Chapter Twenty-Two
The Fall and Rise of a Bookshop
Change is a bastard when not chosen.
The bookshop is the carbuncle I wanted to avoid and, like all carbuncles, avoiding it was impossible; in the end, it had to be faced, squeezed, followed by a good seeing-to.
Betty said I was “talking in riddles.” The Bag Lady asked exactly what I thought a good seeing-to was, because in her book it “had nothing to do with squeezing plooks,” while Sheryl looked up ‘carbuncle’ on the Internet. In the end, I stopped texting and arranged to go to the opening with Sheryl.
I could have gone with Betty and the Bag Lady, but as they were now on the opening committee – which consisted of two – I opted out.
The Bag Lady and Betty were right up Amanda’s proverbial street. They had collected bucketloads of mo
