Thrown (5 page)

‘There are buses. Not like in Boston but there are buses.’

‘Can I catch a bus that will take me from the end of the driveway to the bookshop?’

‘No.’

‘Then we need the car.’

‘You are so lazy, Dell.’

‘Lazy? Or deserving of being pampered?’

‘Lazy.’

‘Just call the hot boy and let him show you how to handle the stick.’

I almost choke on my scrambled eggs. ‘I bet it took you all night to think up that double entendre.’

‘No, it just came to me in a flash of inspiration. There are many more were that came from. How about…’

‘Dell, we are walking into town today no matter what your filthy mind comes up with.’

She looks out of the window and purses her lips in a fake pout.

‘And I’m not calling Stoker,’ I add.

She folds her arms across her chest like a petulant six year old and continues looking out of the window.

I laugh. ‘You really are crazy, you know that?’

‘Takes one to know one.’

‘Well these two crazy girls have a bookshop to open. Promise Books has been closed for more than a week. We don’t want to lose out on business.’

‘Here? In Promise Cove? Where else are they gonna go to buy books, hmm? It probably takes three weeks for an online store to deliver all the way out here. If they want books in this town, you’re it.’

‘Well then we have the demand so let’s open up the supply.’

‘Fine,’ she says, ‘I will walk. But just this one time. Tomorrow you drive, whether you can work the gears or not. I’d rather die in a car crash than collapse from exhaustion. It’s a much quicker way to go.’

I look out of the window at the bright day. I’m actually looking forward to the walk. The house has a lot of memories from my childhood drifting around within its walls like ghosts. They’re happy memories of my mom and Aunt B but the fact that both of them are gone now puts a tinge of sadness on everything I think about. Maybe some fresh air will clear my head. And I know that despite her protests, Dell wants to see Promise Cove and the bookshop too.

‘I need a half hour to do my makeup,’ she reminds me. ‘And remember, in that half hour some Promise Cove floozy will probably make a move on poor Stoker and he’ll be helpless before her charms.’

She makes the “call me” sign with her thumb and pinky and mouths,

‘Call him.’

I pick up the apron and throw it at her but she’s already scooted out of the kitchen and the apron his the cupboards behind where she was standing.

‘Missed,’ she says and I hear her ascend the wooden stairs to her room.

I go to the key hooks in the hallway and take the bookshop key, which has a green vinyl key tag in the shape of a stack of books. Aunt B did like her key tags and chains. I put the key into my pocket and listen to the silence of the house. The only sound is Dell clattering around in her room.

Soon she’ll be gone back to Boston and I’ll be here in this house alone with only the ghosts for company.

*

By the time we reach the bookshop, Dell has stopped complaining about her feet and fallen into a sullen silence. I’m filled with a sense of dread that feels heavy in my stomach. Main Street is busy with locals and people on vacation and as we walk past the stores and pubs toward Promise Books, I can feel they eyes of the locals on us. I know that small towns like this can be very wary of strangers so what must they think of this American girl coming here to run Promise Books? My aunt was well-liked in Promise Cove but she lived here all her life and although I was born here and spent the first five years of my life here, I am a stranger to these people. It reminds me of a scene in a comedy horror movie I saw once where two American brothers go into a village pub in England as as soon as they step through the door everything goes silent and everyone turns to face them. That’s how I feel now, like I’m being scrutinized be everyone. I don’t like it. I don’t like attention at any time and I don’t need it now that I’m worried about my own ability to keep Promise Books running. I have enough to worry about without everyone staring.

The bookshop has a closed sign hanging inside the door and dark green blinds are pulled down behind the windows. It’s just as Aunt B left it the evening she locked up, never knowing that she would be falling from the cliffs to her death that night and wouldn’t be opening up again the next morning.

I push the key into the lock and turn it. A satisfying click comes from the lock and I push the door open, immediately smelling the familiar pulpy smell of the book inside. A bell attached to a leather strap rings as the door opens. Dell follows me inside and I close the door behind her. I feel better now that we’re in here away from the prying eyes but I know the door can’t remain closed. The whole point of the store is that we get customers.

‘Wow, look at this place,’ Dell says, eyeing the stacks and shelves.

‘And it smells great.’

I pull the blind on the main window and it rolls up, letting in a stream of sunlight that reveals the dust motes in the air as well as the interior of the shop. Every wall is packed with books and a six feet tall bookshelf runs down the center of the shop, stuffed with books on both sides. Hand-written labels taped to the shelves denote genre and author names alphabetically. A counter to the left of the door holds a display of bookmarks and the cash register. On the wall behind the counter is a watercolor painting of the bookshop which I’ve never seen before. A swivel seat upholstered in green fabric sits behind the counter and a door at the far end of the space behind the counter leads to a small kitchenette and a bathroom beyond that. I remember Aunt B making a cup of tea for herself and getting juice for me from that kitchenette when we would come to visit from Boston when I was younger.

The last time I was here was a year ago, the day after Mom’s funeral.

Aunt B made us coffee and as we sat drinking it behind the counter, I asked her if I could come live with her. She said she wanted me to but I had to finish school in Boston. Frank had said that was fine and the plan had been that I would come here after finishing.

But at that time I was too depressed to do anything with my life other than commit to the daily routine of going to work and coming home exhausted and spending my free time with Dell. I hardly had the motivation to get up in the morning, much less move to England.

Now I wish I had pulled myself out of that depression and come to live with Aunt B at Promise House. We could have run the bookshop together and I would have spent the last year with her. Maybe she wouldn’t have died if I had been there with her. Or maybe she wouldn’t have gone waking along the cliffs every night if I was here. Maybe she was just as lonely as I was and the nightly walks were something that kept her from going crazy within the walls of Promise House. I was over in Boston drowning in depression and my only living relative was here alone. We could have been good for each other.

Now it’s too late.

She’s gone and there’s just me.

‘How far back does the store go?’ Dell asks, peering toward the back of the shop.

‘There’s more to the place than you can see. There’s a turning at the back there which leads to more rooms and there’s an upstairs too.’

‘Oh my God, this place is huge!’

‘Yeah, it’s like a maze.’

‘And now it’s your maze.’

‘That’s what scares me. How am I supposed to control all this when I can barely control myself?’

‘You’ll be fine, Amy. Plus, you have me for a few more days to help get the place up and running.’

‘I’m going to miss you, Dell.’ I can feel tears welling up in my eyes and I see the same thing happening to Dell.

She sniffs and says, ‘Hey, we have work to do.’

I nod but don’t speak because if I do, my voice will crack and the tears will come and I’ll be a useless mess and so will Dell.

The telephone on the counter rings suddenly, making us both jump.

It’s an old-fashioned phone with a dial and its ringtone isn’t even a ringtone, it’s actual bells inside the plastic casing of the phone.

Dell puts a hand on her chest as if to avoid a heart attack. ‘Our first customer!’ she says.

I pick up the handset and say, ‘Promise Books, how may I help you?’

in an exaggerated business voice. Dell cracks up and tries not to laugh out loud so I can hear the caller.

It’s a young woman voice. ‘Is this Miss Anderson?’

Technically I AM Miss Anderson, although probably not the one she’s calling. ‘Yes, this is she,’ I say. Dell slides down onto her butt and sits on the floor laughing at my performance.

‘It’s the Meow Meow Cattery here, Miss Anderson. Just a courtesy call to remind you that Mr Tibbles is ready to be collected today.’

Mr Tibbles! I forgot about Aunt B’s black cat. I never realized that he wasn’t at the house. How could I forget Mr Tibbles? And what was he doing at a cattery? Had one of Aunt B’s friends put him in there after the accident?

‘I’ll be along to collect him later today,’ I tell the woman, ‘but I don’t have access to my address book at the moment. Could you remind me of your address, please?’ There’s a little metal pail of pens and pencils on the counter and a notepad next to the phone. I write down the address of the Meow Meow Cattery, thank the woman and hang up.

‘What was that about?’ Dell asks.

‘Aunt B’s cat, Mr Tibbles. I forgot all about him. He’s in a cattery.’

‘Cool, so let’s go get him.’

I frown at the address on the notepaper. ‘It’s not going to be that simple. The cattery is in Penzance.’

She raises an eyebrow. ‘That’s miles away.’

‘It’s a half hour drive. I don’t understand. How would Aunt B’s cat end up so far away? There must be places closer to Promise Cove where he could have been taken. And who put him there in the first place? And why is today the day he was scheduled to come back out?’

Dell stands up and looks at me with mock seriousness. ‘There’s only question you need to ask yourself, Nancy Drew.’

‘What’s that?’

‘“What time am I going to call Stoker?”’

‘Dell, no.’

‘You don’t have a choice. You need to get the cat, right? And you need to drive there, right? Then you need Stoker.’

‘There really are buses, you know.’

‘You’re going to take a cat on a bus?’

I sigh. I don’t understand what’s going on but Dell is right. I need to drive. I need Stoker. Maybe I’ll find out more about who put Mr Tibbles in the cattery when I get there but I need to get there first and for that I need the car.

‘What about the bookshop?’

‘I’ll stay here and give you and the hot mechanic some quality time.

Leave it to me.’ She sits on the swivel chair behind the counter and says,

‘Now call him.’

‘He’s probably busy,’ I say as I pull my phone out of my pocket. My hand is shaking as I lay the phone on the counter and dig back in my pocket for Stoker’s card. Why the hell do I feel like a giddy girl calling a boy to ask for a date? He offered to teach me and I’m just taking him up on his offer. Nothing more.

I place the card on the counter and flip it over so his number is facing me. I punch the numbers into my phone and listen to the ringing. I want my hand to stop shaking. This is ridiculous. Luckily, Dell is busy playing with the cash register buttons and hasn’t noticed.

He answers and says, ‘Hello?’

He doesn’t know my number so the caller ID on his phone won’t have told him it’s me and there’s still time to hang up and find another way to get Mr Tibbles from Penzance.

‘Hello?’ he repeats.

‘Stoker,’ I say, clearing my throat, ‘it’s Amy here. Amy Anderson.’

The confidence and playfulness I had when I was on the phone to the Meow Meow Cattery has fled.

‘Hi,’ he says. Does he sound pleased to hear from me? Wary? Was he just being polite when he gave me his number?

‘I have a problem,’ I say. No, don’t tell him you have a problem. Boys don’t like girls with problems! Who cares? I only want him to teach me to drive a stick shift, nothing else.

‘OK,’ he says. Definitely wary.

‘Well it’s not really a problem. I just need to be somewhere today and I need to drive there.’

‘Where?’

‘Penzance.’

‘Cool.’

No, not cool. I don’t want to be doing this. I shouldn’t be bothering him while he’s at work. I can hear noises in the background. Hammering and something that sounds like welding. He has things to do that are way more important than helping me get to Penzance.

He says, ‘How does half past two sound? I can get an hour off.’

‘Two thirty? Yes, that sounds great.’

The noises in the background suddenly fade and it sounds like he’s walked outside the garage so he can hear me better. But he speaks lower, as if he doesn’t want the the other people in the garage to hear him. ‘OK, I’ll be at your house at two thirty and we’ll take the Volvo. Don’t worry, you’ll pick it up in no time.’

‘I’m actually at the bookshop. Could you possibly pick me up here then we can go get the car?’

‘Sure, no problem.’

‘OK, see you then,’ I say and hang up. I exhale a long breath then notice Dell watching me. She’s grinning.

‘Woohoo. A date.’

‘No, a driving lesson.’

She puts on her movie trailer voice. ‘It began with a girl, a boy and a cat. It started as a driving lesson but became so much more.’

I throw the notepad at her but she dodges it, giggling.

‘He’ll be here in a few hours,’ I say, ‘so we have time to get things sorted here.’

‘You’re forgetting the most important thing.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Flip the ‘Closed’ sign over. We are open for business.’

I turn the sign over so it displays ‘OPEN’ to the street and a man comes in immediately, as if he’s been waiting out there for the store to open. He looks like he’s in his mid to late twenties and he has a wide face and short-cropped far hair. His eyes are blue and piercing. He’s wearing black shoes, formal pants and a dark trench coat over a white shirt and powder blue tie. ‘Morning,’ he says with a nod as he walks past us to the stack of detective novels near the back of the shop.

Dell looks at me with wide eyes and a grin that says. ‘We got a customer!’