Bookends by Jane Green Page B

see what I mean. And Si, I hate my job. I can’t carry on doing it for much longer.’ I pause for breath but before I have a chance to continue Si pulls the twizzler out of his rather revolting-looking daiquiri and sucks it slowly.
    ‘So let me ask you this,’ he says finally.
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘You basically want to be Ellen, don’t you?’
    ‘What?’
    ‘That’s what you’ve been describing all night. Ellen’s bookshop. Buy the Book .’
    ‘Oh my God!’ My mouth drops open. ‘Si, you’re brilliant! That’s exactly what I want it to be like. If I did it,’ I add quickly, in a mumble. ‘Which I probably won’t.’
    ‘I know, I know.’ Si waves me quiet impatiently. ‘So you’re Ellen. Lucy is Audrey, except she’s not dippy, she doesn’t have red hair, and she dresses better. Portia, if she were here, would be Paige. Josh, I suppose, being handsome and decidedly heterosexual, despite being taken, would be Adam. Or Spence. Depending on whether you’re a fan of the early years or not.’
    ‘Uh oh.’
    I start to laugh, knowing Si so well, knowing what’s coming.
    ‘So that means that I’m the bloody fat bloke with the coffee, aren’t I?’
    ‘Absolutely not,’ I wipe the smile off my face in a flash. ‘So shall we make a move, Joe ?’

Chapter seven
    I cannot believe how quickly this all seems to be happening. Six weeks ago there I was, stuck in my job, dreading the tube, wondering if there would ever be an end to all of this, and praying for summer to arrive early just to make me feel better.
    The next minute I’m caught up in Lucy’s whirlwind of interior design, recipe ideas, hurried phone calls to the estate agent to make sure it’s still ours. And God, am I glad I didn’t take Si’s advice. I cannot think of anything worse than watching Lucy do this without me, because I have loved, am loving, every minute of it.
    The scariest bit was actually handing in my notice at the agency. They offered me more money to stay, but my mind was well and truly made up. Then, at my leaving do, my boss made a speech where he confessed that he’d always had a dream of moving to the country and buying a farm, and said he was deeply jealous that I was pursuing my own dream, when he didn’t have the nerve.
    But once I’d actually left, panic set in. That first Monday morning, when I didn’t have to get up at the crack of dawn and catch the tube to work, I suddenly realized what I’d done: what a big step it was. What on earth would I do if it all went horribly wrong?
    But then, later that day, Lucy dragged me to a meeting with the carpenter in the shop, and once we’d spent half an hour talking about bars and counters and display shelves, it started to feel real again and, more importantly, started to feel right.
    And then the meetings started. We were hoping we wouldn’t have to do a business plan, Lucy and I managing to raise £120,000 between us, but we hadn’t banked on working capital: paying employees; paying the bills; managing the inventory; petty cash and all the other minor day-to-day expenses that you never think about when it’s still just a fantasy.
    So Josh said we had to go to the bank. We set aside the best part of a week and sat at Lucy’s kitchen table, heads together, drawing up a business plan, and every night, when Josh got home, we’d run it by him, moaning and groaning because he kept telling us we had to make it more businesslike.
    But eventually we got it right. We took it to the bank, and they agreed to lend us a further £100,000, which was far more than we’d even dreamt. And Josh and Lucy remortgaged their house, which meant we could buy the shop in the first place.
    We then had to deal with the Health and Safety inspectors. We didn’t need planning permission, as we weren’t actually going to be cooking on the premises, and preparing food falls into something called an Al Use Class, which was a good thing for us, because it didn’t constitute a change of use.
    Lucy