Free The Little Bookshop On the Seine by Rebecca Raisin Page A

people. Sometimes the line was four deep, even though a majority of those customers only had queries about Paris itself, the gaggle of people didn’t seem to shrink no matter how fast we worked.
    The casual staff had fluttered in yesterday afternoon and it took some of the pressure off, but not enough that I could catch my breath. Forget assisting people, there was virtually no time to step from behind the counter. The way we served people was almost robotic, and it took a little of the shine away.
    Oceane played with the diamond on her finger. “No one ever works when they should. The roster is more like a suggestion. I work every week day, and Beatrice does most days too. TJ is supposed to work days, but usually does nights. The casual staff come and go. When they come in, we escape for lunch. There’s always someone here to help, you just never know who.”
    My mind boggled. How could Sophie run a business like that? For someone so thorough with spreadsheets – it was strange to allow the staff to flit in when they wanted, considering they’re the ones who were most needed in order to achieve the projected targets and keep the sales ticking over at the rate Sophie expected. It was madness. Yesterday had been mayhem with only me and Beatrice on hand through the peak times.
    The roster would have to be ironed out. Hopefully I wouldn’t ruffle too many feathers – maybe it would actually improve things if everyone knew when they were supposed to work. They’d probably praise me for it – they could then plan their social lives, knowing exactly when they had to work, and it would stop us being short staffed.
    Oceane patted my arm. “Before the hordes descend, let me show you around the shop properly. I bet you didn’t get a chance to check it out yesterday.”
    “What about the customers outside?”
    “They can wait.” She gave me a flippant shrug. “It’s not nine yet.” She grabbed my hand and walked briskly to the back of the shop. “So the rooms all run into one another, like a sentence. Once you start, you just keep going…and you’ll eventually end up in the courtyard outside, unless you take the staircase to the left, and then you’ll end up lost. It’s a rabbit warren.”
    The main open floor of the bookstore led into the first room up by one step. It was stacked floor to ceiling with books, some shelves leaned so far forward they were almost curved overhead like the crest of a wave. A huge mirror hung from the ceiling, reflecting everything in a warped Alice in Wonderland kind of way.
    On the floor, a once ruby red rug lay almost threadbare, its colors dulled to a faded rose, indelibly changed by foot traffic, but at the edges, you could make out how truly vibrant it had once been. Old armchairs, their leather like wrinkled faces, sat solemnly. How many readers had wandered into this room, pulled a musty book from the shelves, and spent the day absorbed in a tale, every now and then glancing up, the scent of the Seine blowing in like a whisper as it had done for generations?
    Oceane smiled. “And next, we have the lending library.” She led me through an archway, where someone had scrawled in thick, black permanent marker ‘
This way to paradise
’.
    The lending library was ripe with the thick stench of old tomes and the lemony scent of new novels. Their fragrances mingled together in the space, almost like a perfume, a heady combination of past and present.
    Sophie’s bookshop was so alive it hummed, dust motes danced, and I had the fight the urge to flop on a chair, and snatch up the nearest book.
    An antique grandfather clock stood to one side of the room, its chimes long since stopped, the golden hands paused on the witching hour. “Who runs the lending library?” I asked.
    Oceane leaned against the wall. “Bertie, François, and Phillippe. They organize their shifts between them, and keep track of the loans. You don’t need to do anything for it. Sophie’s pretty lax about the whole