Read Chapter 8: SATURDAY WITH LUCY

Lucy Hart entered Bellwether on a Saturday morning and immediately exposed the fictional cat.

“Dad said you had a cat.”

Maeve looked at Julian.

He looked innocent.

“I have a theoretical cat,” Maeve said.

Lucy considered this. She was nine, freckled, with her father’s dark hair and none of his caution.

“What’s his name?”

“Beckett.”

“Can I see him?”

“He’s existentially unavailable.”

Lucy stared.

Julian coughed into his scarf.

Maeve surrendered. “There is no cat.”

“Why did you put one online?”

“Capitalism.”

Lucy nodded as if this confirmed something she had long suspected about adults.

Julian had childcare trouble because Sarah’s mother had fallen ill, and he had planned to spend an hour helping Maeve photograph books for an online catalogue. Maeve had told him to bring Lucy.

She regretted the invitation for approximately six minutes.

Then Lucy found the children’s corner, rearranged it by “actual usefulness,” and sold two books to a family by loudly recommending them.

“You should hire her,” Julian said.

“She has better instincts than your entire department.”

“Almost certainly.”

At lunch they ate chips from paper wrappers in the back room. Lucy asked Maeve whether she was married.

“No.”

“Do you want to be?”

Julian closed his eyes. “Lucy.”

“What? Sarah says asking questions is how you learn.”

“Sarah also knows when not to ask them.”

Maeve surprised herself by answering. “I don’t know.”

Lucy dipped a chip in ketchup. “Dad says that a lot.”

“Does he?”

“About getting married again.”

Julian went very still.

Maeve rescued him. “Your father is wise to preserve mystery.”

“He says he’s cautious.”

“That too.”

Lucy looked between them with the merciless interest of a child who had discovered a story adults hoped to conceal.

After lunch, Maeve sent her to price a box of children’s books with removable stickers.

“You owe me,” Julian murmured.

“For what?”

“Changing the subject.”

“I did it for myself.”

“Still grateful.”

Their hands brushed reaching for the same marker.

This time Maeve did not move immediately.

Neither did Julian.

The contact lasted perhaps a second. Skin against skin, ordinary and electric.

Then Lucy called from the front, “What does ‘mild foxing’ mean?”

They separated.

“Saved by fungal staining,” Julian said.

Maeve laughed.

By late afternoon, Bellwether had taken more money than on any Saturday since she inherited it. Partly because Lucy charmed people. Partly because Maeve had put a table outside marked NORA’S FAVOURITES with handwritten cards explaining why her aunt had loved each book.

Customers stopped.

They read the cards.

They bought.

Maeve felt an unfamiliar flicker of possibility.

After closing, Julian and Lucy headed for the bus. Lucy ran back suddenly and hugged Maeve around the waist.

“Bye.”

Maeve’s entire body locked.

The hug ended before she could decide what to do.

Lucy ran back to her father.

Julian had seen.

Maeve waited for concern, apology, interpretation.

He only said, “See you Tuesday.”

At home that night, the sensation returned with humiliating clarity: small arms, sudden trust, no warning.

Maeve had always thought fear of intimacy would feel dramatic. Panic. Claustrophobia. A clear desire to escape.

Often it felt more like delay.

A half-second in which everyone else knew what response came next and she did not.

Her phone buzzed.

Julian: Lucy has instructed me to tell you the shop needs a real cat.

Maeve typed: Tell Lucy the board is considering it.

She deleted it.

Typed: Tell her Beckett values his privacy.

Deleted that too.

Finally: Tell her she sold €47 worth of books and is therefore dangerously persuasive.

Julian replied: She says 10% commission is standard.

Maeve smiled at the screen.

Then, before she could reconsider, she wrote:

Dinner Tuesday after closing?

The typing indicator appeared immediately.

Yes.

No joke. No hedging.

Maeve set the phone face down.

Her heart beat harder than the invitation deserved.

She did not cancel.