‘Honey,’ Sofia says, ‘I don’t know who’s been telling you lies about the ‘American Dream’, but it’s been dead a long time.’
Lexi knows this, of course. She knows there’s no such thing as a level playing field. But that’s not, in this moment, the point. She crosses her arms and wrinkles her brow like a stroppy teenager. At work, she has to be responsible. She has to be people’s boss. She has to make sure she can pay them, make sure they feel appreciated, make sure they are given tasks where they can thrive. But when she comes to karaoke with her friends, she gets to act her age. Or, possibly, significantly less than her age. It’s a welcome release valve. Sometimes she thinks she might entirely lose the plot without it.
‘Here,’ Catherine says, throwing the folder of song choices at Lexi, open to the page featuring Gnash’s ‘I hate u, I love u’.
Lexi reads through the lyrics and shakes her head. ‘It’s too sad. And besides, this song implies he’s got someone else, and as far as I know he hasn’t.’
‘You want us to find a song that matches your exact situation?’ Erin asks, in a tone of voice that suggests that is very unreasonable. She tends to use that tone with Lexi a lot, especially when Lexi is two drinks in. ‘Rival business owner, inconveniently attractive, very annoying,You’ve Got Mailstyle?’
‘Exactly,’ Lexi says, satisfied.
‘Wait,’ Imani says. ‘Wearetalking about Sam Dickens, right? The Sam Dickens with the ruthless businessman of a father? The one who swallows up smaller companies and puts others out of business?’
‘Well,’ Lexi says. ‘Yes. I’ve heard that too. But you can’t hold people responsible for who their parents are.’
‘Maybe.’ Imani’s tone of voice suggests there’s nomaybeabout it. That in fact she definitely disagrees. ‘But I also heard he’s making his way around town breaking hearts left and right. Stay clear of him, girl. You’re better than that.’
‘Yeah,’ Sofia agrees. ‘He ghosted my roommate. And her coworker, too.’
Lexi didn’t know this about Sam, but through the fog of her now-third drink (don’t judge, she wouldn’t be such a lightweight if she weren’t so tired from workingall the time), it somehow doesn’t surprise her. ‘You’re probably right.’
Sofia looks at Imani and Imani looks at Erin and Erin looks at Catherine and Catherine looks at Sofia. They wait. They all know abutis coming.
‘But that’s the genius of the plan.’ Lexi is shaking her drink again, and it’s splashing everywhere. Erin gently removes it from her fingers. ‘I’m not going to fall in love with him. He’s going to fall in love withme. Which will throw him off his game. And enable me to get the upper hand back in the bookshop wars.’
‘Umm—’ Imani begins.
Catherine cuts her off. ‘There seem to be multiple problems with this plan.’
‘Like what?’
‘Well, for a start, it’s not super ethical.’
‘He’s done plenty of not-exactly-ethical things in the bookshop wars.’
‘Two wrongs—’ Sofia starts.
‘Multiple wrongs, actually,’ Lexi corrects her.
‘And then there’s the small matter of your heart,’ Erin says. ‘How are you going to make sure thatyou’renot the one who’s distracted and thrown off her game? How are you going to protect your heart from getting broken?’
‘Because I’m going into it with my eyes wide open. My guard will be up the whole time. Besides, he might be good-looking, but he’s a terrible human. That ought to be enough to prevent any shenanigans.’
Lexi’s friends exchange looks. They are, for once, seemingly rendered speechless. ‘Fine,’ Lexi says, before they get another chance to talk her out of her flawless plan. ‘I’ll sing “I hate u, I love u” if that’s what everyone really wants.’
It feels to Lexi like a very long wait until she gets the catharsis of belting out the lyrics. Love and hate: you wouldn’t think it would be so hard to tell the difference between them. You wouldn’t think they could coexist so easily. But the more she sings, the more she wonders how much sheactuallyhates Sam. Whether in fact the hatred shethinksshe feels is really envy at his business sense and success. The unfairness of his good looks is another question entirely.
Chapter Nine
Spring in DC is delightful. There’s the cherry blossoms, of course, but also: say what you like about the kind of people who can afford to live near the Capitol, but they know how to garden. Lexi tries to stop and look, and sometimes takes an Instagram-worthy photo or two but, more often, a mind picture to carry her through the day. On her way to work, there’s this one tree with a branch that sticks out beyond the garden it’s planted in, and for the couple of weeks that it’s in bloom, she likes to pause and breathe in its sweet scent. Sometimes, if she’s preoccupied and she rushes past without remembering, she makes herself go back and do it. It’s so ephemeral, and one day she’ll walk past the tree and the blossom will be gone. So she wants to make the most of it while she can.
In London, spring is different, a different set of flowers at slightly different times, grey skies, a lot more rain, and if you really want to wear skirts, you’d better pair them with tights. Here in DC in mid-March, the clocks have already gone back to allow for lighter evenings, and it’s almost time for regular leg shaving. Few things make Lexi happier than the start of Birkenstock season and her soft, bare legs exposed to the sunshine.
Few things, that is except soft, bare legs exposed to the sunshine and a latte in her hand from Peregrine. Her number-one piece of advice for people who want tips for opening a bookstore is this: be near good coffee. (And, ideally, also near a bar with a great happy hour, because tipsy customers are among the best customers: the most fun, the most open-minded. A bookworm’s resolve to read what they have at home before buying anything new is flimsy at the best of times; give them a margarita, and they’ve forgotten they ever made that particular resolution. They’ll also let you talk them into trying a new genre, or a book that’s just beyond their comfort zone– a love story without a guaranteed happy ending or a memoir by a politician they don’t know much about. And sometimes, they’ll drag their Happy Hour friend into the shop with them, a friend who says they’re not much of a reader, but Lexi putsThe Idea of Youin their hand and the next week they’re back for recommendations, hooked for life, exclaiming: ‘I didn’t know books could do this!’
They know Lexi well in Peregrine; the baristas know to start making her a latte as soon as they see her out of the corner of their eye. You can’t put a price on that, especially given that she is normally running late. Not because she’s lazy, but because she always thinks she can get more done in any given amount of time than she actually can. She forgets to factor in things like a two-minute chat to with Erin on the way out of the door, or getting halfway down 2ndStreet before she remembers she needs to turn around and go back to smell the blossom.
Today, though, Lexi doesn’t just grab her coffee from the bar where it is waiting for her and immediately run. Today, she lingers, pretending to be in the midst of an existential crisis about how many packets of sugar she wants (actual answer: none). What she’s actually interested in is the table at the very back, and the people sitting at it that she clocked as soon as she came in: a pretty blonde delicately wiping her eyes with the edge of her sleeve, and opposite her, the back of a head that Lexi recognises all too well. They’re speaking too quietly for Lexi to hear over the gurgles of the coffee machine and the customers placing their orders. What’s happening is pretty obvious, but she can’t help being nosy: she’d like the details. She’d like to know how it factors into her plan.
