Chapter Thirty One

"Pen, Pen!" George came into the bakery like a whirlwind. "Pen!"

"I heard you the first two times," Pen said. "Is there some kind of bread emergency? A croissant accident? What's going on?"

"I've had an idea," George said, leaning on the counter and puffing.

"You look like you've had a heart attack."

"Rude."

"Sorry," Pen said. "Here." She poured a glass of water and pushed it George's way. "Drink this, take your time."

"I've had an idea," George said again between gulps of water. "I was talking to Billy and I've had an idea."

"How serious is this thing between you and Billy?" Pen asked. Truthfully, she'd never thought of Billy and George together. Actually, now that she thought about it, she hadn't known that the postman was gay. But they did make a cute couple.

"Oh, serious," George said. "We're probably going to move in together. But were you listening? My idea!"

"You and Billy are moving in together?" Pen asked. It hurt like a splinter. George making things look so easy like that, when she couldn't even get Ash to consider the idea of moving in. Maybe this was it, maybe it was all over, maybe this was Ash's way of letting her down easy.

"Stop," George said, fully recovered and eyeing her. "You're having doubts, stop it right now. Ash told you she liked you, she told you she wants to be with you and work on your relationship, the least you can do is believe her. She hardly seems like the kind of woman who'd spill feelings like that if she didn't have to."

Pen took a deep breath. "Right. You're right. I shouldn't doubt her."

"Not if she hasn't given you a reason to, and she hasn't so far, has she?"

Ash had texted multiple times a day and called every evening. So, no, no reason for doubting. Pen sighed. It was just so hard doing things this way and she didn't like it at all. This whole being realistic thing was not fun at all. "No, no reason to."

"Right, well trust her then," said George.

"Do you trust Billy?"

"With my life," grinned George. "We're thinking about getting a dog."

"That seems like a big step."

George shrugged. "Why not? We'll have kids one day so it seems like good practice."

Pen lifted an eyebrow. "Okay, two things. First, you two are already talking about kids? Second, I don't think a dog is a practice piece for a child."

"Why wouldn't we have kids?" asked George. He grinned. "Billy's the one. It's that simple. Actually, none of this is really complicated. When someone's the one you know and, well, things just work out, don't they?"

"Mmm," Pen said. She'd thought that for a long, long time but she couldn't help wondering if she'd been too optimistic. After all, plenty of things didn't work out. Maybe it was some kind of confirmation bias, you only remembered the things that did work, not the ones that didn't.

George took a step back from the counter and put his hands on his hips. "Penelope Robson, you'd better tell me right now if you don't think this thing with Ash is going to work out. Because if I've put in all this effort having ideas and you're just going to break up then I'm going to be quite cross."

"No, we're not breaking up," Pen said.

George's face relaxed.

"I just… I don't know what's going on. This is hard, being apart is hard."

With a sigh, George leaned on the counter. "Alright, here's the big question then. Do you love her?"

Pen opened her mouth to answer and then closed it again. Did she love Ash? Is that what all this was? Is that why this was so difficult? Not because they were far apart, not because things were falling apart, but because she loved her.

"Pen," said George softly. "You love her, don't you?"

Pen didn't trust herself to speak. She nodded.

George laughed. "Don't look so distraught about it."

"But… but how did it happen?" Pen asked.

He laughed again. "Sneakily, apparently. Oh Pen, this is a good thing. Did you honestly not realize?"

"I knew I had feelings, I… I just didn't expect them to get so big so fast. I didn't expect Ash not being here to make them stronger, I suppose." She began to smile. Things were starting to make sense. Pining after someone leaving was one thing, but actually falling in love, that was quite another. Falling in love was more than enough to stop one feeling like oneself. "I love her," she said wonderingly.

"Good," said George. "Because like I said, I've had an idea."

"Go on then," said Pen. "What's your big idea?"

"We rent the shop." He stood back with his arms open like he was expecting applause.

"We… rent the shop?" asked Pen.

"Yes," said George, as though the rest of the plan was obvious.

"Alright, okay, you're going to have to take me through this one a bit, I think."

George rolled his eyes but pulled out a chair and sat down, gesturing for Pen to do the same. Fabio screeched as she withdrew the chair he'd been sleeping on, and fled back into the kitchen.

"Okay, so we know that this girl, this niece, has inherited the shop, right?" George said.

"Yes."

"And quite conveniently, we also know her name since it's the same as Ash's," he went on. "Plus, we know from Jesús that she's a recent uni graduate on her gap year. So I started asking myself, what are the chances that someone like that wants to take over a dusty old bookshop?"

"It's not dusty," Pen said. "You dust it all the time. It's lovely."

"Not my point. My point is that the girl probably wants nothing to do with the place. Which means we might be able to rent it from her. At least for the short term."

"Rent it," Pen echoed.

"Listen, it could work out for everyone. The girl won't have to worry about anything until she's back in the country, she'll have time to think about things, and in the meantime, we can rent the place, install Ash in the flat and have you two together."

Pen thought about this. "Ash would hate us doing this," she said. "She doesn't like asking for help."

"She's not asking for help. But come on, Pen, this ticks a lot of boxes. We get to keep the shop, keep it open, I keep my job, Ash can potentially move back in next door. It's not a bad plan."

Pen nodded then slowly, slowly started to smile. "It's not a bad plan," she said.

"And it's not a fantastical plan either," George said. "It's a realistic one. We're not talking about buying the place, just renting it for a while. It's a short term solution to give everyone time to come up with something better. And a few months from now, well, maybe we'll have come up with the cash to actually buy the place."

Sunshine was growing inside Pen as the idea warmed her. It was actually quite a brilliant idea in that everyone could get what they wanted. She had no idea why she hadn't thought of it herself. "Okay," she said. "Okay, so where do we start?"

George flushed. "That's the thing, we've sort of already started."

"We?"

He rubbed his nose. "Alright, so Billy's working on finding the girl, and I'm going to help, obviously, since I can track down Jesús through his publisher."

"Okay, then—"

"I'm not done," George said. "Then Sarah Hanson is working on a collection and the vicar is going to the WI to set up a jumble sale. The Guptas have agreed to help run a bake sale as well. Oh, and I talked to Elspeth and she's up for having the kids do some sort of sponsored thing, we thought a sponsored swim since they're doing swimming this term. Oh, and Lucy's working on something too but she won't tell me what it is."

The warmth spread even further through Pen, reaching the ends of her fingers and tingling her toes. Her chest felt heavy and her throat felt full. "You talked to everyone?"

"Well everyone wanted to help," George said, shifting uncomfortably. "See, Billy and I were talking about it in the pub and I suppose they overheard and before we knew it we had more help than we could deal with. Billy said we'd need money, we'll have to pay some kind of deposit of course as well as the bills and we'll need a fund to run the shop from at first, since we can't expect to use Mary's money anymore."

"And everyone just…"

"Just jumped in," George said. "Oh, and Marjorie Thurst said that we're more than welcome to use the field behind her house for a fete if we want to raise money that way. But I thought we probably have time to stretch out the fundraising a bit, don't we?"

"Yes," said Pen, warming to the idea. "We won't need everything all at once." She checked her watch. "We should get the bookclub onto a sponsored read as well. They'll like that. And I should call Ash, let her know the news."

George tilted his head to one side. "You sure? You said she wouldn't be pleased about asking for help, even though we're doing it without her asking."

"I have to tell her, George!"

"Yeah, but maybe wait until it's a bit more of a fait accompli?" he suggested. "I mean, we don't even know if we can actually rent the place yet. So let's deal with that first, and once we know for sure, then we can ask her if she wants to stay in the flat? That seems like a more sensible plan."

Sensible plan. Pen considered it. "Alright," she said. "I suppose that makes sense. Let's not get her hopes up yet."

"But this is going to work," George said, eyes gleaming and taking her hand. "Just you wait and see."

And Pen was far too busy being full of the realization that she loved Ash and that she could have her back here, in Tetherington, to worry about anything at all.