‘Well, that’s nice.’
Thankfully, Greg is heading for the wine table, so he doesn’t pause for too long. If Lexi doesn’t know what’s going on in her own heart, how can she playfully banter with a stranger about it?
Lexi casts her eye around the shop to find someone to chat with, someone she knows a little and won’t have to do the worst of small talk with. She notices little touches as she looks around. It’s less square, with fewer rough edges and parallel lines. Maybe it’s the dim lighting; maybe it’s the wine; maybe she’s feeling more charitable than usual, but it seems a little friendlier, a little more inviting. She’s feeling all kinds of ways about that: friendly and inviting isherbrand after all. But she also believes it should be the brand of all bookshops, so she has to award Sam a few brownie points for that.
She blinks to attention; a wine bottle is being waved in her face.
‘Refill?’
She’s somehow managed to drink most of her glass in the few minutes she’s been standing here. She must be more nervous than she realised. So Lexi nods, and remembers her manners and says, ‘Please,’ and forces herself to make eye contact with the person brandishing the wine: Amanda.
‘Thank you,’ she forces out, and brings out her customer-service smile.
‘You’re welcome,’ she says, with the unnerving, unfailing politeness of Americans.
‘So what do you think of our little wine bar idea?’
Our.Our idea. Suddenly it all becomes sickeningly clear. The hard turn into the trendier genres; what Lexi now recognises as the feminine touches; the idea of a soft launch like this, fairy lights and branded napkins, free tote bags and piles of free review copies. Amanda’s becoming part of the shop, part of Sam’s life. And she’s very clearly ensuring Lexi knows it.
She swallows. ‘I think it’s genius. And it looks great in here.’
Amanda smiles, pleased with herself. ‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘We think so.’
We.
Having made her point, Amanda is circulating now, making friends as only the bearer of top-up wine can, making sure everyone knows her face and acknowledges that she’s part of this too.
Lexi finds herself alone again, wondering whether to down her wine and slip out unnoticed or find someone else to talk to. Across the room, Sam is chatting to PolinaBoskova, the DC Instagram Queen of news and events, and he makes eye contact with Lexi and nods slightly, as if to say, again,Join us? She’s thankful for his thoughtfulness, that he’s seen her alone and wanted her to feel welcome, and not like an awkward spare part.
‘You know each other, right?’ Sam says.
‘I’m not sure we’ve met in person,’ Lexi tells Polina, ‘but of course I follow you on Instagram. Always so impressed by the work you put in and how much you’ve got your ear to the ground for everything that’s happening in this town.’
‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘And, of course, you’re Lexi Austen of Pemberley Books.’ After all these years, it still gives her a little shiver of pleasure to be referred to that way. ‘I love your shop.’
‘Thank you.’
These may be bland pleasantries, but they’re bland pleasantries that mean the world.
‘Not tempted to copy the wine idea?’ she asks. Possibly innocently, possibly not.
‘Don’t you dare,’ Sam says, through what could be a cheeky grin or could be bared teeth.
Lexi laughs nervously. ‘That’s me told,’ she says in Polina’s direction, wriggling her eyebrows in aso isn’t this all jolly good funkind of way.
‘Do I detect some friendly rivalry?’
There’s something bloodhound-like about Polina’s demeanour, which puts Lexi on her guard. ‘It’s inevitable,’ she says. ‘What with us being so close.’
Sam coughs, and she cringes inwardly.
‘Geographically!’ she adds a bit too quickly, a bit too emphatically.
‘Ah, yes. It must be weird having another shop that sells new books on your doorstep.’
Lexi can’t help wondering if Polina is trying to stir up trouble– a little argument to write or gossip about. Or does she really have no idea she’s pushing all their buttons?
‘We have slightly different emphases, slightly different markets,’ Sam says. ‘And besides, we each draw readers to the other, which can only help us both.’
