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The bell above the door rang out as someone walked in, and Dorcas looked up from her book. She smiled at the customer, a regular who would often spend hours in one of the armchairs at the back of the store with the art history books, then continued reading. She was uninterrupted for just long enough to get to a particularly exciting part of her book, and then the bell rang again. Mildly irritated this time, Dorcas looked up, her best customer service smile plastered on her face.
The customer pushed her hood back, and stamped the snow off her boots, then hesitantly approached Dorcas at the desk. Dorcas held back a sigh and put her book down on the counter.
“What can I do for you?”
“I’m looking for something for my niece, she’s just turned three and she absolutely adores picture books.”
Dorcas blinked, and gave the woman directions to the children’s section, because apparently she couldn’t look for it herself. With a sigh, Dorcas picked up her book and continued reading, only to be interrupted again as she heard someone approach the desk.
I swear to fuck, she thought, if that woman still hasn’t managed to find the children’s section––
“Hi!”
It was not the woman. It was, in fact, a regular customer. Not the one from earlier, but a different one. Dorcas smiled at her, and tried not to stare as the woman slid her books across the counter.
“Hey! How are you?” She scanned the books and glanced up at the woman, who was digging through her coat and looked up with a bright grin on her face.
“I’m great, and you?”
“I’m good. Looking forward to Christmas.”
The woman’s face lit up, and as she leaned over to pick up her books, one of her long braids fell over her shoulder and brushed the desk. “Me too! I’m actually planning on watching Love Actually tonight!”
Dorcas held out the debit machine, and the woman tapped her card. “I haven’t actually seen that,” Dorcas told her. The woman raised her eyebrows.
“Really?”
“Yeah,” Dorcas laughed at the woman’s horrified face. “I’ve never really wanted to.”
“You have to! It’s a Christmas classic.”
“Really? I suppose I do need to, then. Can’t miss out on that experience any longer.”
The woman shook her head solemnly, but a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “You absolutely cannot.”
They grinned at each other for a moment, then the woman’s eyes flicked up to the clock on the wall and she swore. “I’ve got to go. It was nice talking to you! And you’ll have to tell me what you think of that movie if you watch it!”
“I will!” Dorcas called after her, and the woman waved as she hurried out the door.
Well. She sure hoped that Love Actually was on Netflix.
~~~
Dorcas spent the whole of the next day jumping every time the bell rang.
“You look like a meerkat.”
“Fuck off, Frank.” He did not fuck off. He sat down in the other chair behind the counter and watched her with undisguised amusement.
“Who are you waiting for?”
“No one.”
“I think you’re waiting for someone.”
“It’s no one, Frank.”
“Is it….maybe….that one girl?”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
“You know exactly who I’m talking about. You stare at her every time she comes in.”
“I don’t stare at anyone. Except for that bloke with the jumpers, but really, I think he wants to be stared at.”
“You’re not allowed to change the subject.”
Dorcas blinked. “I’m not changing the subject. Those jumpers are hilarious.”
Frank squinted suspiciously at her, but didn’t press further. He spun in his chair, and tapped a rhythm on the desk. Dorcas sighed.
“How’s Alice doing?” she asked. Frank perked up instantly, and, as Dorcas had known he would, started talking at a mile a minute about his pregnant girlfriend and all of their preparations for the baby.
~~~
It was another two days before the woman came back. She stepped through the door and paused on the mat, shaking the snow out of her hair and unzipping her coat. She greeted Dorcas happily, and rested her elbows on the raised part of the counter as she fixed her grin on Dorcas.
“So, did you watch the movie?”
“I did!”
“And what did you think of it?”
Dorcas shrugged. “It was alright.”
The woman gasped. “Alright? I introduce you to a masterpiece and you say it’s just alright? I can’t believe it.” She shook her head, but she was smiling, and Dorcas laughed along with her.
“I didn’t dislike it! But some bits were just weird! Like, that one guy and Keira Knightley. Why did he tell an already happily married woman that he was in love with her? What was even the point?”
“To tell the truth, obviously!”
“Yeah, I don’t think that was a truth that needed to be told.”
The woman crossed her arms. “Are you trying to tell me that you wouldn’t be in love with Keira Knitley?”
“Absolutely not! I would definitely be in love with Keira Knitley, but I wouldn’t show up at her door after her wedding––”
“Not technically after her wedding, it was a little while later––”
“But it was after the wedding! I wouldn’t show up knowing that she was married, and tell her how much I love her. That sort of thing is much better when done at the ceremony. You know, running down the aisle just as they’re about to say their “I do’s”, and then you shout “I object!”. Like in Shrek.” Dorcas had no idea what she was saying or why, but she kept going. “Shrek is the only straight man with a sense for the flair that is necessary for these things.”
“Wasn’t that Donkey’s idea, though?”
“Sure, but Donkey does end up with a woman, so my point still stands.”
The woman opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again, then collapsed into a fit of giggles. Tears of laughter were streaming down both her and Dorcas’s faces, and when they finally managed to catch their breath and look each other in the eye, it only set them off again.
Eventually, another customer came to pay for his books, and Dorcas was busy for just long enough that she was able to control the urge to laugh when she looked back at the woman.
“Have you got any paper?” the woman asked. “And a pencil?”
“Yeah, of course!” Dorcas rummaged around behind the counter, and eventually found an old bookmark and a stubby little pencil. She passed them to the woman, who took them with a smile and scribbled something down on the bookmark.
“Here,” she said, sliding it back over to Dorcas. “If you ever want to give Love Actually another shot.”
On the bookmark was a phone number, and next to it, a name. Marlene. There was a little heart drawn at the end of it. Dorcas looked back up at the woman––Marlene––and smiled.
“You know, I just might.”