A Likely Story

1. freshly bound

The shop stood silently in the cool Sunday morning air, and I saw that two nails had come out of the sign that read “A Likely Story”. As a result the top half was leaning precariously over the ledge above the entrance. The card on the door said CLOSED, but I remembered what my mother had told me and pushed it open.

As I walked in, the smell of old pages and new pages and freshly polished wood hit me in the face almost as effectively as a metal bar, and I found that I actually had to stop for a second and desperately try to adjust. It wasn't unpleasant, far from it; it had just dragged with it a feeling of nostalgia so intense it made me want to claw back the past with my fingernails.

But I hadn't wanted to do that for a while, and I certainly wasn't going to start up again now. 

I pushed open the door, the bell tinkling prettily above my head, and found myself in a room where the massive front desk dominated almost the whole space. There was no other furniture.

“Who's that?” a voice that somehow had a wrinkled quality to it like old socks suddenly came drifting down the tiny staircase to my left. “We're not open on Sundays!” it added.

“I'm Lula,” I called back hesitantly. “Evie's daughter?”

There was a pause, as if the person was trying to remember exactly who on earth Evie was, and then there was a gasp. “Of course; Evie! I'll be right down!” There were several thumps made in quick succession of each other, and a small woman who looked almost as wrinkled as her voice came thundering down the steps at a speed that seemed frankly impossible for the age that she looked. Her mostly grey hair (containing streaks of brown that were few and far between) was held in a large tortoiseshell clip, and she was dressed in a massive maroon cardigan with what appeared to be a yellow skirt underneath. She smiled and for a bizarre moment her face seemed to have turned into one massive crease.

Then it smoothed out, and she spoke. “Forgive me for not remembering! It's just that I met your mum two years ago, at a book signing by Caroline Clarke held here,” she made room for a proud smile, and looked at me as if she expected me to congratulate her or something.

“Yeah, she's mum's favourite author,” I said blankly. I'd never read any of her books, but I'd seen some of the covers, and they all had dead people on the front with menacing titles like “You're Next.” My mum the crime junkie. 

The woman looked unimpressed at my contribution, and then continued, “Well, I hadn't seen her since, and then she phoned me up last week and asked if you could come here and help out! So I hope you'll understand my surprise!”

“Don't worry about it,” I said. “So, should I get working?” I was hoping to get out as quickly as I could. I definitely did not want to spend my summer shelving books in a musty old shop, and Katie had texted as I'd walked over, (my house was a ten minute walk away from the shop- excruciatingly close) wanting to do our usual meetup in the park with Luke and Matt. I was fully aware of what that would inevitably lead to, but anything was better than this. The only thing that kept me here was the knowledge that I'd have money in my pocket when I left.

She looked a little surprised at my abruptness, but nodded amiably. “Just go up that flight of stairs,” she said, pointing to the stairs she had descended from. As I got to the fifth step, I came to the realisation that it was a spiral staircase and thought briefly about how cool that was.

I'd always wanted a spiral staircase to my room; I felt safer with them somehow. It made me think of princesses safely in their towers, where nothing could get at them. The climb seemed to go on for longer than I'd expected, and I hated the long sleeved shirt I'd put on that morning for what felt like the hundredth time that day. How did a woman her age walk up these every day? I realised I hadn't asked her name, and felt kind of bad.