Page 43 of Winter Nights at the Bay Bookshop
Lily stood up and brushed some dust from the navy-blue tunic top she was wearing. ‘I’ll go through. Lars, are you okay to finish this off?’
‘Yeah, no problem.’
As she returned to the front of the shop with Cassie, I felt disappointed that our conversation was over, although that was maybe a good thing. The confession could wait until another day, if ever.
It didn’t take me long to finish filling the Bookmas tree. Lily asked me to string some fairy lights around it and directed me to the cupboard where I’d find the stocking fillers for the hooks.
‘You’ve done a brilliant job,’ she said a bit later, her hands clasped round a mug of tea. ‘Thank you.’
‘I enjoyed it.’
We returned to the front of the shop and Lily went round to the other side of the counter to check the computer for emails.
‘Is there anything else you’d like me to do?’ I asked.
‘I’d like more Christmas books in the window ahead of full Christmas next week. How’s your creativity?’
‘On a scale of one to ten, I’d say minus figures.’
She laughed. ‘You designed your own learning portal so you can’t be that bad!’
‘That’s different. It was driven by logic so I found it easy, but I have zero flair for anything else. My house currently has only white walls and I hate them – far too clinical-looking – but I don’t know where to start with colour. I don’t know where to start with furniture either so I’ve barely got any of that. The echoes are so loud, it’s like living in a cave, albeit a very bright one because of those white walls.’
‘Could you consider an interior designer?’
‘I could and I even have a contact but she’ll want to know my taste and, embarrassingly, I don’t know that either. I’ve never had to consider it until now.’
‘I loved picking out colours and designs for the house I bought with my ex. It needed gutting and we had to save up to have everything done so I had loads of time to design the perfect home. I might have gone a bit over the top with mood boards for every room but I got really into it. We were a couple of months away from the fun part – the decorating and furnishing – when Ewan and I split up.’
The name jolted me. ‘You don’t mean Ewan Cottler from school?’
‘You remember him?’
‘Remember him? He was a…’ I stopped myself just in time. He’d obviously meant a lot to Lily and I had no right to tell her what I’d thought of him at school, especially when my own record was hardly unblemished.
‘A pain in the backside?’ she suggested, giving me a gentle smile. ‘A show-off, overly confident, annoying… I thought the same too but when he was assigned to me as my lab partner I got to see another side of him. Something shifted between us and we both felt it but we didn’t act on it because his parents were moving and he was going with them. When I was twenty-four, he returned to Whitsborough Bay because his employer had set up an office here and that was finally our time. Except they decided the two-office thing wasn’t working and they closed it four years later so that was it for us. Ewan hated driving and he hated public transport too so we were a bit stuffed. He went back to Sheffield, we sold the house and I never got to see my beautiful mood boards come to life.’
‘That was one of your two crap Christmases,’ I said, recalling our earlier conversation.
‘That’s right.’
‘Could you have moved to Sheffield?’
‘I considered it. I even spotted a job in a bookshop but I couldn’t bring myself to apply. The thought of being an employee in a chain store as opposed to a partner in our family-run indie hurt my heart. And the thought of moving away from my family and friends was unbearable, even to be with Ewan. It would be easy to turn against him and say that he chose his career over me so he’d obviously never cared about me, but the same accusation could be hurled straight back at me because I chose mine and Whitsborough Bay over him.’
‘You really love it here?’ I said, noticing how her face had lit up.
‘So much.Home is where the heart isand my heart’s right here. Anyway, back to decorating, Mum and Dad said I could do up the annexe however I wanted. It was a tad smaller but it gave me something to sink my teeth into and hopefully one day I’ll have my own place and be able to put my interior design head on again and create some fresh mood boards. I’ve no idea when that’ll be, mind. I should have been house-hunting with Wes now – my more recent ex – and I can’t seem to muster any energy to do it on my own.’
‘How recent an ex?’ I asked, curious as to how raw it might be for Lily.
‘Seven and a half months now. He was meant to be working in Dubai for two years and he came back to visit after eighteen months and casually announced he’d been offered a further four years. He made out he wanted to discuss it but it was obvious he’d already made the decision so I walked away.’
She’d been looking past me, a wistful expression on her face as though questioning for a moment whether she’d made the right decision.
‘Happy birthday to me!’
‘It ended on your birthday?’ I asked, aghast for her. ‘And didn’t you say Justin cancelled on you then too?’
