred it that way. ‘How long have you been in the curiosity shop business?’
‘My dad opened The Mermaid’s Treasure Trove nearly thirty years ago,’ I tell him. ‘He was one of the first businesses on Ever After Street. I’ve helped him out since I was really young. I lived away for a while with an ex, did a mind-numbingly boring corporate job that paid the bills and crushed my soul, and when the relationship ended, I came back home.’
‘And your dad, he…?’
‘Died, a couple of years ago now,’ I finish the leading question for him. ‘I took over while he was ill, and then the shop became mine when he passed.’
‘I’m sorry.’ His fingers twitch where his hand is resting on the table, and I wonder if he had to stop himself reaching out to touch my hand like I’ve had to do a couple of times so far today too. ‘Wait, so the mermaid theme was your dad’s doing? Not just your whimsical touch?’
‘No, that was him. My mum loved mermaids and it was in her honour.’ His questions have caught me off-guard because I wasn’t expecting him to ask anything about me. He thinks I’m a younger, battier version of Auntie Wainwright fromLast of the Summer Wine, I’m sure he’s not really interested in my shop’s origins and my parents’ backstory.
