“I’m not leaving until you tell me why you won’t sell any of these authors,” I said. “Is it because they’re women?”
“I stock plenty of female authors. I also sell books by trans and nonbinary authors, in case you were worrying about that too.”
“Then what, you only sell tomes that get reviewed inThe Sunday Times? Action series with twenty-five books and still no end in sight? Nothing with pastel colors on the cover?”
“This is getting ridiculous,” he said. “Look, the rain has stopped now, so you can safely go on your way without exposing yourself to anyone else.”
I should probably have left at this point—thrown out an excellent, scathing one-liner and marched out of the shop with what was left of my dignity intact. But there was something about this man and his stubborn, sarcastic arrogance that made me open my mouth again.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
We stared at each other for way longer than was comfortable, our eyes locked in mutual irritation. He was the first to look away.
“Fine, if you really want to know…I hate romance novels.”
“What?” It was such a ridiculous statement that the word exploded out of me in a chicken-like squawk. “How can you hate an entire genre of books?”
“Quite easily. And given I own this shop, I get to choose what I sell and what I don’t.”
“That is the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard,” I said. “Like, I really hate cheese, but I work in a café and I know that lots of other people like cheese, so I still serve it to them. That’s how a business works.”
“You hate cheese?”
“It is literally sour, curdled milk and not fit for human consumption.”
There it was again, that hint of a stifled smile. Was he laughing at me? I felt a flash of anger.
“Do you hate women, is that it? Because it’s kind of a bad look to slag off a genre whose readership is 80 percent female.”
“I definitely don’t hate women.” His eyes were fixed on my face, and I saw his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed.
“OK, well, if this is some absurd misconception that romance novels are ‘badly written,’ then let me tell you that is total bullshit. And just because they usually have a happy ending doesn’t mean they’re any less valid than your boring, macho ‘men’s’ fiction.”
I realized that by this point, my voice was several decibels louder than it needed to be, and I was definitely overusing the fingers-as-inverted-commas hand sign, but I didn’t care. This guy was belligerent, misogynistic, and starting to really piss me off.
“I’m not saying they don’t have literary value,” he said. “All I’m saying is that I don’t have to stock them in my shop.”
“But why are you—”
“Oh my God!” he interrupted, running a hand roughly through his hair. “OK,fine. I hate romance novels because they’re toxic. They sell readers—predominantly women, as you say—completely unrealistic ideas of what love should be like. In romance novels, the enemy becomes the lover, the baddie gets their comeuppance, and the girl always gets the guy—or the girl, if she’s that way inclined. But that’s not how life works. Enemies usually stay enemies, baddies continue being dickheads, and people break your fucking heart. So I’m sorry if I hate a genre of literature whose entire premise is to sell readers the lie of the happy-ever-after. There, isthatclear enough for you?”
There was a moment of stunned silence, and all I could hear was our breathing and the distant rumble of buses on St. Martin’s Lane.
“I’m so sorry.”
The man’s eyes swung to me in surprise. “What for?”
“Did she cheat on you? Run off with your best friend? Oh my God, did shedie? That’s awful, you must—”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Clearly someone seriously broke your heart to make you so bitter and twisted, because no ordinary person gets so worked up about fictional books.”
As I said that, I realized I was very much someone who got worked up about fictional books—I once refused to talk to Bianca for a whole week after she accidentally revealed the ending ofOne Dayto me—but there was no way I was going to admit that to this jerk.
“I’m not getting worked up, and no one broke my heart,” he said, although his deepening scowl suggested otherwise. “You told me you wouldn’t leave until I explained why I hate romance novels. I have now told you, so could you please get the hell out of my shop?”
He turned away to carry on reshelving books, but I stayed where I was, unwilling to admit defeat. And that’s when I saw it. On the top shelf of the nearest bookcase, misfiled between Paulo Coelho and J. M. Coetzee, was the spine of a book I knew very well. I stood on my tiptoes and pulled it out, waving it in the air like it was the World Cup trophy.
