With Love from London(18)

“How about you? What do you do in…?”

“Seattle,” I add. “I was a librarian and bookstagrammer, and now I guess I’m a…bookseller.”

Liza beams. “With your experience, you’ll be a godsend to the store! That is, if you can talk Millie into making some changes.”

“Tell me more about her.”

“Millie,” Liza says, pausing, “is wonderful, but she can be a tough mountain to climb. She loves those she loves, and the rest? Well, Lord help them.”

I swallow hard. “You said she and my mother were good friends? It’s been so long, but I think I remember hearing about her when I was little.”

Liza nods. “Childhood friends, yes. She and Millie opened the bookstore together, though she had her own law career to manage. But when your mum got sick, she’d recently retired, and was able to step in to help.”

“That’s kind of her,” I say. “But now that I’m here, I can…manage things.”

“Easier said than done,” Liza says. “It might take a certified Parliament inquisition to get her to leave.” She pauses, looking at me quizzically. “The Book Garden is all she has left of your mum, and she’s fiercely protective of it.”

I can’t tell if Liza is merely filling me in, or giving me a thinly veiled warning.

“It’s a shame you never came to visit,” she says. “Before she…passed.”

“Listen,” I say a bit defensively. “My relationship with my mother was…complicated. If it’s all right with you, I’d rather not go into it.”

“Right,” she says quickly. “I get it. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up a sore subject.”

I nod, forcing a smile. “Shall we continue the tour?”

Her expression softens again as we walk outside and continue on. “Besides Café Flora, there’s a lovely little Italian spot that’s open for lunch and dinner—Bottega—and Chutney’s, the curry house around the corner. They actually have the most amazing salads.” She pats her rear end. “Which I should eat more of if I ever want to rid myself of these twelve pounds.” I grin as we pass a food market, which she tells me is the closest grocer to the flat. “Get your bread at Le Petit Bakery, that is, if you Americans eat that sort of thing anymore. Didn’t the entire country declare war on carbs, or something?”

“Not me,” I say. “I surrendered.”

“It’s the practical English blood in you,” she says, pointing out the local hardware store, followed by a hair salon and an ice cream shop, where she tells me I must sample their caramel custard flavor.

When a couple approaches us on the sidewalk ahead, she waves. He wears a black leather jacket and combat boots; she has short bleached blond hair and a nose ring. “This is Valentina,” she tells them, introducing George and his girlfriend, Lilly. George is in a band, I learn, which will be playing tomorrow night at a nearby pub. Liza assures them she’ll be there.

“You should come with me!” she says after they’ve gone.

“I don’t know,” I say. “I’m not sure it’ll be quite…my scene.”

“Nonsense. You’re coming. Besides, I need some backup. Lilly stole him from me, and she knows it. I want to make her squirm a little.”

I listen to the details of that story as we continue down a street lined with pastel-colored townhouses, boutiques, galleries, and cafés. “And don’t forget Regent’s Park is just up the way,” she adds. “It’s a great place to have a picnic—or fly a kite, not that I’m trying to get all Mary Poppins on you.”

“Noted,” I say, smiling, as I reach for my phone ringing in the bottom of my bag. I dig it out, see that it’s James Whitaker from Bevins and Associates, and send it to voicemail. I’m in no mood to deal with the dreary details of my mother’s estate, at least not now. I’d much rather go to the park, and maybe fly a kite.



* * *



—

We arrive at the bookstore shortly after noon. It’s cozy and effortlessly charming, like a page torn from a beloved anthology of nursery rhymes, with no shortage of floor pillows, ottomans, tufted chairs, and sofas where you can sit down with a book and stay awhile. I imagine my mother walking into this empty space for the first time, a blank canvas for her imagination, before settling on the blue velvet drapes (she’d always loved sapphires), the crystal chandelier dangling above the entryway, the vibrant Turkish rugs that soften the wide-plank wood floors, even the bells on the handle of the door—it is all her.

“Isn’t it like the bookstore of your dreams?” Liza says, watching me take it all in.

“Yes,” I say quietly, feeling increasingly overwhelmed.

“Wait here,” she says. “I’ll go find Millie. She’s probably in the back room.”

I notice that the floor-to-ceiling walnut shelves are fitted with steel tracks for wheeling ladders. I step onto one and ride it along the expanse of a nearby wall.

I’m still sliding when Liza returns with an older woman who’s quite tall, well above six feet. Her graying hair is twisted into a bun atop her head, adding even more height to her imposing stature.

“Millie,” Liza says, clearing her throat, “I’d like to introduce Valentina, Eloise’s daughter. She recently arrived.”