Page 7 of Winter Nights at the Bay Bookshop
‘Everything all right?’ I asked.
‘It’s a date for my knee op. November 6.’
‘That’s brilliant news.’ I checked the calendar by the till. ‘Six weeks on Thursday. I’d better get that job advertised and…’ I frowned at Dad. ‘I thought you’d be happy about it.’
‘I am, but the timing’s awful. I’m going to be out of action over Christmas. I can’t leave you to?—’
‘You can and you will,’ I said, cutting him short. ‘I can’t bear seeing you in so much pain. Seriously, Dad, youhaveto accept that date.’
I fixed my gaze on his, eyebrows raised, until he smiled and nodded. ‘Okay. I’ll do it. Yes to getting that advert online, although I still think we should look for two people.’
‘I can manage. I always do when you’re on holiday.’
‘For a fortnight. Four months will be completely different.’
‘But a chunk of that time will be after Christmas and it’s never busy then. I really will be fine.’
Logging onto the computer, I opened the poster advert I’d prepared for the noticeboard and window. I needed to add a closing date but tutted as I studied the calendar again. The week before the week of Dad’s operation was half-term. We were always busier during the school holidays and training somebody new felt more like being one person down rather than having somebody extra because everything was so much slower. I showed Dad the calendar and he agreed that his replacement would need to start the week before half-term to get them trained before the schools broke up. That meant we had less than four weeks to find candidates, interview them, and hopefully offer somebody the job. It was tight but we didn’t have much choice. I added a closing date of a fortnight on Friday to the poster, printed off two copies and taped one to the inside of the window so anyone passing could see it.
‘Fingers crossed,’ I said to Dad as I pinned the second copy onto the noticeboard. ‘Please let there be a customer-service-focused bookworm out there looking for a short-term contract.’
I glanced at the poster, chewing my lip, telling myself to stay positive. We’d find the right person for the shop, we’d manage to cover Dad’s role between us and, more importantly, Dad’s operation would go really well and he’d soon be pain-free.
5
LILY
While Dad was out for lunch, a flustered-looking man, probably in his early twenties, burst through the door and uttered a two-word question.
‘Pregnancy books?’
‘Go up the stairs to level five and you’ll find a selection to the right of the window. My colleague Cassie’s up there so give her a shout if you need any help or advice.’
He thanked me and took the staircase two steps at a time, returning shortly after withYour Panic-Free Pregnancy– the most popular pregnancy book we carried.
‘Great choice,’ I said, scanning it at the till. ‘It’s really user-friendly.’
‘Your colleague recommended it.’
‘I thought she would. She has two young children and she found it exceptionally helpful when she was expecting. There’s another one in the series that guides parents through the first five years. Cassie swears by that one too.’
‘I’ll probably be back for that once the baby arrives. We haven’t a clue what we’re doing. Bit of a surprise pregnancy.’ His cheeks reddened, as though he was embarrassed to have shared that with a stranger. ‘But a good surprise,’ he added, holding his phone against the terminal to make the payment.
‘The unexpected things in life are often the best,’ I said, handing him the book and his receipt. ‘All the best with the baby.’
I smiled to myself after he’d gone. Had I really just quoted my mum for the second time in the space of two days? I’d also been a surprise pregnancy. Mum had been twenty-one and just finishing her degree. She’d felt tired and nauseous throughout her finals and had assumed it was from a combination of exam stress and late nights revising. Several days after her last exam, she wasn’t feeling any better so she went to the campus doctor who asked her if she could be pregnant. The possibility had never entered her head but, as soon as the doctor posed the question, she knew the test was going to be positive.
Her boyfriend, Justin, took the news really well, sayingit’s earlier than planned, but who likes plans anyway?They’d been together for two years at that point, both had jobs lined up in Mum’s home city of York for after the summer – Mum teaching A level English literature – and had planned to get established in their careers before getting married and starting a family.
It turned out that Justin did like to stick with plans after all because he wasn’t happy when Mum suggested cancelling their summer of interrailing around Europe. He couldn’t see why pregnancy should be a problem, brushing aside Mum’s concerns that lugging a heavy backpack around and sleeping on trains and in hostels might not be ideal in her condition. After several heated arguments, Justin finally came round to her point of view and agreed to change their plans. Mum assumed he’d book a relaxing beach holiday but, instead, he transferred her interrailing tickets into a friend’s name. He claimed he needed to get the travel bug out of his system and assured Mum that he’d fully embrace being a father-to-be once he was back. She wasn’t sure she believed him but hoped he’d prove her wrong. He didn’t. A summer of interrailing turned into a year of travelling. He let down his new employer by giving up his job as well as letting down Mum and me by not being around – something which became a recurring pattern.
Mum didn’t think it was right or fair to only teach for a term and a half before going on maternity leave so she withdrew from her job too and felt terrible about it. Fortunately her parents – my Granny Nora and Granddad Maurice – were incredibly supportive and agreed to look after me so Mum could start teaching the following September. There weren’t any positions available for an English A level teacher in York or the immediate area but there was one in Whitsborough Bay. Granny Nora and Granddad Maurice had always planned to retire to the coast so they brought that forward, allowing Mum to pursue the career she’d trained for and provide for me – essential given that no financial support ever came from Justin.
After settling in Whitsborough Bay, Mum became a regular visitor to Bay Books and soon befriended Marcus, bonding over their shared love of literature. They became good friends quickly, meeting up on Marcus’s days off during the school holidays. When I was two, they went Christmas shopping together, found themselves under some mistletoe and joked they’d better kiss. Neither of them had felt any romantic attraction until that point but that one kiss unexpectedly changed everything. Within a year, they’d married and bought their first home together. Marcus was therefore my stepdad but I’d always called him ‘Dad’ because that’s what he was to me – the best dad I could ever have wished for.
When I was six, Kadence was born and Hendrix came along four years later, at which point we moved to Everdene. One of the many things I loved about my dad was that he’d always treated the three of us equally. As far as he was concerned, I was as much his child as Kadence and Hendrix. Biology didn’t matter.
Kadence, now twenty-eight, was a paediatrician at York Teaching Hospital, living in a trendy apartment in central York with her surgeon husband, Cory. Hendrix was twenty-four and an air traffic controller at Leeds Bradford Airport. He lived in Leeds with his long-term girlfriend, Daisy, who was a brilliant chef. I was therefore the only one who’d stayed in Whitsborough Bay. Even though our jobs meant we didn’t get to see each other as often as we’d like, Kadence, Hendrix and I had remained really close.
