1—The Art of Happiness

Ben wiped at the condensation on the window for what felt like the millionth time that day. He knew it was his own fault for sitting staring across the street all day instead of actually doing any work but he couldn't tear his eyes away. His constant fear was that if he moved away for as much as a few minutes, just to stack some shelves or serve a customer, then he would miss something important. Or more like someone important.

"Am I going to have to call the police on you?" Hugh, his best friend and colleague, teased. "You do realise how stalkerish this looks?"

"It's not stalking!" Ben defended, quickly moving away from the window guiltily, although he could see where Hugh was coming from. "It's not my fault she's so perfect! Everything she does looks like part of a dance that all links up in this perfect little routine," he sighed, his eyes wandering back to the shop across the street where the object of his affection continued serving her customers with her signature bright smile.

"Why can't you just go and talk to her like a normal person?" Hugh laughed, picking up a box of newly arrived books and carrying it off into the depths of the old bookshop. "Unless she's got telepathic powers, which I grant would be very impressive, she's never even going to know you exist if you keep lusting after her from afar," he called out from behind the back shelf of the shop.

"I'd hardly call it lusting," Ben replied disdainfully, although he could see that Hugh had a point. The trouble was that he'd always been so hopeless when it came to talking to girls, either babbling on about nothing or totally freezing like a rabbit in headlights. Hugh, on the other hand, had never had any such problems, what with his boundless confidence and witty charm, which Ben had been jealous of ever since they met all those years ago.

"You know, you could actually stop perving on the girl across the road and come and help me," Hugh grumbled, just as Ben heard the dull thump of books cascading onto the heavy carpet followed by his friend muttering "shit" under his breath.

This pulled him out of his trance and he got up off his perch at the window to help his friend pick up the array of novels scattered across the floor. It always brought a smile to his face to see the familiar titles of old classics engraved in gold on the rich leather covers of the books they stocked in 'Bright's Bookshop'. He had inherited the shop when his grandfather died two years ago and, as an English graduate stuck in an unhappy banking job, nothing sounded more appealing than casting aside tax forms and exchanging all that for a peaceful life sipping coffee and spreading his love of literature to the people of London. When selecting an assistant for the shop, his old best friend from college and fellow English graduate was the obvious choice -- not to mention that Hugh's eccentric charisma made him an excellent salesman.

"So tell me this," Hugh said, while the two of them carefully replaced the fallen books on the shelf. "What actually is your plan for seducing the girl across the road? Does communication ever come into it or is it more of a silent, one-sided relationship you had in mind?"

"There is no plan," Ben sighed, "I'll probably just keep looking at her through the window for years until one day she'll turn up for work with a wedding ring on and I'll be too late. In fact, I'll probably somehow end up watching her wedding through a window knowing my luck."

"Why can't you just move on and find another girl? I've introduced you to plenty of girls but you're always so closed-minded," Hugh complained.

"That's because the girls you introduce me to are either the ones you used to play polo with called 'Tilsy' or ones who sell modern art on Portobello Road called 'Sapphire'," Ben grumbled, rolling his eyes.

"I'll have you know Tilsy and Sapphire are both very respectable young ladies and you'd be lucky to have either of them," Hugh sniffed.

Hugh was technically the son of a Baron, making him in fact The Honourable Hugo Charles Bonnington in a long line of Hugo Charles Bonningtons, a fact that he frequently liked to remind Ben of. However, he had shed his upper-class image when he went to college and favoured a more rebellious, alternative approach to life. Now, at 25, he seemed to have settled on a balance between the two poles as an eccentric academic with a dress sense that could only be described as something like 'substitute teacher meets John Lennon'. He mixed in an eclectic range of circles in London, as Ben often found himself dining with the landed gentry one night then sitting in a marijuana-filled basement the next, but at least Hugh was never short of surprises.

"Your trouble is that you're always waiting for life to come to you," Hugh told him, "when really you should be going out and seizing opportunities! You know, carpe-ing that diem!"

"Oh don't bring out the Latin on me, it's almost four o'clock."

"Well, when is a good time for Latin?"

"Never, Hugh. The answer is never."

With another sigh, Ben drifted back towards the window by the till to continue his wistful gazing. The girl in the shop was helping a woman pick out some jewellery, holding up different earrings for her to try on in the mirror. She was always smiling, no matter how grim her customer was in response, and her laugh made her cheeks turn rosy in a way that made Ben's heart skip. He imagined that she had a pretty laugh, not one of those loud obnoxious ones that he often heard from women on the tube telling their friend 'what Dave did last night' or 'how tipsy Sharon got on Saturday'.

The truth was that the majority of humanity greatly irritated Ben, which was why his life as a book-selling recluse suited him so well. There were a few exceptions to this, such as Hugh and his family and the kind lady in the supermarket who always called him 'button', but all in all he was quite happy for the rest of the human race to keep their loud voices and annoying habits at a distance.

However, this great distrust and indifference towards people seemed to melt away when he saw the girl across the street. Ever since she had set up her little jewellery shop a few months ago, he had felt inexplicably connected to her, like somehow she had skipped the test and had made it straight into Ben's little bubble of accepted people. He knew there was always the possibility that he had misjudged her and perhaps she was a terrible person who dabbled in mass-murder and ate puppies for breakfast, but given that he didn't expect to ever work up the courage to actually speak to her, he was quite happy to live in his little fantasy where she was the embodiment of perfection and he was honoured with the task of admiring her.

While he had been thinking all of this, the girl had finished serving the woman, who was now bustling down the frosty street with a little gift bag in hand, and found herself in an empty shop. Ben watched as she stood for a second, looking at something on the counter and tucking her auburn hair behind her ear every time it fell in her face. Then, seeming content that everything was as it should be, she let out a little sigh and let her eyes roam over the shop absently. He wondered what she was thinking about – the shop maybe? About Christmas? Her family? Perhaps she had a boyfriend?

However, before he could finish that thought, her eyes continued on their sweep of the shop to the window. Ben's heart was in his mouth as her eyes drifted across the frozen puddles to the window of the little bookshop and finally rested on him. He couldn't move. He must have looked like a startled deer but all he could do was stand there in shock. She didn't seem to notice the sheer panic in his eyes, offering a warm smile and little wave. Ben felt himself wave back although he couldn't remember ever telling his body to do so. And just like that, the moment ended. A customer walked into her shop and brought her attention back to her job and away from the idiot in the bookshop window, grinning and waving like one of those white cats in the shop windows in Chinatown.

Ben turned back to the bookshop with a triumphant smile. She noticed him. She smiled at him. He could hardly contain his excitement. After letting out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding, he bounded across the shop to find Hugh to tell him the news.

"Hugh! Hugh! You won't believe this!" he laughed, racing between the bookshelves to find his friend. He eventually found him at the back of the shop on the phone to presumably one of their suppliers. "Hugh. Hugh. Hugh," he repeated, trying to catch his attention while bouncing up and down like an over-excited puppy.

"Yes, Friday sounds good," Hugh hummed, shooting Ben an irritated look and mouthing 'what' at him.

"She saw me. And she smiled. And waved," Ben gushed, his grin still as wide as the moment it happened. His cheeks flushed as he replayed the memory of it over and over again.

"So she finally noticed you then?" he smiled, covering the phone so that the supplier wasn't privy to the details of Ben's love life. "You must be pleased."

"Pleased? Hugh, I'm euphoric!" Ben exclaimed, doing a little jump in the air like an excitable pony.

"Well, that's great that your stalking has become mutual. Congratulations. Now, I really need to talk to this kind gentleman about the Dickens stock coming in. Why don't you make yourself useful and change the window display?" Hugh suggested, rolling his eyes at Ben's ecstatic outburst and returning to his phone call.

Ben was far too happy to notice his friend's rather underwhelming response and danced his way back towards the counter. Letting out a sigh of contentment, he decided that for once he would follow Hugh's advice and mark the occasion by actually doing some work. He marched over to see what was currently in the window display and started exchanging the artsy novels with titles like 'The Colour of Death' that Hugh had handpicked earlier that month for more classic, seasonal novels that he was sure would be far more popular.

After placing 'A Christmas Carol' at the centre of his masterpiece display, he was about to congratulate himself on a job well done when he suddenly noticed a little basket labelled 'Book of the Day' that he vaguely remembered Hugh introducing a couple of months ago. The idea obviously hadn't taken off since the basket was empty of any suggestions. Ben, in his triumphant and enamoured state, set about finding the perfect book to fill this space. After skipping over all the depressing works about lost love and inevitable mortality, he came across one entitled 'The Art of Happiness' and, feeling that this reflected his current view of the world, he popped it in the little basket so that the world could share in the beauty of his unadulterated joy.

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A/N: So I first posted this story around xmas and then took it down, but I've decided to post it up again even though it's definitely not xmas anymore. But even though it's not exactly seasonal I'm still really in love with this idea so hopefully I'll be able to carry on with it and people can just cast their minds back to December time haha :) Really hope you enjoyed this first chapter and don't forget to vote and comment if you did! All my love,

-Claudia x