“Hence the name above the awning outside.Brooks’s Book Nook. Cute. The name, I mean.”
Instantly his cheeks began to blush. He quickly changed the subject. “I can tell from your accent you’re not from around here.”
“No flies on you, hey mate?” I gave him a good-natured slap on the shoulder with more force than I intended, and he stumbled against the shelf, knocking off several books on Liechtenstein, Lithuania, and Luxembourg. “Shit, sorry.”
He gave me an annoyed glare and went to pick up the books, but I beat him to it, kneeling quickly and scooping the fallen travel books into my arm. I checked each one to make sure no damage had been done, then placed them carefully back on the shelf.
“L-I-E comesbeforeL-I-T,” he said, still annoyed, switching the Liechtenstein and Lithuania books into the correct position.
“Sorry. I can spell.”
“Really?” He sounded like he didn’t believe me. In my many travels I noticed that Aussies copped that attitude a lot. Maybe it was the laid-back attitude, maybe it was all the Aussie slang, but I’d been asked on more than one occasion whether we actually had schools in Australia. It never failed to amuse me.
“Yes, really,” I replied with a smirk. “I’m actually a writer.”
His shoulders twitched. “You are? Seriously?”
I laughed out loud that time. “Yes. Seriously. I can actually spell words and write them too. Who’d have thunk it, huh?”
“What do you write, then?” He asked the question like he needed me to prove something to him.
I hated having to prove myself, so I shrugged teasingly. “Oh, you know. This and that.”
“Cookbooks?” he asked. His tone was getting more and more condescending by the minute. It was kinda sexy.
“Do I look like I cook? I mean, I can cook the basics, but ask me to whip up a pav and you’ll get a flat sticky mess that even the bin chickens would turn their beaks up at.”
He screwed up his face. “Was that a joke? Was that even English? Oh wait, you’re a comedy writer. You probably write terrible jokes for some sad pathetic television sitcom, correct?”
“Ha! I wish. Those writers get paid a living wage. They can actually afford Tim Tams whenever they like. Me? I’ve been rationing the one pack since I left Vietnam three months ago.”
I could see the penny drop on his face. He looked from the travel shelf… to the book on Patagonia still in my hand… to my trusty compass hanging around my neck.
“Ah, so you’re a travel writer.”
“Bingo, dingo! I work freelance. I visit somewhere off the beaten track, write about it, sell the story to one of a handful of travel magazines I know, then move on to the next place. Occasionally I head back home to Queensland for a break. I live in a place called Magnetic Island on the Great Barrier Reef. But for the most part I’m on a plane or hiking a trail or sleeping in the waiting room of a consulate building while my visa gets processed… usually very, very slowly. Bureaucratic red tape is a universal phenomenon, you know.”
I could tell what he was thinking. Travel writer. Glossy magazine bylines. Always name-dropping some exotic locale or reminiscing about his adventures. Not arealwriter like the ones who win prizes and get invited to residencies in crumbling European villas. Which was fine. I let people underestimate me—it makes life more interesting when they realize you’ve been holding an ace the whole time.
“So, Mulligan’s Mill qualifies as ‘off the beaten track?’” he asked.
“Actually, I’d consider this place ‘one wrong turn down the dirt trail that veers off the beaten track.’”
He gasped audibly, his face frozen with offence.
I laughed again. “Mate, I’m pulling your chain. This place is as cute as a bloody button. It’s got small-town USA charm written all over it. I caught the bus from Eau Claire this morning, and the second it pulled into town, I knew this place was worth finding. I’ve already checked into the BnB down the road. Have you seen that place? That’s a double-page pictorial spread right there, especially when the owners are that photogenic. What are their names again?”
“Benji and Bastian.”
“See, that’s what I love about small towns. Everybody knows everyone. Better write that down.” I pulled my notepad and pen out of my shorts pocket and jotted down the names of the BnB owners, then added, “And your name was Beresford, right? Brooks Beresford. Does Brooks have anebefore thes?”
“No, it doesn’t. And yes, Beresford is my surname. And are you really going to write a story about Mulligan’s Mill?”
“I write a story about any place that’s worth me hanging up my hat for a few days.”
Of course, Mulligan’s Mill wasn’t on my original route, mainly because I’d set out on this trip without a plan or a map. I’d been sent here to do a piece forRoammagazine about “America’s Best Kept Secret Towns,” and the best way to find a secret was to stumble upon it. That meant skipping from one place to the next—on a coach or a train or thumbing a ride with a friendly truck driver—till I found a town worth writing about. And so far, Mulligan’s Mill fit the bill. Perfectly.
Brooks eyed the Patagonia book still in my hand. “Well… are you going to buy that, or just keep loitering in my travel section?”
