Aria's Travelling Book Shop

by Rebecca Raisin

  ‘I didn’t. I only found out about TJ when you told me. It came about because of the haunted look in your eyes. I knew there was more there so I expanded on it.’

  I’m quite lost for words. It’s probably one of the most romantic things anyone could do. Pen a love story about someone so she finally gets her happy-ever-after despite her tumultuous past. He hadn’t sugar-coated it. He hadn’t taken away anything from the love she’d lost before. If anything, he’d made that character – TJ’s character – front and centre of the storyline. Somehow he’d known, he could read it in my eyes and he’d translated it into a thing of beauty. Of acceptance. Of healing. And new beginnings.

  The group chatter away to themselves, trying to look as if they’re not hanging on our every word, of which they do a terrible job. I’m still stunned and don’t quite know what to say. In truth, I’d felt that first zap of longing with Jonathan at the same time way back when at the music festival the year before but it had terrified me. And to think he’d felt the same and we’d managed to find one another again despite both of us leaving it to fate.

  ‘That’s a lovely gesture.’ Gesture? I can’t think of the right words. I’m not sure who to be in this situation.

  He waves me away as if a hundred-thousand-word novel about the art of redemption, forgiveness and longing is nothing. A walk in the park. ‘I only hoped you’d read it, that’s all I wanted.’

  ‘And then we had a chance meeting like they did?’

  He laughs. ‘I didn’t expect that. And I was more shocked when you said you were going to France and I was about to do the book tour here.’

  ‘Why didn’t you say?’

  He shrugs. ‘I didn’t get a chance.’

  I think back to the kiss and then my sudden departure. He knew he had to tread softly even back then. ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘I’m open to the idea of fate, and when you kept being thrown in my path, I wondered perhaps if it wasn’t showing me the way.’

  I’m not sure where this is going and in front of so many people. He must read awkwardness on my face because he says, ‘Would you like to go for a walk?’

  I nod and stand, dusting grass from my shorts.

  We say our goodbyes and everyone pretends to be surprised we’re leaving.

  ‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘I didn’t mean for it to be a group discussion.’

  ‘It’s OK. It gets around any way; the walls have ears when you’re a nomad.’

  He takes my hand and it feels natural so I don’t overthink it. I don’t compare him to TJ. I just be.

  ‘I know you’ve had a rough time. I won’t make demands on you. I won’t ask for anything except to be in your life, if you’ll let me. And if that means us reading by candlelight, that’s fine by me.’

  It’s like he can read my mind. Didn’t I say my great big fantasy was us reading by candlelight and that was that?

  ‘Would that really be enough for you?’

  He turns to face me, his eyes bright with happiness. ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘But you’re really hoping I read some erotica or something and then have this burning desire and rip your clothes off, right?’

  He throws his head back and laughs. ‘Well, I wouldn’t say no.’

  Chapter 27

  St Tropez

  We do exactly that. Well, not the hot, passionate young people sex part. Not yet. But we head back to my van and we talk for hours. There’s so much to learn about him. He’s similar to me though, so that when the words freeze he lunges for his book, just as I do the same.

  For a while we read by soft candlelight. I keep snatching glances at him and find he’s doing the same and we let out an awkward giggle and go back to our books.

  I have this overwhelming sense that I’ve done this before, or felt this before. Is it how new love begins? Is it the retreat of loneliness?

  I reread the same page for what feels like the hundredth time before I close my book.

  ‘Tea?’

  ‘I thought you’d never ask.’ He grins.

  I take the canister from the shelf and open it to find a note folded into a small square.

  Don’t be mad but the tea I’ve been working on is called Love Potion … I might be wrong but I think it’s worked? A word of advice, take the chance, kiss the boy. You only have so many days in this wonderful journey called life so why not follow your heart? Love, Rosie xxx

  That alchemist! I knew there was more to the tea than she let on. That and the fact she only made a pot for me and wouldn’t let anyone else share it. She might call us hippies but what does that make her? Brewing a tea that she believes is a love potion is right up there in my eyes!

  I bustle around the kitchen wondering how one kisses one these days without it being clunky. I think back to my romances and how my strong take-charge heroines do it.

  Option A: Take the book from his hands and fling it across the room to get his attention.

  No, too intense and what if the book got damaged? He might think I’m about to hurt him or something. Far too dramatic.

  Option B: Ask him.

  No, that’s just plain weird. No spontaneity.

  Option C: Sidle over and pretend to trip thus landing in his lap, faces pressed close together.

  Yes. No. Maybe. It’s how it’s done in the books, right?

  I take the tea to the table and pour two cups. The aroma of rose permeates the air and sends a charge through me (Rosie and her love potions!). Jonathan shifts in his chair and shoots me a look full of desire. That girl has a gift, no two ways about it.

  I hand him a cup with shaky hands. He takes a sip and I wait for it to work its magic.

  He murmurs to himself and then says, ‘What’s in this tea?’

  ‘Oh … tea leaves.’ Tea leaves, really, Aria! ‘And umm, rose petals. Why, do you like it?’

  ‘I love it.’

  Time is a wasting so I take the tea from him and put it back on the table. ‘It needs to cool down,’ I say when he shoots me a puzzled look. Just as I’m about to faux trip over and land in his lap he stands up and we bump heads. ‘Sorry,’ we apologize at the same time. Heads pressed together. ‘I was going to …’

  ‘I meant to …’

  ‘Well, we’re here now,’ I say.

  ‘Yes,’ he says and cups my face with his hands. I know he won’t make the first move; he’s promised me he’ll take it slow but suddenly I don’t want to waste another minute.

  I close my eyes and press my mouth against his, delighting in the sweet scent of rose on his lips from the tea. I kiss him like he’s the first person I’ve ever kissed and all thought goes from my mind. He kisses me back gently as if I’m fragile. The room spins as desire takes over. As far as kisses go this one is better than the books. I drop my hands to his jean-clad hips and pull him against me, I want to feel him, make sure he’s real and never let him go.

  After an age we draw apart but hang on to each other hands. ‘Wow,’ he says, grinning. ‘And I thought reading together was going to be the highlight of my day.’

  I laugh. I’ve got a lot of living to do and it starts with him.

  ‘Reading is pretty wild, you have to admit.’

  ‘Super wild.’

  ‘What’s next?’

  ‘For us?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You tell me, Aria. I’m happy to go as slow or as fast as you need.’

  As much as I want to rip his clothes off, I know that’s lust taking over. I need to take my time and make sure I’m not doing anything rash that will send me back to the dark place I’ve been stuck in.

  I let my body do the talking and press my lips against his. He feels new and wondrous and like a little bit of light is shining where there were shadows before. Breathless we pull apart. ‘Come back to the villa for a swim,’ he says.

  ‘OK.’ I pack a small bag and grab some books and we head over to the castle on the hill.

  Chapter 28

  St Tropez

  I splash water
over him so he dives deep and grabs me around the legs pulling me under with a screech. When we run out of air we burst upwards laughing, our faces angled towards the sun.

  I wrap my legs around his waist and he walks to the edge of the pool.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘To rehydrate,’ he says. ‘I’ve got a bar stocked up there and only a few weeks to get through it.’

  ‘Do you know how to make cocktails?’ I ask as I lean my elbows on the edge of the pool.

  He gives me a look that suggests I’m obtuse for asking such a thing. ‘Of course! Name your poison … as long as it’s a mojito.’

  I laugh. ‘A mojito it is.’

  He makes our cocktails, throwing bottles of spirits in the air while I cover my face and screech when he almost drops them. ‘I’m a little rusty, that’s all.’

  ‘You haven’t had a bevy of women to make cocktails for?’ I half joke.

  ‘Nope. You’re the first.’

  ‘Why, Jon?’

  He shrugs and comes back with our drinks which we sip while sitting on the edge of the pool. ‘I don’t see the point in settling for someone who doesn’t set your world on fire, you know?’

  ‘Really?’

  He nods. ‘Really. And the writing life, well it’s not exactly conducive to finding love.’

  ‘So why me, why now?’

  ‘Aria, do you really not know?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘When I met you at the music festival it was as if time stopped, the rest of the world became a blur and all I wanted to do was listen to you talk. But before long the night was over and I knew you weren’t ready. I didn’t know what your past entailed but I could gather it held you back and that I needed to be patient.’

  I remember he’d given me a chaste peck on the cheek and I’d reeled back. ‘I wasn’t exactly open to it then.’

  He gives me a half-smile. ‘I sensed it and I thought I’d never see you again. But even if I didn’t, I felt happy I was still capable of those feelings that had been so dormant after my marriage ended.’

  ‘Why did it end? You said you grew apart …?’

  He takes a long sip of his drink. ‘We were childhood sweethearts, so she was there every step of the way when I was a hopeful but destitute writer getting rejected time and time again. When I got my first lucrative book deal we were ecstatic. I’d been at the point of almost giving up. You can’t sustain that kind of life and be married. There’s bills to pay, mortgages to dream about having. Then suddenly being plucked out of the slush pile and offered inordinate sums of money, well … I felt this intense pressure though to live up to the hype. The first book did really well and then the second book the words wouldn’t come.’

  ‘Second-book syndrome?’

  He grins. ‘The worst case ever.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘I locked myself away and rewrote the thing so many times, in the end I couldn’t make sense of it. I felt like a failure. I had imposter syndrome. I felt that the first book was a fluke and all these people were going to be disappointed in me.’

  ‘I can imagine the pressure. It sounds like a horrible thing to get mired in.’

  He nods. ‘Louise, my ex-wife, couldn’t understand it. She wanted me to just write the damn book and move on to the next. But I couldn’t send it in, not like that, a jumble in my mind. I decided to go away, get as far from everyone as I could and maybe I’d find clarity there. I rented a little shack in the foothills of the Scottish Highlands. It was the happiest I’d ever been. Just me and the roaring fire for company and I started the book anew.’

  ‘How did it go?’ I find the life behind the words so endlessly fascinating but I bet his story doesn’t have a happy ending since his marriage didn’t survive.

  ‘Great, better than great. The words flowed almost as if someone else wrote them and I felt intensely as though the story was right. I stayed away a few months, only sporadically calling Louise, probably selfishly, because I was so in the zone. So connected to the story, the characters that I didn’t want to lose that laser-like focus with mundane things like what party I’d missed and who was seeing who. Louise had fallen into that glitzy lifestyle that goes with the sudden onset of money and the girl I once knew was gone.’

  ‘She changed that much?’

  He shrugs. ‘Overnight. We were so much happier when we struggled to pay the rent week to week. But I digress. Eventually I went home, ready to send the book in, feeling on top of the world. I’d done it, I’d beaten the second-book demons and I felt like I could breathe again.’

  ‘But …’ I knew there was a big but coming.

  ‘Louise was nowhere to be found. She came home a few days later –she’d been on holiday with a group of friends and one of them just happened to be my so-called rival, another author who wrote in the same genre as me, who debuted at the same time with similar success. He’d managed to write his second book well before me and that too had rocketed up the charts.’

  ‘She was with him as in with him with him?’ How eloquent you are with words, Aria! Face palm!

  Jonathan’s face remains open with nary a hint of the hurt he must’ve felt. ‘Yes, with him with him,’ he laughs. ‘Romantically involved, at least on her part. She got the shock of her life when she found me at home as they walked in, him attached to her like a second skin.’

  ‘Did he do it because he wanted to get back at you being so-called rivals?’

  ‘Partly, and just because he could. The rivals thing meant nothing to me. So we released books at the same time? Who cares? But he did. You might know him.’

  He shares a well known name and I gasp. ‘But he’s married!’

  ‘Louise obviously thought he was the next rung in the ladder but she got it wrong. He’s a serial philanderer and dropped her soon after.’

  ‘Did you take her back?’

  He shakes his head no. ‘I couldn’t. She wasn’t even remorseful really, she was more concerned about the lifestyle she didn’t want to lose. Whatever we had was dead and buried. It hurt though, it hurt a lot. She was a completely different girl to the one I’d fallen head over heels with as teenagers. But people change, right? Looking back, we were so young, with this sudden fame thrust on us. All this money when we’d had none for so long. It’s bound to happen.’

  I raise my brows. ‘You’re pretty forgiving; I don’t think I could be in the same circumstances.’

  He takes his sunglasses and pulls them down against the glare of the afternoon. ‘It took a while but I’m not one for grudges, they don’t serve any purpose.’

  ‘What’s she doing now?’

  He bites down on his bottom lip. ‘She’s with another writer.’

  ‘Who?’

  He whispers the name in my ear and laughter gets the better of me. ‘But he’s got to be twice her age!’

  ‘Three times.’

  I slide closer to him. ‘Thank you for sharing that with me.’ It makes sense, his hesitation in finding someone new. How could you trust anyone after that? Once again I thank my lucky stars I had someone as genuine as TJ.

  ‘I wanted you to know why, that’s all. Sometimes I struggle with my writing and I have to hide out, I have to do it my way, which is to disappear and I know that can be a dealbreaker.’

  I bump him with my shoulder. ‘Well, you’re talking to a nomad here, someone who is used to escaping when things get tough.’

  ‘Maybe we’re the perfect match?’

  I lean over and kiss him just to be sure. ‘Maybe.’

  Chapter 29

  St Tropez

  The sun sinks for another day and the air cools. I’ve been hiding out at Jonathan’s villa for a couple of weeks and I know Rosie is missing me. I’m missing her too.

  ‘I should probably think about heading back to the campsite,’ I say reluctantly but knowing I must. We both need time to think things through and what might come next if anything. He’s still a bit of a puzzle to me, even though he’s been
nothing but open and honest.

  ‘Will you come back soon?’ he says, his eyes sparkling with hope.

  ‘Sure, if the invitation is open.’

  He takes me in his arms and buries his head in my neck. I’ll never get used to the buzz he gives me. Never.

  ‘I don’t ever want to let you go,’ he says. ‘But I know I have to.’

  ‘You can get some writing done.’

  ‘There’s that.’

  We say our slow goodbyes and I leave, feeling a pull of loneliness when he’s out of sight.

  Back at camp Rosie comes running out as soon as she hears my van. Her face is awash with relief. Poor girl has probably pictured my grisly death in myriad of ways, despite me texting her daily to try and put her mind at ease.

  ‘I’m alive!’ I crow and jump from the van.

  She envelops me in a hug and I feel her tears against my arm. ‘Are you OK, Rosie?’

  ‘Yes, yes, these are happy tears. I’m not used to you being away for so long, it was hard to know what to do without you.’

  ‘Aww, Rosie I missed your sweet face.’

  ‘Has he declared his undying love for you? Asked for your hand in marriage? Tell me everything!’

  We sit on the little deck of the travelling tea shop and I spill the beans leaving nothing out.

  ‘And with sex, you know the old saying goes: it’s like riding a bike, you never forget so don’t be nervous about it. Maybe you just need to get back on the bike if you get my drift?’

  I mock slap her arm. ‘Rosie!’ I feign being scandalized. ‘It’s not that. OK, well maybe it is a small part of it. I’m sure it’ll all come back to me, but it’s that I want to make sure we’re on the same page. I’m almost certain we are, but something holds me back. He’s been the perfect gentleman which helps.’

  ‘What’s holding you back? You didn’t actually order that chastity belt, did you?’

  I laugh. ‘No, no, I didn’t, I’ve been using sheer willpower alone. I guess it’s the usual nomad curse. If I start something how can I sustain it when he lives in St Albans and I live at no fixed address? Long distance relationships are hard, but love on the road is downright impossible.’