Page 92 of The Wedding Forecast

‘No, no, you deserve something fancier than that.’

‘I’m not a big biscuit eater, to be honest.’

‘Well, you need a snack on hand. Think about it. Now, to the tea. I currently have English breakfast and green tea, but we can upgrade to fancier.’

‘They’re great,’ I say. ‘No need to upgrade anything for me.’

‘This cardigan here,’ Bobbi says, indicating a long, woollen multi-coloured cardigan, ‘is what I call the shop cardigan. I just leave it here, so if you ever get cold, feel free to pop it on.’

‘Thank you,’ I say. I feel weirdly nervous. Normally I would gently make fun of the over-the-top hideousness of that cardigan, but I don’t know how to act in this new dynamic of employer/employee.

Bobbi shows me how to order in a book for a customer, and says we’ll cover receiving and returns tomorrow.

‘Well, while it’s quiet, I’ll duck out and get us some coffees,’ she says.

‘Oh, I can go out and get them,’ I say, because I want to be helpful but also because I am terrified of her leaving me in the shop by myself.

Bobbi smiles at me.

‘Nice try. You’ve got this. I’ll be back in ten minutes.’

‘Right. Okay. Thank you.’

As soon as Bobbi leaves, several people walk in. A mother and her daughter, and then a man, and then a woman. I smile and greet each person, probably too enthusiastically. The man especially looks uncomfortable at my level of eye contact. I open my notebook and review my notes on how to use the point-of-sale system.

Why am I so anxious? It’s a basic interaction. You are thirty, get a grip, you can do this. I just want to be good at this. I need to be good at this, or I will never be able to face my mother again. I should ask the customers if they need help. No, I should let them browse. Bobbi hasn’t specified our official approach. Do I have sales targets to meet? Surely not. It’s an independent bookshop. Calm down, Anna. I kind of need to pee and I realise I never asked Bobbi what you actually do when you are working alone and need to use the toilet.

The woman approaches the counter.

‘Hi!’ I say. She grimaces at my too-cheery tone.

‘I want to return a book,’ she says.

‘Oh. Okay. Great,’ I reply. Bobbi has not reached the returns-policy part of the instructions yet.

‘Do you have a receipt?’ I ask. This seems like the best question, and hopefully I can very subtly look at it for the printed returns policy. And then do what? I have no idea how to process it. Well, one problem at a time.

‘I do,’ the woman says. She’s wearing an expensive-looking oversized white linen shirt with white pants and lots of jangling gold bracelets and gold rings. She pulls the book out of the paper bag, and slides the receipt across the counter to me. It’s a green book. The Hike. My book.

Of course this would be my first ever customer interaction. I am not going to react. I am going to act completely normal. I am definitely not going to take this as a sign from the universe about anything.

I look at the receipt and pretend I am checking something, but really, I am frantically searching for the policy. There it is. Exchange within fourteen days for non-faulty goods.

‘I didn’t like it,’ the woman says. ‘I started it and I hated it.’

‘Oh,’ I say. ‘Well. That’s fine, you can just exchange it for another book, if you’d like?’

‘It’s one of these millennial kind of books, you know, with the most annoying main character who goes on and on, and it has the most improbable series of events.’

‘I’m familiar with them.’

‘At least it had quotation marks for speech. It’s all the rage now to not have quotation marks.’

She picks up my book and starts flipping through pages. My heart is racing. Is she going to read a section out loud? Point out a horrific typo?

She puts her finger on a page. Page fifty-five. That’s when the main character and her friends accidentally kill someone in a semi-comedic way.

‘Here,’ she says. ‘I got to this part, and I thought to myself, I cannot go on. If I read another word, I will hurl this book across the room.’