She heads down to the office, past the shelves of advance review copies begging to be added to the already overwhelming piles of them she has at home. A few of the titles on the spines call out to her.Later, she whispers in their direction.I’m coming back for you.
She’s just gathering herself at her desk, flipping on her computer and bracing herself for the usual onslaught of emails, when someone knocks.
Nobody ever knocks. Lexi’s staff flit in and out with abandon, to feed the cat, or grab a book or run an idea past her, or, if they have been sufficiently trained and they want to earn some brownie points, to bring her a cup of tea. She likes it that way; she never wants to be the hidden-away boss, inaccessible and mysterious and slightly scary. Which is why it’s been worrying her somewhat that Tessa and Hazel seemed to be hiding something from her. She’s worried not just what the thing itself might be, but also about why they felt they couldn’t tell her, and what it says about their relationship with her and about her as a boss.
Lexi closes the door tight only when she really needs to focus and her break in concentration is going to result in disaster, like faulty maths or booking two prominent authors for events on the same night. Her staff know not to bother her then, but otherwise, if the door is ajar, as it is now, they know they can come in whenever.
So a knock is unusual, and she braces herself for more weirdness. The entire day has been unusual so far, starting with a hug, of all things, from Sam, of all people.
‘Come in,’ Lexi says, and she isn’t surprised to see Tessa there.
‘Hi,’ she says, shuffling her weight from one foot to the other. ‘Can I talk to you about something?’
It’s nice to have someone around who is softer about how she phrases things. Americans are more direct than Tessa and Lexi– and than most Brits Lexi knows. They don’task if they can ask a question; they go ahead and ask it. They don’t pad emails with platitudes about hoping you’re well and not worrying about it if it’s too much trouble. It’s a bit jarring; as a Brit, Lexi often feels like she’s being told off. Even emails from friends end with a coldBest, and nobody feels the need to punctuate texts with two kisses, or any kisses at all. Lexi has to admit, though, that directness does have its advantages. There’s a lot less passive-aggressiveness around and at least you usually know where you stand.
‘Of course you can,’ Lexi tells Tessa. ‘Tea?’
‘No, thank you,’ she says, unusually. ‘I’m okay. It’s just a quick thing.’
Pippin stirs in his basket. He’d no doubt like it if Lexi and Tessa kept their voices down so he can proceed with his nap. Like most cats, he assumes that the place where he eats and sleeps is his domain, and the humans are the intruders. Every night, he no doubt thinks to himself:Finally! They’ve got the message and left me to my kingdom. And then, when they all turn up again the next day, he’s grumpy about it. But by lunchtime, when they’ve fed him and he’s readjusted, he’s remembered he likes them, and he allows himself to be snuggled, petted, and occasionally manhandled by an overenthusiastic child.
Tessa starts pulling at the sleeves of her cardigan. She’s nervous. This can’t be good. She’s not resigning, is she? She can’t be. Aside from all her work on social media and marketing, which is worth its weight in e-comm orders, she is one of Lexi’s best booksellers. She makes no secret of the fact that she loves this job.
‘Is everything okay?’ Lexi asks, tentatively.
‘Yes. No. Not really.’ Tessa sighs, composes herself. ‘My landlord is putting up my rent.’
Lexi sees immediately where this is going. ‘Ah.’
‘And I’m trying to make the maths work.’ Lexi notes approvingly theson the end ofmaths. ‘But I’m just not sure that it can.’
Lexi, being British, knows how to read into this indirectness. ‘You need a pay rise.’
‘Ideally, yes.’ Tessa can’t quite meet Lexi’s gaze. ‘And maybe more hours?’
‘More hours can always be arranged.’
There’s always someone on holiday or off sick; there are always extra tasks to be picked up here and there, organising displays, running book clubs, starting a new account on whatever the social mediadu jourhappens to be just in casethisone is the hot new thing, the one that takes off, the one where Pemberley Books goes viral.
‘A pay rise, though... well, I’ve actually been trying to work this out, for all of you. You’ve all worked so hard these last few years.’
Tessa nods and pulls at her sleeves some more. ‘Can I just ask how likely do you think it is, really? It’s just, I’ve been digging into my savings, and there’s almost nothing left.’
Lexi doesn’t want to have to say that all she can afford, if she can afford anything, is an extra fifty cents, or maybe, if she really pushes it, an extra dollar an hour. She doubts that will make much of a dent in Tessa’s overall needs. She wishes, not for the first or fifth or twenty-seventh time, that the publishing industry wasn’t like this, with everyone getting squeezed at every level: booksellers, editors, almost all the authors except for the very lucky ones. Everything, everyone is operating on paper-thin margins, except for the CEOs of the big publishing companies who can pick out pretty much any yacht they want to. It shouldn’t be like this: bookselling is a skill, and one that brings joy to millions of people. It deserves to be recognised as such, not just with nice words, but with actual action. And, let’s be honest, actual dollars.
‘I want to help,’ Lexi says. ‘I don’t want to lose you. Give me a day or two to figure it out, okay?’
Tessa nods again, and swallows hard. Lexi gets the distinct impression that if she attempts to form any words, she’ll cry, and that she’s trying to avoid that at all costs. Pippin opens an eye, like even he’s deciding if he should break his no-snuggles-before-lunchtime rule.
‘I’ll make you some tea,’ Lexi tells her, and this time she’s not giving Tessa the option to decline. ‘Go and take a few minutes in the staffroom if you like.’
She nods again and leaves, and as the tea brews, so does Lexi. It was all going so well before Sam showed up with his stupid green eyes and his stupidly well-thought-out business plan. It’s clear on all the graphs that Lexi’s accountant shows her that growth has massively slowed these last couple of years, and there’s no denying that that’s in part Sam’s fault. You can make all the arguments you want about how more bookshops equals more readers coming to shop in the neighbourhood, but the maths is fairly simple. They’re not going to buy twice as many new books. When it was used books versus new books, that was different: different markets, different needs, different ways of shopping. But if a customer is looking for a copy of the buzzy new hardback, they’re only going to buy it in one of two places now. And the buzzy new hardbacks are often the books with the highest profit margins. Pemberley Books can’t afford to lose half their buzzy new hardback sales to Great Expectations. Not if they want to grow. And not if they want to keep their best staff.
Lexi is furious on Tessa’s behalf because she’s more than deserving of the pay rise she needs, as are all her staff. And she’s furious on her own behalf, because losing booksellers is both sad personally and costly professionally. Experienced booksellers with years of insider knowledge are often better at recommending books, better at convincing customers to leave the shop with five books instead of three. Customers know whose recommendations they gel with, and they often come in especially for that bookseller. All of that is lost when you start again from scratch with a new person. Plus there’s the time and cost involved in training a new member of staff, the inevitable mistakes they’re going to make with the pernickety point-of-sales system.
She’s furious on behalf of everyone in the publishing industry, too, because smart, engaged, passionate readers like Tessa are exactly who they need, who they should be doing their utmost to keep. And she’s furious on behalf of the undervalued, under-the-radar authors she champions. An enthusiastic bookseller can make all the difference to them.
And all of this fury, Lexi heaps on Sam. Is all of it his fault? Maybe not all of it. Lexi can’t very well hold him responsible for the decades-old structural issues. But in this particular instance, sheisholding him responsible. If the takings line on the graph had continued to follow the trajectory it had been on, she could have given everyone a two dollar per hour pay rise this year, and maybe even a mid-year bonus, too. She could have employed a store manager to give herself room to breathe, room to date, room to sleep. Room to actually practise the piano so she can do the recital and win the heart of... the guy she’s currently furious at? (Maybe she hasn’t quite thought this through.)
