Book of the Day

One - The Art of Happiness

1—The Art of Happiness

Ben wiped at the condensation on the window for what felt like the millionth time that day. He knew it was his own fault for sitting staring across the street all day instead of actually doing any work but he couldn't tear his eyes away. His constant fear was that if he moved away for as much as a few minutes, just to stack some shelves or serve a customer, then he would miss something important. Or more like someone important.

"Am I going to have to call the police on you?" Hugh, his best friend and colleague, teased. "You do realise how stalkerish this looks?"

"It's not stalking!" Ben defended, quickly moving away from the window guiltily, although he could see where Hugh was coming from. "It's not my fault she's so perfect! Everything she does looks like part of a dance that all links up in this perfect little routine," he sighed, his eyes wandering back to the shop across the street where the object of his affection continued serving her customers with her signature bright smile.

"Why can't you just go and talk to her like a normal person?" Hugh laughed, picking up a box of newly arrived books and carrying it off into the depths of the old bookshop. "Unless she's got telepathic powers, which I grant would be very impressive, she's never even going to know you exist if you keep lusting after her from afar," he called out from behind the back shelf of the shop.

"I'd hardly call it lusting," Ben replied disdainfully, although he could see that Hugh had a point. The trouble was that he'd always been so hopeless when it came to talking to girls, either babbling on about nothing or totally freezing like a rabbit in headlights. Hugh, on the other hand, had never had any such problems, what with his boundless confidence and witty charm, which Ben had been jealous of ever since they met all those years ago.

"You know, you could actually stop perving on the girl across the road and come and help me," Hugh grumbled, just as Ben heard the dull thump of books cascading onto the heavy carpet followed by his friend muttering "shit" under his breath.

This pulled him out of his trance and he got up off his perch at the window to help his friend pick up the array of novels scattered across the floor. It always brought a smile to his face to see the familiar titles of old classics engraved in gold on the rich leather covers of the books they stocked in 'Bright's Bookshop'. He had inherited the shop when his grandfather died two years ago and, as an English graduate stuck in an unhappy banking job, nothing sounded more appealing than casting aside tax forms and exchanging all that for a peaceful life sipping coffee and spreading his love of literature to the people of London. When selecting an assistant for the shop, his old best friend from college and fellow English graduate was the obvious choice -- not to mention that Hugh's eccentric charisma made him an excellent salesman.

"So tell me this," Hugh said, while the two of them carefully replaced the fallen books on the shelf. "What actually is your plan for seducing the girl across the road? Does communication ever come into it or is it more of a silent, one-sided relationship you had in mind?"

"There is no plan," Ben sighed, "I'll probably just keep looking at her through the window for years until one day she'll turn up for work with a wedding ring on and I'll be too late. In fact, I'll probably somehow end up watching her wedding through a window knowing my luck."

"Why can't you just move on and find another girl? I've introduced you to plenty of girls but you're always so closed-minded," Hugh complained.

"That's because the girls you introduce me to are either the ones you used to play polo with called 'Tilsy' or ones who sell modern art on Portobello Road called 'Sapphire'," Ben grumbled, rolling his eyes.

"I'll have you know Tilsy and Sapphire are both very respectable young ladies and you'd be lucky to have either of them," Hugh sniffed.

Hugh was technically the son of a Baron, making him in fact The Honourable Hugo Charles Bonnington in a long line of Hugo Charles Bonningtons, a fact that he frequently liked to remind Ben of. However, he had shed his upper-class image when he went to college and favoured a more rebellious, alternative approach to life. Now, at 25, he seemed to have settled on a balance between the two poles as an eccentric academic with a dress sense that could only be described as something like 'substitute teacher meets John Lennon'. He mixed in an eclectic range of circles in London, as Ben often found himself dining with the landed gentry one night then sitting in a marijuana-filled basement the next, but at least Hugh was never short of surprises.