The idea of a long time feels both scary and enjoyable. A long time of coming here, into this flat, being taught by Sam. She forgets, when she’s in this room, that they’re mortal enemies. Sam seems to forget it, too. His tone is gentler, kinder, more patient, even if he can’t resist the odd acerbic dig.
‘All right,’ he says. ‘So notes can last different amounts of time, right?’
Lexi nods. That much, even her beginner’s brain can comprehend.
Sam grabs a book from the top of the piano. He opens it, bends back the spine. ‘It has to lie flat,’ he says, by way of explanation. He can guess how Lexi feels about bent spines. And then, unexpectedly: ‘Sorry.’ Just as unexpectedly, she finds herself forgiving him.
He points to a note on the page. ‘See that there? That’s what we call a quarter note. Though I think your people call it a crotchet, for reasons unknown to anyone else.’
‘You know,’ she says, ‘none of this makes a lot of sense. We start with a C, not an A. And we start with a quarter note, not a whole note. This must be killing you, with your love of logic.’
Sam frowns. ‘It has its own internal logic.’
‘Okay.’
Telling Sam that something he loves lacks logic is obviously sensitive. Lexi has touched a nerve. But like the pro he is, he rises above it. And she has to admit, he’s good at this teaching lark. Things make sense the way he explains them.
By the end of the first lessons, Lexi has played an entire line of music, which feels like a minor victory.
‘Thank you,’ she tells him. ‘I feel more accomplished already.’
‘You’re welcome.’ Sam looks at Lexi full in the face, and she forces herself to hold his gaze. ‘I hope spending half an hour with me wasn’t too unbearable.’
‘No,’ she tells him, surprising herself a little too. ‘Not at all. It was... nice. You’re a good teacher.’
Sam nods, like he already knew this, but it’s nice to be told nonetheless. ‘Thank you.’
‘Ever considered doing this full-time instead of running a bookstore on Capitol Hill just metres away from mine?’
‘Get out,’ he says, but he’s smiling. And Lexi finds that she is too.
Chapter Seventeen
Nothing makes Lexi feel as good as being in the bookshop with her staff and her customers. It’s the best therapy. Even tucked away in her office, away from the shop floor, there are memories. ANevertheless She Persistedcross-stitch that Erin made for her unironically when she officially signed the deeds to the bookshop, which in 2020 seemed to mock her but then gave her the strength and determination to keep fighting when it seemed impossible to even imagine survival. A photo of her grandmother smiling at her, reminding her of good times together in the shop and of her full confidence in Lexi, even when Lexi doesn’t feel like she deserves it.
And a few footsteps from the office, a little girl around nine or ten is curled up on the bookshop sofa, reading. Lexi can’t quite tell what– but she’s transported back to her own childhood– to the safety of books after Erin left and she found herself often alone, which was preferable to being with so-called friends who’d make fun of her red hair and mock her with their terrible atempts at American accents when she came back from her summers in DC with a slight twang and the odd change in her vocabulary. The bookshop is her safe place, and she loves that it’s a safe place for others too.
Any thoughts on Independent Bookstore Day?
The text from Sam lights up Lexi’s phone. She’s ordered balloons and extra chalk pens to decorate the board outside. She’s booked in the decorators to give the mural outside a fresh lick of paint. She’s dug out notes from previous years and looked through what now feel like tired old ideas. But otherwise, all she really had are endless pieces of paper with IBD 2024 written at the top, and meaningless doodles below.
Lots of thoughts,she types back.
Cool. Want to meet about it? Maybe we’ll have a stationary meeting this time. Less dangerous.
Lol, she types, with an eyeroll emoji, but her actual face is smiling.
Lexi is two minutes late to Peregrine, and Sam is already seated with two lattes when she gets there, at the back of the coffee shop under the oversized old map of DC. She sort of loves that Sam knows her order and pre-empted it. He notices, and he remembers. This is a good sign for his levels of smittenness, and therefore of distraction.
‘Let’s hope none of my regulars see me,’ she says, by way of a greeting. ‘They’ll wonder what competing bookstore owners have to talk about.’
‘I think most people think that all booksellers are friends,’ he says. He takes a sip of his latte and runs his tongue slowly across his top lip to catch the stray foam. And, presumably, to get her attention. She forces herself to look away.
‘Poor deluded customers,’ she says, laughing.
‘Indeed.’
‘So,’ Sam says. ‘Have you had a moment to think beyond balloons?’
