One Chapter Ends

Chapter Nine

love is happiness

told through kisses

and words left unsaid

through wistful eyes

From: natashadean@gmail.com.au

To: hazelmb@icloud.com.au

Subject: Re: Fwd.: OPEN DAY – UNTITLED THE BOOKSTORE COOMERA

Hey, Hazel,

That sounds amazing! I am so proud of you! I always knew you could do it.

Scrabble club, huh? I hope you're kicking all their asses.

What's this mysterious project you're being so cagey about? And the person you're doing it for? I need details!!

I went on a date with a guy from work the other night, one of Lisa's friends. Sam. Went to a movie, then dinner. Unoriginal, I know. He's cute, a nice guy, pretty funny, but not sure if there's a spark there. Lisa set us up, can you believe it? I feel like I'm in an episode of The Bachelorette.

Any guys on the horizon for you? ;)

Love,

Nat xx

~

Hazel sat behind the front desk in a singlet and shorts, her feet bare. She supposed it wasn't a very professional outfit, but she didn't care. Every single other person she'd seen walk past or into the store was wearing the exact same thing. It had been thirty-eight degrees at 7 a.m. – utterly ridiculous.

Thinking about the heat, she leaned over to check the weather app on her phone, pausing her typing for a moment. When she saw the temperature, her jaw dropped open. "Forty fucking degrees," she muttered, incredulously. "At eleven in the morning. You have got to be kidding me."

She leant back to peer up at the A/C. It was practically pulling a muscle it was working so hard to combat the humidity.

"What do you think, Char?" she called, squinting at the remote next to her. "Should we turn up the fan on the air-con?"

Charlotte nodded from the window, where she was busy sticking the OPEN DAY advertisement to the inside of the glass. Her hair was pulled up in a messy bun, but it was so heavy that half of it was hanging on her neck, sticking there like a hot flannel. "Definitely. It's disgusting today."

"Yup." Hazel picked up the remote and changed the fan speed from medium to high. In about five minutes, the inside of the bookstore felt like Antarctica.

Sighing in relief, both girls turned back to what they were doing. Hazel cracked her knuckles and continued typing out Brian's first recording. She already had about sixty pages of just his childhood and teenage years, including anecdotes she'd added into her notes app when they'd talked over Gogglebox. She was actually really enjoying it – delving into someone else's life was a great distraction from the hot mess that was her own.

Not to mention, transcribing the notes was also distracting her from her other problems, such as bills and Theo.

The piles of bills had started arriving the other day. Air-conditioner, electricity, Internet. Those three were the biggest. It was almost Halloween, which meant that the open day was not far off. Thank God the majority of the bills weren't due until the end of November, but still. Every time Hazel saw them, even out of the corner of her eye, she felt a cold sweat break out on the back of her neck and the question pop into her head: What if the open day doesn't work?