The more he shouted, the stupider she felt.
In the end he stormed out, slamming the door behind him.
“And you have a nice day, too!” Audrey yelled at the closed door, before slumping in her chair. She was starting to wonder if a free apartment was worth all this aggravation.
Her next customer was an Englishman in his fifties who clearly didn’t believe in shaving or using deodorant.
“What do you have on the French Revolution?”
Audrey checked the chart she’d been given, but couldn’t make any sense of it so instead she gestured vaguely. “French history is over there. If it’s not on the shelf, we don’t have it.”
“I’m writing a book.”
“Good for you.” Audrey glanced around her. It seemed to her that there were already more than enough books out there, but who was she to judge? “Keep at it. You can do anything if you try.”
She didn’t believe it for a moment. If it was true, then she’d be able to read without getting to the end of the page and discovering she couldn’t remember what had happened at the beginning. But she kept that fact to herself. People needed encouragement, not the truth. If her teachers had been more encouraging, maybe she would have done better.
Or if her mother had preferred her to a bottle of cheap wine.
She rubbed her hand over her ribs, trying to ease the constant burn of anxiety and guilt.
Had she done the wrong thing leaving her? What if Ron wasn’t up to the job?
She’d longed for freedom and to spread her wings, but she felt as if her wings were locked together by a chain, preventing her from flying.
To stop herself worrying about her mother, she thought about Grace.
Audrey wondered how she was doing after her scary incident. She felt sorry for her, although part of her found it reassuring to know that there were other people out there whose lives were crap, too. Usually she felt as if she was the only one.
If Audrey had booked a fancy trip to Paris and her husband had left her for another woman, she would have emptied their joint account, killed him and then taken the holiday.
Maybe that was why the man had managed to snatch Grace’s handbag. She probably hadn’t been concentrating. For five minutes Audrey had felt like a hero, and she’d never felt that way before. She was used to rescuing her mother, but no one ever thanked her for that. And no one had ever offered to buy her a meal in a fancy restaurant. If she ate as much as she could, she wouldn’t have to spend money on food for a couple of days. She’d be like that python she’d read about once, digesting slowly.
A woman stepped up to the desk. “Do you have anything on Coco?”
Audrey looked at her blankly. “Cocoa? You mean like chocolate?”
“Coco Chanel. The famous couturier. Dress designer.”
“Oh, right.” Would that be under clothing or famous people? She waved a hand. “Try the middle shelf on the right.”
“You’re waving to the shelf on the left.”
Left. Right. It was all the same to Audrey. “My waving wasn’t related to the position of the shelf. It was more general in nature. Be careful on the ladder, it has a mind of its own.”
“I’m scared of heights. Could you do it for me?”
Audrey was more scared of books than heights, but she hauled herself out of the chair and clomped her way to the ladder. The titles blurred in front of her eyes. She squinted, trying hard to read them but some of the letters were faded, which didn’t help. She decided old books were even harder to read than new books. The dust made her nose tingle. “No. We don’t have anything. Sorry.”
She scrambled back down the ladder, sneezed twice and faced her very unsatisfied customer.
The back of her neck prickled with sweat.
At least when people were having their hair done they were usually happy.
It turned out to be the longest morning of her life and she found herself on the receiving end of as many disapproving frowns as she had when she’d been at school. Her greatest skill, being chatty and friendly, wasn’t any use to her here. It was hard to be chatty when your entire vocabulary consisted of swear words.
As lunchtime approached, she checked the time on her phone. She was going to spend the afternoon trailing around hair salons again.