Page 8 of Wish You Were Her

shopfloor @ BrooksBooks.com

to: [email protected]

RE: Wish You Were Here

Dear Friend,

Please find attached a picture of Emma by Jane Austen outside the Lake Pristine haberdashery, a place Emma and Harriet would happily frequent, I think. It’s sunny and I wish you were here!

Yours,

Bookseller

Allegra woke up in her father’s spare bedroom feeling positive.

She felt even more so when she opened up a new email from the bookshop.

As promised, her pen-pal had attached a picture of a beautiful new hardback of Emma by Jane Austen.

It was propped up in the early dawn daylight against the large green door of the haberdashery.

Allegra smiled in delight at the message and leaped out of bed.

She showered and then applied moisturizer and SPF. She rubbed body butter all over herself, blow-dried her hair and brushed out the long waves. She put on mascara and a soft pink lipstick.

She had no work engagements to attend. This was just for her.

And it felt incredible.

She threw on a yellow and green polka-dot sundress and moved into the reception room of the small flat. Her father was at the breakfast table, looking tired and a little stressed.

“Morning,” Allegra said, blazingly aware of the lack of routine between them. There was no comfortable, familiar way to be—they were practically strangers.

“Your mother told me that you don’t like to eat too much in the morning, but I can make you anything you want,” George said, speaking rapidly and with a worried look in his eye.

Allegra swiped a piece of brown toast and the jam knife. “This is fine. Thanks!”

They made their way down to the shop for ten o’clock and she noticed Jonah waiting by the entrance.

While her father turned on the lights and brought the till trays through from the office, Allegra went to unlock the front door.

She smiled politely at Jonah but he quickly looked away. She sighed and let him in.

“Welcome to the Saturday morning meeting,” she said cheerfully.

He merely grunted.

A table was set up in the middle of the shop, one that would normally hold a lot of books with reduced prices, but was now prepped and ready for a meeting, with water jugs, pens and paper, all arranged by Allegra.

Mary arrived shortly after Jonah, ready to man the desk in case of customers, and Simon and Courtney, the publicist from JCPR (the publicity firm hired to help out) joined just after ten.

“I brought you a doughnut,” Simon said triumphantly, presenting it to Allegra with a flourish.

“Oh!” Allegra said, delighted by the charming gesture. “Thank you.”

She gingerly took the doughnut box and placed it in front of her.

She felt a little awkward, being the only one to receive a gift of baked goods.

If it were more than one, she would give them to the whole table, but Simon had bought her a single doughnut with pink icing and hearts made out of sprinkles.

“Can I just say,” the publicist spoke in a soft voice, full of wonder, “what an honor it is to meet you?”

Allegra gave her a tight smile. “Thanks. Ditto.”

“I mean, I’ve watched that adaptation of A Little Princess so many times with my daughter, you were such a wonderful Sara Crewe.”

“Wow, that’s an early one,” joked Allegra. “Thank you.” It had been her second acting project and her first time at the top of the call sheet. She had loved playing Sara. A little girl who missed her father.

Her eyes flashed to George and she hoped that Courtney would leave the conversation at that. Acting had always been her escape. Her way of making order out of chaos. Discussing and dissecting it seemed to taint it.

“Shall we start?” asked Jonah, pouring himself some water from the chilled jug. “We have a lot to get through.”

“Well,” said Courtney. “I’ll start by letting you all know that the box office is set up with the Lake Pristine Tourist Board and I’m in contact there with Sajid and Kate.

We’ll be keeping an eye on ticket sales as soon as the program is live.

People can book through their website or over the phone. ”

Allegra watched Jonah make excessive notes, his brow furrowed in concentration.

Simon was observing her and smiling eagerly every time she made eye contact with him.

He was like a golden retriever, determined to be friends, so she always smiled back at him.

Mary was reading at the cash desk and George was listening intently to Courtney.

When Allegra spoke, everyone looked surprised.

“Because Dad refuses to get a mobile, I’d like to volunteer myself as his stand-in should anyone need to get in touch with him directly about matters to do with the festival.”

“That would be exceedingly helpful,” Courtney said frankly. “Thank you, Allegra.”

As Jonah took notes on the meeting he tried to avoid looking at Allegra.

Everyone else around the table was staring at her as if she were an angel from heaven and it gave him enormous secondhand embarrassment.

He queried Courtney on the program announcement and asked Simon about mailing out brochures.

He put questions to George about cost and transportation and ordering more stock.

He lived for the summer book festival. He liked being surrounded by people who loved and appreciated books.

And he liked that his days were filled with so many tasks to do.

Everything always went down to the wire, and although this would be his third year with the festival, many things were still unpredictable and it was what he worked for all year.

Now, his mentor was giddy about handing over a ton of responsibilities to his daughter, someone who was all about film and not books.

Someone who had not earned a place at the table.

“There’s only one thing really worrying me at present,” Courtney said, as the meeting began to draw to a conclusion. “Quentin Morrison as the… sort of… big author event?”

“Yes?” George prompted her to go on and Jonah could tell by his boss’s expression that he knew what was coming next.

“Well,” Courtney was clearly trying to be tactful, “he’s fa mously… not the easiest to work with, and his agent still hasn’t confirmed if he will be doing his festival event in August.”

“He appeared for us two summers ago,” Jonah said, a tad defensively. “He likes leaving things to the eleventh hour.”

“Is he that big crime writer?” asked Allegra, and Jonah forced himself to look at her.

“Yes. Three hardbacks a year. He’s quantity over quality, but his shows always sell out.”

“Wow, harsh.”

Jonah frowned. “What is?”

Allegra looked surprised by his challenge, but she shrugged and smiled so winningly he was almost distracted. “I’m sure he doesn’t think his books are not ‘quality.’ Nor his readers.”

A tense hush fell over the table before Simon quietly whispered, “Oh, here we go.”

Jonah fixed her with a hard stare. “Have you read any of Quentin Morrison’s books? Because let me be the one to assure you that they hold no artistic merit.”

He watched her release a resigned sigh but she stood her ground. “No. I don’t really read crime novels.”

“You don’t? Shocker.”

“I read novels where people fall in love.”

“Well, romance is just like crime. Same tropes and formula, over and over again.”

“You say that like it’s derivative and not the foundation of the genre.

The whole point of romance, and crime, is that the reader has some sort of expectation of the formula.

It’s not classified as a romance novel if they aren’t together at the end, it’s not a whodunnit if there’s no body.

The genre is a genre because it has tropes and repeated patterns. ”

“Authors should re-invent.”

“Yes, but not the wheel. And the wheel is the genre. Authors re-invent with their own voice. Marginalized authors, for example, do you think if they set a novel in a stately home or on a train or on the Nile, they don’t know that they’re referencing Agatha Christie?

Of course they do, but they’re not a dead white woman, so it’s a brand-new lens. ”

Jonah stared in astonishment. The mature part of his brain told him that he needed to ease up and do better with this girl, but the embarrassment begged him to stay cold, to hold on to a little dignity.

In the end, all he could do was mumble, “Well… he’s a rich white dude, not a marginalized author. And his books aren’t any good.”

“Then why invite him?” demanded Allegra, arching a perfect eyebrow and staring him down.

“Because he’s a sell-out. Literally. Everyone buys a ticket. He brings in a lot of money.”

He watched Allegra consider his words and he could see himself going down in her estimation.

“I suppose I’d rather be the kind of bookseller who can appreciate that there are all kinds of books in the world, than someone who can only make money from someone else’s art,” she said.

“Sorry. Their lacking-in-quality art. Art that they don’t respect. ”

Simon released a low whistle and Courtney’s lips twitched. Jonah looked to George, but his employer was gazing at his daughter with all of the burning pride Jonah had been craving from him over the last few years.

“I’m a bookseller,” Jonah said finally. “I don’t care about making money, this is not the job for that. I care about people finding quality prose.”

Allegra leaned a little more toward him and he grew suddenly nervous.

“Then ask for authors you actually like and want to read. Maybe other people will feel the same. And get a more diverse line-up. In every sense, including genre. There should definitely be more romance writers on the program. More new voices. More women who write non-fiction. And children’s authors. ”

“Write that down!” George said, turning to Courtney with a fizz in his mannerisms, one that Simon and Jonah had not been able to inspire of late.

Jonah got to his feet, a little jarringly. People started and stared at him in bemusement. He marched toward the bookshop door.