Much Ado About You(5)

“I’ve been editing. I’ve been editing work you were supposed to edit for the last seven years. But I guess that doesn’t matter because I lack the one appendage that apparently makes a person more qualified—I don’t have a dick!”

My boss blanched. “Evie.”

I didn’t care if I was losing it. There were five editors at Reel Films—none of them were women. There was only one female critic. And you only needed one guess to know what kind of movies she was asked to review.

I was done, I realized.

“I quit.”

“Evie.” Patrick pushed back his chair. “I know you’re upset, but don’t do anything hasty.”

“Hasty?” I guffawed and turned to throw open his door. “I’ve done this job for ten goddamn years and this is the thanks I get? No.”

Feeling my colleagues’ burning stares, I ignored them as I swiped all of my belongings into my big slouchy purse.

“Evie, will you stop?” Patrick sidled up to me.

I closed my bulging purse and turned to glare at him. We were eye level. “I hope this stuck-in-the-nineteen-fifties publication goes down the toilet, Patrick. As for you . . . thanks for ten years of nothing.” On that note, I stormed out of the office, not looking at anyone, focused entirely on getting the hell out of there.

As the elevator stopped on the ground floor, my legs began to tremble so badly, I thought they might just take me out. Splatter me right across the marble floor. It would be the perfect end to the grotesqueness of the last twenty-four hours.

Yet, somehow, I walked out of there.

I just kept walking.

Walking and walking.

My mind whirled as I attempted to figure out what I would do with my life. How had I ended up here—with no promising prospects for my future?

When I thought my despair couldn’t get any worse, my cell rang. I pulled it out and saw it was my stepfather calling. I loved Phil, but his call was bad timing. Considering he rarely called me when he knew (or thought) I’d be at work, however, I felt compelled to answer.

“Evie, sweetheart, I just called your office and they told me you quit.”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It was . . . kind of a recent decision.” I stared around, realizing I was in Millennium Park, next to the Jay Pritzker Pavilion. A woman with a six-pack ran past me in workout gear, while a guy spilled his latte down the front of his shirt and started cursing profusely.

I couldn’t even remember walking here.

I was losing it.

“. . . so I thought I better call you right away,” Phil said.

What?

“Sorry, Phil, what?”

“Your mother,” he repeated patiently. “I just got off the phone with her. I’m picking her up from rehab this Saturday and she wants me to take her to see you.”

Feeling my stomach lurch, I staggered toward the nearest bench and slumped down onto it.

I loved my mom.

But this was shitty news on top of a shitty day.

I couldn’t take any more disappointment from my mother.

“Phil, I can’t talk about this right now. I need to go.” I hung up, feeling bad about it because Phil was great. However, I couldn’t concentrate on the guilt.

Instead, all I could think about was the need to escape.

I thought of the money sitting in several savings accounts. Life insurance money left to me when my dad died. I’d used a bit for tuition, but with interest my savings were substantial. I’d been holding on to the money to buy a house, for that day when I finally met Prince Fucking Charming and settled down.

Since that seemed like a dream that would never come true, I pulled up the search engine on my phone and typed in “vacation escapes in England.” It was moronic considering I no longer had a full-time job and should probably be concentrating on finding another in Chicago. Besides, I doubted Patrick would give me a reference, so that was going to be a much harder feat than usual.

However, in that moment, nothing else mattered but getting away from my life.

As a fan of all things classic literature—Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Geoffrey Chaucer, Charlotte Bront?—England was on the top of my bucket list.

I scrolled somewhat frantically through the vacation listings until my eyes caught on a link.

    MUCH ADO ABOUT BOOKS—A BOOKSHOP HOLIDAY!



The nod to Shakespeare made me click on the link.

The advertising copy made my hands shake with excitement.

Much Ado About Books was a small bookshop in the quaint fishing village of Alnster in Northumberland. I googled it and that was northern England, near the border with Scotland. At Much Ado About Books, not only did you rent the apartment above the bookstore, but the owner let you run her bookshop.

It was a booklover’s dream vacation getaway.

I could do that.

I could totally run away from my life and manage a bookstore in a little village in England, where none of my troubles or worries could get to me. And come on, someone named the bookstore after a Shakespearean play. It was fate.

It had to be.

No more men who made me doubt myself.

No more job that made me feel like a failure.

In fact, no more entire life circumstances that made me feel like a failure.

And I wasn’t just going to England for a two-week break either.