This Book Made Me Think of You(2)
“Everything seems fine for you though,” she adds wistfully, withdrawing her hand from Tilly’s mouth.
“Well, that’s a relief.” Tilly swings her legs off the chair, her brown leather boots with the red laces touching down on the shiny floor. She tucks her long ginger hair behind her ears and shrugs on her tweed coat with the mismatched colorful buttons, thinking as she does that it’s strange that this woman has just been so close that Tilly noticed her chapped lips and could smell her violet-scented perfume, and yet they likely won’t see each other again for at least a year. She doesn’t even know Dr. Jafari’s first name.
“Excuse me,” says Dr. Jafari, “I think your phone is ringing.”
She points at Tilly’s satchel, which is steadily vibrating.
The number is not one she recognizes, but as she steps out into the waiting room, she answers with a polite “Hello?”
At first there’s silence, then a cough followed by a low and unfamiliar male voice.
“Um, hello. Is that Matilda Nightingale?”
“Who is this, please?”
There is a child sitting nearby with her head bowed over the pages of a book, forehead furrowed in concentration and teeth biting down on her bottom lip. It’s an expression Tilly knows well, and for a moment the memory of reading like that, totally absorbed, is so all-consuming that when the man on the other end of the phone speaks again, she wonders if she has perhaps imagined the words.
“I’m Alfie Lane, the manager of Book Lane. The bookshop in Primrose Hill. I’m calling as we have an order here for you to collect.”
“But I haven’t placed an order.”
Not only has she not stepped foot inside her local bookshop for a long time, but it has been over a year since Tilly picked up a book, unless you count the manuscripts she edits at work, which she doesn’t.
“The order was placed for you by Joe Carter,” comes the voice on the other end of the line at the exact moment that the woman ahead of Tilly in the queue steps aside and the receptionist calls, “Next, please.”
“Did you say Joe Carter?”
She can feel her chest tightening, and she is suddenly very aware of the smell of mint mouthwash and latex gloves. Despite the concrete-gray day outside, the waiting room feels cloyingly, oppressively hot.
The receptionist drums her nails on the desk. “Can I help you?”
Tilly stumbles forward, holding the phone away from her face as she tells the receptionist her name.
“That will be sixty-five pounds please.” Tilly fumbles for her card and hands it wordlessly over as the gravelly voice on the other end of the phone says, “Yes. I have an order here for Matilda Nightingale, placed by Joe Carter.”
“But that’s impossible.” The edges of her words catch like sandpaper against Tilly’s throat.
In an instant she sees Joe in her mind, his wide, open smile, his short light blond hair covered by a baseball cap in the summer and a beanie in the winter. Average height but broad shoulders and an athletic physique from growing up on the baseball field and, in later years, from playing softball in Regent’s Park with his colleagues. The bump on the middle of his nose where he broke it as a kid trying to win a bet with his brothers that he could climb to the top of their garage roof. The sound of his voice, cheerfully teasing as Tilly arrived home with a bulky paper bag, asking if she’d really bought more books and whether he’d soon have to move out to make room for her collection. Or soft and croaky in the mornings, reaching out for her and telling her that he loved her.
“I think it would be best if you came into the shop so I can explain,” says the man on the other end of the line. “I think I would find it easier than doing this over the phone, if you don’t mind.”
Tilly had a plan for her last day off that involved restocking her empty fridge, catching up on her inbox, and maybe treating herself to a good cry in the bathtub. But the pull of Joe’s name is too strong to resist.
“OK. I can be at the shop in five minutes. But I’m telling you now, there’s no way Joe could have ordered a book from you.”
The shop manager offers no further explanation. Before hanging up, he simply says that he will see her soon.
Tilly steps out onto the cold London street just as the thick gray clouds part for a moment and a solitary beam of sunlight shines down on the damp pavements, making them glitter. Tilly hugs her coat tightly and glances up at the sky.
“This has to be a mistake, right, Joe?”
Two
The bookshop stands in the middle of the parade of enticing boutiques, delis, and cafés that feels more like a village high street than a neighborhood within walking distance of the busy streets of Camden and the iconic buildings of central London. There’s a bicycle chained up outside the dark red shop front, the words Book Lane written in bold white letters.
As Tilly steps inside, she is immediately met by the familiar onslaught of bookshop sensations. The smell of the paper, the respectful hush, the stacks of books with titles that would once have called out to her. The shop is small but packed with books, unsteady-looking piles crammed between the top of the shelves and the ceiling. There’s a ladder propped up near the back, and tiny paper cranes hang from the ceiling, their bodies printed with the pages from old books. Tilly does her best to block it all out as she walks straight to the counter.