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.”
Millie fumbles with the dark-rimmed glasses dangling from the chain around her neck as if she can’t believe what she’s seeing. But she gets the confirmation she needs when she finally slips them on, giving me a long look.
I step off the ladder a bit nervously. “It’s so nice to finally meet you,” I say, extending my hand.
But she doesn’t say a word. I can’t tell if she’s disappointed, shocked, surprised, or maybe some combination of all three. Millie and my mother were the same age, Liza shared, so she’s about seventy, and yet, her face is quite youthful, even if she is frowning at me.
She walks to the checkout counter and reaches for a box. When she sets it on the floor, her elbow knocks over a jar of pens. “Drat,” she says with an annoyed sigh before bending down to sort out the mess. She moves in big, exaggerated gestures, the bookseller’s equivalent to Julia Child bounding around her kitchen with a thud here, a clang there.
“Look who came over to say hi,” Liza says, breaking the awkward silence.
The cat I’d seen in the window yesterday purrs softly at my feet, then rubs himself against the side of my leg.
“What’s his name?” I ask, kneeling to pet him.
“Percival,” Liza says. “But everyone calls him Percy.” She smiles. “He definitely likes you.”
“Percival is a very agreeable cat,” Millie says, looking at me. “He likes everyone.”
“Don’t take it personally,” Liza whispers to me as Millie dips behind the counter. “She just needs some time to get used to you being here.”
I nod. “Should we go?”
“No,” she whispers. “She’ll come around.”
I follow her to the counter, where Millie is looking through a precariously high stack of books that’s leaning ever so slightly to the right. “Aha,” she says, pointing to a blue hardback in the center. Somehow, she inches it out while keeping the pile intact. It’s like the Olympic Games version of Jenga. “Finally,” she says, smiling to herself. “I’ve been looking for this copy of Rebecca all day. Evelyn Johnson will be happy.”
The bells on the door jingle as a few customers amble inside. A middle-aged man makes a beeline to Millie and asks for help finding one of the Harry Potter books for his son. She nods and leads him to a shelf across the room.
“Boys and Harry Potter,” she says, returning with a shrug. “I do wish that children would expand their appetite for literature beyond Hogwarts.” She lets out an elongated sigh. “At least it wasn’t another request for one of those dreadful Diary of a Wimpy Kid books.”
My librarian instincts kick in. “Well, the fact that his son is reading at all says something,” I say.
Millie looks up from the counter, seemingly startled by my comment.
“What I mean is”—I pause, searching for the right words—“reading only leads to more reading. As a child, I read the gamut—from the classics to the Baby-Sitters Club. If a kid can find a book that she gets excited about, it will only make her more open to experience that feeling again—in all sorts of other stories.”
Millie lowers her glasses on the rim of her nose, looking down at me curiously. “A fine theory,” she quips, turning again to the stack of books, “which is just what it sounds like—conjecture.”