The Little Bookshop On the Seine (24 page)

“Not from where I’m sitting.” I indicated the files I’d been poring over.

He scraped a hand through his hair. “Ah. The paperwork. A never-ending reel of hopelessness. The figures are down.”

I sucked in a breath. “Yes. How did you–”

“The crowds haven’t been as thick as you might imagine. There are new stores popping up all the time – they don’t have the heritage this place does, but they decorate them to look like they’ve been there forever, and how’s a hapless tourist to know the difference?”

A groan escaped me. “But I’m responsible, right? At the end of the day, sales are dropping while I’m here. What can I do to fix it?” I wanted things to go back to how they were with Sophie, our relaxed chats about bookshop life, and gossip about the latest novels we’d loved. Not the curt, abrupt, crushing anxiety-riddled calls of late.

He gazed outside, his dark eyes reflecting the view of the Seine. “If it helps, it’s not you, Sarah. The shop has been on a downward spiral for a while. Sophie can’t let go of the reins – something that always holds her back. Her father and her grandfather did everything themselves, until the day they died, so I think she feels she has to follow in their footsteps. But as you can see, it’s too busy for one person to handle everything. Mistakes are being made because of it. And all because she refuses to change.”

I could understand Sophie’s links with her past, and that she wanted to uphold tradition, but it wasn’t working. A generation or two ago, they wouldn’t have had the crowds they did today.

I let out a long sigh. “Well, what can we do, TJ? Surely between us we can come up with something?”

“Sure. Let’s go for a walk.”

Paris under the cover of darkness was almost eerie in an ancient gothic way. Even the apartments looked like they were slumbering, with their shutters like eyelashes – closed against the morning chill.

“OK,” he said. “Firstly, author readings. Can you imagine? In spring we’d get hundreds of people sitting by the Left Bank. This time of year, we can squirrel them into the piano room by a roaring fire and a glass of mulled wine. It’s not only about sales, it’s about supporting the reading and writing community. Giving people the opportunity to be involved with the shop, become a part of it.”

“That would be so much fun.” I said nodding, starting to see his ideas take shape and finally feeling like we were getting somewhere. “It’s easy enough to make flyers. Do a Facebook event? But which authors could we approach?”

His breath blew out in front like fog in the bitterly cold morning. “Oh, I know plenty of authors, lots of poets too. That’s the easy part.”

“OK, great. What else?”

“A book club,” he continued, his face animated, his hands a blur as he gesticulated. “A revolving club, full of locals, tourists, anyone who wants to discuss the novel whether they’re transients or not. True bibliophiles always buy books, and that’s what we need. Sophie does turn over a tidy profit usually, but the upkeep on the building is sky high. This summer the entire top floor had to be rewired. Walls crumbled, it all had to be replaced. Add into that wages, theft, and dead books, it makes for some tight months.”

I groaned, worried for my friend. I’d seen invoices for plumbing work, and electricians, plasterers, and building surveyors, to make sure the place wouldn’t tumble down around our ears. I’d had to call a fair few myself, when disaster struck – pipes bursting, electrics shorting. “OK, a book club. What else?”

“Merchandising. Bookmarks, book bags, and gift packs. Everyone wants to take a piece of Paris home, why not a collection of nostalgia from Once Upon a Time? There are so many old photographs of the shop, each marking some point in its rich history. We could print them on postcards. There’s the correspondence that goes all the way back to the twenties. It should be catalogued, made into a book. There’s so much history and it’s all locked away in a cupboard.”

“Great idea, TJ.” I could imagine little book bundles, and tote bags filled with postcards, and vintage looking posters. Though the correspondence was personal, and I thought an ambitious project like that would need to involve Sophie – it was her heritage, and I could only imagine how special it was to her.

I continued: “The correspondence will have to wait until Sophie gets back, but let’s do the other things you suggested.” Maybe this would galvanize the staff to help more, be proud of the heritage of the shop, and not be mere travelers in the midst, who took more than they gave.

“Sure,” TJ said as we walked back towards the shop, the sun beginning to peak blearily through the gray skies. “Thanks for letting me have a moment to shine. Words, and the celebration of them, are all that matter to me.” He scratched his chin. “I want to look back on my time here and know I added something to the history. We all leave our mark, our footfalls bow the wooden steps, our fingertips leave oil on the pages, we’re woven into the tapestry of the place, but I don’t just want to mar it, I want to make it better.”

There was something unique about Once Upon a Time, people fell in love with it, wanted to protect it, cherish it. The love people had for the place, like it had a soul, and was a real and tangible thing. All I had to do was tap into that yearning. That was how I would rouse the staff and turn everything around at the shop. Talking with TJ had spurred me on – I knew what I had to do now and nothing was going to stop me with my new found enthusiasm.

Chapter Seventeen

“Beatrice,” I motioned her over. “This customer would like to see the music books, he’s looking for a particular novel…”

“It’s right through there,” she pointed, and gave the man a cool stare.

I grimaced. “Can you
show
him the way please? Help him
find
the book?”

“Serving,” she said blithely, and went behind the counter. The man, frowning, shook his head and walked out of the shop. Another sale lost. This was the problem. They’d relied too long on the shops popularity. That had worked for a while, but no one helped customers, they just directed them to the right room and hoped for the best.

“Beatrice that just cost us a sale! You weren’t serving, you were stacking shelves!”

She gave me a slow dismissive once-over. “How many sales did we lose when you were prancing around helping that Spanish guy to find the book he wanted?” She glowered at me, I guess because I’d insisted she work the weekend. Now she was doing what she did best – arguing about something ridiculous. I’d reworked the roster so I could have one measly day off, and no one was happy about it, least of all Beatrice. I damn well earned it, balancing the books every evening, running to the bank twice a day because Sophie didn’t trust anyone else with the takings, covering shifts when the staff got a better offer. No more. One day off, and I was taking it.

I knew that’s why she was being difficult but still I bit back at her remark. “I was
helping
him, and that’s what you do when someone asks for a specific book. Did you ever think people other than tourists would shop here, if they had some assistance when they asked for it?” Her attitude towards me was verging on rude, and I was at breaking point with her. “Look, you’ve managed to shirk most weekends. It’s your turn, and that’s that.”

She cocked her head, her red curls twisted tight like coils. “I don’t have to work weekends, Sarah. And you can’t make me. I have other responsibilities. Find someone else.”

I clenched my jaw, wondering what would happen if I pushed her. They’d all taken it in turns to work weekends, except her. “Bad luck Beatrice. Work this weekend, or don’t work here at all. And that’s final.” I stomped off, all at once feeling triumphant I’d said my piece, and hotfooting it away so we didn’t dissolve into an argument. I was in charge, and she would listen, or she would be fired. No more would I play the role of shy, small town, bookworm.

Rain lashed down as I left the shop, leaving Beatrice to pout over working the weekend. Paris was misty – like something out of a ghost story. The stormy weather made me feel like I was the only person outside, my visibility reduced to a few steps ahead because of the thick fog. It sat perfectly with my mood. TJ said Ridge had called when I was in the middle of the row with Beatrice, and I was too fired up to call him back. Anything he said, I’d probably shoot him down. Better I wait until I was calmer.

Each step away, I felt that same lightness take over. I’d never been a walker back home, but here it was my main mode of transport and a way to clear my head. I wound my way to the Luxembourg Garden. The place was empty, no soul brave enough to walk in the heavy downpour. It was a gift, having the huge expanse of garden all to myself. With my hands thrust deep in my pockets, I sloshed along, thinking of all the famous writers, long since dead, who’d walked these very same steps, and picturing the verdant lush gardens in the summertime – people clutching books, their feet resting against the tip of the fountain like I’d seen in so many photographs.

When I came to the fountain, I sat on the cement edge, gazing at the cloudy water. Raindrops fell like kisses on the surface. Taking my e-reader from my bag, I switched it on, having downloaded Ridge’s latest article. It was a story he’d worked on months ago, that had only just been published, about the right for patients with epilepsy to be able to use medicinal cannabis as a way to stop seizures, especially in children who sometimes had hundreds a day. Modern medicine wasn’t working for those kids, but the medicinal cannabis was, yet the Australian government had made it illegal to be administered in the home.

He went into detail about one family’s struggle to make it legal, so their child could get the help it afforded, to curb the damage the seizures caused every day. Without the law changing there was little hope. My heart broke when I read the account of the suffering of their innocent child. Ridge highlighted the difference between the drug cannabis that people smoked, and medical cannabis, two completely different things. Reading the story, I was so damn proud of him. Shining a light on an issue that needed to be told. What he wrote about was important. How could I ask him to veer away from that simply to stay by my side? I could embrace being alone, and enjoy that time. I’d spent most of my life that way, only being dragged out when the girls back home insisted. But once I’d fallen in love with Ridge, that solitude wasn’t so ideal any more. How could I not want him there all the time? He made me laugh, showed me how to love and enjoy every single second of my life. So when the brightness of his attention was gone, I floundered in darkness. But that was a choice. And it could be changed.

I thought about TJ and what he’d said about those who flocked here. Was Paris a beacon for people like me? It certainly seemed like a place where you could reinvent yourself, or even just be yourself, and you’d fit in among the hordes of people here who were all searching for something too.

Pulling out my notebook I made notes about our new plans for the shop. TJ’s ideas had been brilliant and I knew they would work, but we needed more concrete marketing plans. Proper signage made, the staff all kept in the loop. Book recommendations and reviews had helped, we just had to step it up a notch. I wrote down all the ideas that flashed through my mind, there were so many things we could do to turn curious onlookers into customers.

I marked mid-December for the launch of the author events. It would be a great way to draw in more customers – who didn’t love getting a book for Christmas?

A man came sloshing along, catching me unawares. He was dressed in a black slicker and plastic boots. “Bonjour,” he greeted me. “Would you like to see the bees?”

Bees? “Pardon?”

“The hives. The bees are protecting their Queen.
S'il vous plaît
.” He motioned with a gnarly finger to the south of the gardens. His ruddy, lined face and hunched shoulders, made me think of an old weathered farmer. I was intrigued, despite being alone with a stranger who wasn’t making much sense to me. It all struck me as very Parisian. I thought maybe something was lost in translation but I followed him anyway. From a man offering to show me the bees to Anouk only serving customers who had an introduction, the Parisians were certainly an eccentric lot.

My mind whirled as I followed him. We trudged through the wet grass, his breathing labored until we came to a semi-circle of beehives made from what looked like old chests of drawers, with steel pitched roofs on top. I wouldn’t have stumbled on them without the man telling me. Paris had so many marvels, hidden here and there, you just had to know where to look.

“See?” he smiled, his teeth were tobacco stained, and he was missing a molar, which only added to his rugged beekeeper appeal. “They cluster around the Queen in winter, to keep her warm. They live off their own honey, for energy. You come back in the spring time, and take a beekeeping class. I will show you how, and you can try the honey. We must respect the bees.” His expression was solemn. “You see the bee has to fly around, flitter from flower to flower, but he will always come back to his Queen.”

I double blinked.

He has to fly around.

He always comes back.

Chapter Eighteen

The next evening, the shop was strangely quiet. The rain had disappeared and heavy snow fell, sending tourists scuttling back to their hotel rooms, leaving the streets of Paris blanketed in white, and silent. It was like a picture on a postcard – dark flashes of gray and black, with the white snow like hope. I could have stared out the window all day just watching the landscape change.

With the shop door firmly closed against the bracing weather, I tallied the takings discreetly behind the counter. The numbers didn’t match. Again. We were down a hundred Euros. I checked the desk for any handwritten notes, in case someone had borrowed an advance on their wages, but there was nothing. I resisted the urge to bash my head against the wall.

Beatrice wandered over and pulled her jacket from the hook. “I’m leaving,” she said, her voice brusque.

“Wait,” I said, “The takings are down again. Any ideas why?” I asked, hoping that perhaps she’d borrowed some money and forgotten to leave a note.