Enchanting Lily

Enchanting Lily by Anjali Banerjee Read Free Book Online Page B

Book: Enchanting Lily by Anjali Banerjee Read Free Book Online
Authors: Anjali Banerjee
Tags: Fiction, General, Contemporary Women
“You circled this. Estate sale. Everything Must Go. Furniture, silverware, antiques. No early birds. Up in West Harbor.”
    “I’m not planning to go. I would have to close the shop.”
    “Nobody’s even coming in here. You need more lights.”
    “Oh, is that what I need?”
    “Plus, you need a Facebook page, if you don’t have one. I could model the clothes and post the pictures.”
    “Is that what The Newest Thing does?”
    “It’s what I would do.”
    “Is it?” Lily pops open the can of tuna, dumps the fish onto a plate.
    “You need more mirrors. You have only this one.”
    “One’s not enough for you?” Lily puts the plate on the floor, and I scarf down all the tuna in a couple of bites, not sure I tasted anything.
    “The kitty came out. I told you!” the girl says. “It’s like she hasn’t eaten in days.”
    Not days, exactly. Well, maybe, but so what?
    The girl points at me and giggles. “Her tongue is sticking out.”
    I pull in my tongue. Meant to do that. Sometimes a tongue needs a little air.
    Lily glances at me, then sets about moving clothes from one place to another while the girl returns to the dressing room. All the changing that humans do, a waste of time.
    I’m sitting on a rug now, spacing out while Lily runs around “tidying up.”
    When the girl emerges in her street clothes, she plunks me into a box before I can protest. What just happened? “Oh, kitty, quiet down. You’ll be okay. What’s your name? She needs a name.”
    “Someone already gave her one, I’m sure,” Lily says.
    I did have a name, but I can’t remember, and it doesn’t matter now.
    “But you have to give her one. We all have names. You have a name, don’t you?”
    “Lily. And you?”
    “Bish. It’s not short for anything. Just Bish. You could call her Cottonpuff or Snowball or…What’s white? Dandruff?”
    “I don’t want to name the cat.”
    “Snowflake then.”
    “She’s more of a Blanche. Kind of crazy. But forget it—”
    “Blanche, I like that!” Bish says.
    “It’s from
A Streetcar Named Desire
.”
    “A streetcar named what?”
    Someone’s taping the box, poking airholes. I’m in a fix, but I’ll make it through this—I’ve experienced worse. I sense Lily’s worry swirling through the air, and through a peephole, I see her frowning out the window toward the shop across the street, her eyes full of doubt.

Chapter Nine
    Lily
    Lily carried the box, with the cat inside, across the street to The Newest Thing, a storybook boutique in a rectangular redbrick building. Whimsical wind chimes hung from the eaves, and the latest fashions and handbags were carefully arranged in the large bay window. She felt some trepidation about going inside, but she had tried the Island Creamery and the Apothecary Shop, but they had not claimed the cat.
    Now here she was, inside a rival dress shop that breathed freshness and light. Bish had been right. Everything smellednew. The owner had taken care to arrange the clothes in beautiful, well-lit configurations. Lily spotted six customers browsing the carousels of silk and chiffon, wool and rayon, not counting the women in the fitting rooms.
    She had an urge to run back to the cottage, pack up all her things, and leave. Why even bother? She could never compete. She would never be able to wash out the smells of dust and smoke and sweat from the wrinkled old garments in her shop.
    But she reminded herself that the clothes weren’t “old,” they were classics. Each one told its own story.
    Still, how could she transform the messy rooms into anything to match this beauty? Josh had always been the interior decorator with the aesthetic eye. Lily had been the one to choose quirky clothes on impulse, to learn the history of each piece, to make adjustments, to keep the books, to keep Vilmont Designs in the black. But now she had no real idea how to attract buyers.
    Behind the counter, a young woman, trim and close-cropped in every way, sat on a stool with her

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