Crazy in Love at the Lonely Hearts Bookshop

‘Sebastian and I are building an Apple Mac on a regular PC,’ Sam replied, though Sebastian was rich enough that he could go to the Apple store and buy a hundred MacBooks without breaking a sweat. ‘You get the parts online, depending on the modifications you want, and then you put it together …’

Nina smiled and nodded but she was sure that her eyes were glazing over. Across the table, Posy and Verity were now arguing about what their team name would be, while Tom sipped his wine and looked as if he’d much rather be at home, wherever that was, wrestling with his bibliography.

‘… then we were going to turbo-boost the processor,’ Sam was explaining to Noah, who seemed riveted by this blow-by-blow account of extreme nerdiness. Go figure.

‘Oh really? I reckon you could get up to two point nine gigahertz,’ he said. ‘Providing that you’re modifying a standard Intel Core M processor.’

‘Sounds fascinating, boys,’ Nina said, even though it sounded the exact opposite. ‘Talking of computers, Sam, have you managed to remember the shop Instagram and Twitter login details yet?’

Immediately Sam shook his head so his face was obscured by his fringe once more. ‘I haven’t had time. This is a very important year for me academically,’ he said sanctimoniously even though he was in a pub drinking shandy on a school night talking about his Hackintosh project, which seemed to be taking up an awful lot of his waking hours.

‘Sam, what is the point of you being in charge of the shop’s social media if you never update any of our accounts?’ Nina demanded.

‘Sophie’s meant to update the Twitter account,’ Sam said in a small voice. ‘But …’ his voice got even quieter, ‘she can’t log in because I used this random program to generate passwords for all our accounts, and it turned out it was infected with a virus and I managed to sort that out – don’t tell Posy, she’ll freak – but now we’re locked out of Twitter and Instagram.’

‘Oh Sam, you muppet!’ moaned Nina. ‘Isn’t there a way to reset it?’

‘Shut up,’ Sam hissed. ‘Posy’ll hear you.’

‘Aren’t the accounts linked to a mobile phone number for verification?’ Noah asked. ‘Or an email address?’

‘Probably.’ Sam frowned. ‘Maybe. Perhaps.’

‘Why don’t we sit down tomorrow and figure it out?’ Noah suggested. ‘I bet we can find a way in and then Nina can take over the accounts for you.’

‘So I can post pictures of new stock and quote from books and stuff,’ Nina said.

‘Boring! Who wants to look at that?’ Sam sneered.

Nina poked him in the ribs until he squealed. ‘You do realise that I work in a bookshop owned and run by your sister? And that people who visit the shop’s Instagram account might want to look at pictures of pretty books?’

‘And you could post a picture of your Valentine’s window display?’ Noah said as Sam made a big deal of rubbing his side though Nina had barely touched him.

‘I could,’ Nina agreed. ‘That reminds me, I think there are some heart-shaped fairy lights in a box in the coal hole.’

Noah smiled at her and she smiled back and oh God, she hoped they weren’t going to get into that whole smiling thing again: she really didn’t want Noah to get the wrong idea.

In the soft, very flattering light of The Midnight Bell, Noah’s hair made Nina think of marmalade and autumn leaves. And his green eyes were very twinkly, though that could just be the reflected glint of the candles that landlady Carol dotted about the place.

But mood lighting or not, Noah’s smile was the same as it always was: friendly, warm, inviting. A bit like a hug.

Nina shook her head. She wasn’t a hugger. She’d just have to tell Tom that Operation Pimp Nina Out was aborted.

She stopped smiling and Noah’s smile fell off his face too, and not smiling at each other was even more awkward than smiling. So awkward that even Sam, who was a teenage boy and oblivious to emotions and feelings and similar things, felt moved to say, ‘Why are you two being weird?’

‘Nobody’s being weird,’ Nina said crisply and she’d never been so relieved to see Mattie who’d also been summoned for quiz duties but had had to finish doing her prep for the next morning first. ‘Mattie! There you are!’

‘Yes, Nina, here I am,’ Mattie agreed with a slightly perturbed expression at Nina’s enthusiastic greeting. ‘Everyone all right for drinks?’

‘I’ll help you,’ Nina offered, anything to get away from Noah and smiling or not smiling at him.

‘No, you’re all right.’ Mattie flapped a vague hand at Nina then wafted over to the bar in the languid way that she did everything, even dealing with the lunchtime rush.

‘What’s the matter?’ Noah asked Nina quietly. ‘Sam’s right. You are acting weird. It’s OK, we’re off the clock, I can be an active participant rather than just an observer, so things needn’t be awkward.’

‘Nothing’s awkward. Everything’s cool,’ Nina said, and Posy and Verity were still going on about the bloody tote bags and Tom was now talking to Sam about Sam’s revision techniques and Sam was looking as if he wanted to die and Mattie was taking forever at the bar and Nina was racking her brains for something to talk about with Noah that was non-controversial and she’d never been so relieved to hear a little squeal of feedback as Clive switched on his microphone so he could start the quiz.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, you know the rules, I know you know the rules, but I’m going to go over them anyway,’ he began and everyone in The Midnight Bell gave a collective groan and Nina could relax, knowing that they were about to get their quiz on.

Although The Midnight Bell Thursday Night Quiz wasn’t often that relaxing. Posy always insisted on being in charge of the pen and writing down the answers, but she always got side-tracked and would lose her place and Verity would have to keep a keen eye on her to make sure that she didn’t write down the answers for the previous round in the wrong place.

Then Tom would get cross when they all looked to him to supply the answers in the sports round because Sam only knew about football and only from 2012 onwards. ‘So heteronormative to insist I know about sport just because I’m a man,’ Tom would hiss if anyone dared to ask him who the captain of the England rugby squad was.

To make matters worse, there would be the smug hoots of glee from The Battering RAMs in the opposite corner as they made short work of each round, when there were very few questions on literature or baked goods for Team Tote Bag to excel at. (Though being a vicar’s daughter, Verity really came into her own if there were any questions about saints or religious holidays.)

So, the quiz was not usually an enjoyable experience and as Clive led them into the first round, Inventors, Nina feared the worst.

‘One for all the ladies,’ Clive declared. ‘Who invented the first bra?’

‘Oh, I actually know this,’ Nina exclaimed excitedly. ‘Wasn’t it Jane Russell, the actress? She was in a film called The Outlaw and …’

‘Actually, it was a New York socialite called Mary Phelps Jacobs, who was granted a patent in 1914 for what we now know as the modern bra,’ Noah interrupted. ‘She used two handkerchiefs and a pink ribbon to create what she called The Backless Brassiere.’

‘My hand’s cramping and it’s only the first answer,’ Posy complained while everyone stared at Noah, who blushed a fiery red for knowing so much about the history of women’s underwear.

‘Second question, who invented the first flush toilet?’

Team Tote Bag looked at each other. ‘Thomas Crapper?’ Verity ventured, as The Battering RAMs high-fived each other and Big Trevor wrote the answer down on their quiz sheet. ‘I’m pretty sure it was Thomas Crapper sometime in the nineteenth century.’

‘I think it was a bit earlier than that,’ Noah said apologetically. ‘Between 1584 and 1591, Elizabethan poet John Harrington designed and installed a flushing toilet in his new house, The Ajax. Queen Elizabeth was so impressed that she ordered him to make one for her too.’

‘Oh my goodness. How do you know this stuff?’ Posy asked in amazement.

Noah shrugged. ‘I just have one of those memories. Every single thing I read or hear stays in my brain. Quite useful when I’m doing a crossword.’

It was also very useful when doing The Midnight Bell pub quiz. There was no question that fazed Noah. No answer that managed to elude him. Whether it was classic British sitcoms, political dissidents or the infamous cheese round, Noah came through for Team Tote Bag again and again and again.

When the last question had been answered (‘Beaufort. It’s a French Alpine cheese, quite similar to Gruyère, very good in a fondue.’) and the quiz sheets collected, the Happy Ever After gang turned to Noah with matching expressions of awe.

‘You’re like the god of pub quizzes,’ Posy sighed dreamily in a way that would have had Sebastian challenging Noah to a duel if he hadn’t been in San Francisco doing techy entrepreneurial things. ‘This is what you’re doing on your Thursday evenings from now on until the end of time.’

‘We don’t know that all of my answers are correct,’ Noah said modestly and he bashfully smiled into his pint glass, which even Nina was forced to admit to herself made him look cute. Mattie and Verity seemed to think so because they both made silent ‘ah’s in appreciation. ‘The political dissidents round was very hard. All those foreign names! You don’t really expect to find a political dissidents round in a pub quiz.’

‘Ever since Clive was on Fifteen To One, he’s had delusions,’ Nina explained. She dropped her voice to a whisper because it was still a sensitive subject. ‘He fumbled a really easy question about ABBA winning the Eurovision Song Contest and ever since then, he’s had a point to prove.’

‘1974 with “Waterloo”,’ Noah said immediately, then slapped his forehead. ‘Sorry, I’m in full quiz mode now.’

Nina was keen to rise to the challenge. ‘OK, name all of the Strictly Come Dancing winners in chronological order.’