Ash blinked and turned back to Arthur. “Thanks for helping me out.”
“No worries. I guessed you might not want your friend to know you were reading it.”
“Oh…he’s not my friend,” Ash stuttered. “I mean, we’re in the same class, but I don’t know him very well. I didn’t even realize he knew my name…” He trailed off, his cheeks flushed as he stared at his feet.
“He seems like a nice young man,” Arthur said gently.
Ash’s head snapped up, his eyes wide again. “Oh no, it’s not—”
“It’s all right, Ash.” Arthur smiled to try and reassure the boy he understood.
There was a moment of awkward silence and then Ash’s shoulders sunk as he let out a long, forlorn sigh. “Was I that obvious?”
Arthur couldn’t help but chuckle. “No, of course not.”
“I just freeze every time I see him. It’s so embarrassing, it’s like I forget how to speak. And Dan is so confident. You should hear him in English class, he always has such smart things to say about every book.”
Suddenly, Arthur understood something that had been bothering him. “That’s why you come to book club, isn’t it?”
Ash stared at his feet again. “I just wanted to learn how to talk about books so maybe I wouldn’t look like such a dick in front of Dan. But it’s no use, I’m just as useless there as I am in class.”
“I can help if you want?”
Ash’s head jolted up. “You?”
“I know I might look and sound like an old farmer—well, to be fair, I am one—but I’ve spent decades listening to my Esi talk about books. So I think a little bit of her knowledge must have rubbed off on me over the years.”
Ash chewed his fingernail, visibly weighing the offer up.
“It can be our secret, if you’re worried about anyone knowing,” Arthur added.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t mind?”
“ ’Course not or I wouldn’t have offered. What are you reading in class at the moment?”
“We’re doingMuch Ado About Nothingnext,” Ash said, with all the enthusiasm of a criminal about to face the gallows.
“That’s by Shakespeare, isn’t it? I’ll be honest, I’ve not read muchof his, but I’ll take a look and see what I can come up with. How about we meet at the community center on Tuesday?”
“Next week is half term so that would be great, thank you!” The boy grinned and Arthur felt a small, unexpected swell of pride.
“Grand. And don’t worry, I promise I won’t tell a soul.”
Chapter Eleven
Nova
There were many ways Nova would have liked to spend her Saturday morning: lying in bed reading, going house-hunting with Craig, or for a coastal walk and a pub lunch with Lauren and Sam. And yet instead, here she was, standing in Blushing Brides dress shop in Port Gowan, being poked, prodded and squeezed by two bickering women.
“It’s too loose here. We need to tighten the corset,” Pamela said, pinching a piece of fabric and causing Nova to gasp as the remaining air was squeezed out of her lungs.
“If we go any tighter then Nova might be too uncomfortable on her big day,” said the dress fitter.
“It’s not about being comfortable, it’s about looking beautiful,” Pamela snapped. “We want the corset to really show off Nova’s lovely curvy figure.”
“If we take in any more fabric then it might disrupt the shape of the bodice. Plus, I don’t have time to resew all the crystals before next Saturday. What if…”
Nova allowed the conversation to wash over her. It wasn’t that she didn’t care what she looked like on her wedding day. It was just that,despite her love of clothes, she wasn’t someone who’d grown up dreaming about her wedding dress. To be honest, she’d always been ambivalent about the whole marriage thing, and had only said yes to Craig’s proposal because she knew it was important to him. Her initial plan had been to buy something colorful and fabulous from a vintage shop, but Pamela had been adamant that Nova would regret that decision.Your wedding is the one day in your life when you get to look like a fairy-tale princess, her future mother-in-law had insisted.Trust me, you don’t want to be wearing some old secondhand thing on your wedding day; you want to look and feel a million dollars.After many attempts to argue her case, Nova had decided it wasn’t a battle worth fighting, although she’d drawn the line at wearing a veil.
