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The bookstore was crowded and surprisingly noisy. Large red and white sale banners flapped overhead, pushed about by the blow from the ancient air-conditioning system that was turned to it�s highest level. I was flipping through an illustrated copy of �Alice in Wonderland�, laughing at the big orange Cheshire cat faces that seemed to loom out from the pages at me. Normally I wouldn�t dream of starting my Christmas shopping in August but the retinue of nieces and nephews had grown so substantially over the last couple of years that I had to start somewhere � and I did consider it to be my duty to be their fairy godmother of literature. The plastic basket beside me was already full of �Thomas the Tank Engine� and �Spot� for the littlest ones, and I had included a copy of Collette�s �My Mother�s House� just in case my eldest niece felt up to it.

People in thick coats and twisted scarves pushed past each other to grab for cookbooks and gardening references, and the air was heavy with the smell of the street, as if it had swirled in behind the customers and decided to make a new home in the bookstore. The shop was quite a popular one already, and it was well-known for having fantastic specials during sale times, hence the wall-to-wall body crush that was happening this Saturday afternoon. I mumbled apologies as I squeezed behind a family that were loudly debating the merits of Harry Potter, and headed for the only clear space in the shop, over in the art reference section. The presents for the nieces and nephews finished (I had included the illustrated �Alice�) I thought it politic to buy myself a little something, just to tell myself how nice I was for enduring this crush on behalf of my clan. Scanning the quarto covers of heavy involved texts on dead painters, my eyes came to rest on a little book jammed in the corner of the shelf, the simple black spine with white lettering the only thing showing to say �I am down here!�. Sliding it out and turning the book�s face to mine, my heart gave a little leap of remembrance, and joy.

On the cover was a picture of a fine Spanish lady, dressed in a swirling red gown, a heavy black mantilla falling around her shoulders. Her face looked out at me, serene and secure, the lustrous black eyes glowing against her pale skin. The noise of the shop fell away and I was transported back to my grandmother�s house in Emerald Beach, nine years old and standing in front of the picture of the Spanish lady in the hall, telling myself that one day I would be the calm and beautiful one, dressed in red, ready for something to happen. One day I would be admired, loved, hung in someone�s hall so that another little girl could imagine herself different from who she was, special and exalted. A huge feeling of sadness overwhelmed me, looking at that picture once again after so many years, and I felt I couldn�t move, that I could only remain in this moment, locked into the eyes of the Spanish lady.

Jolted back into reality by someone brushing past me, bustling their way toward the Renaissance section, I had to clear my throat and wipe at my eyes, return myself to being the person of everyday. The book still in my hand I headed for the counter, desperate now to leave and to burst into the fresh air, to re-birth myself. Back past the Harry Potter family, back past the sale banners and the paper gardeners, the cheap crime thrillers and the tumbled mass of paperbacks, I at last gained the relative safety of the counter. The sales girl looked like she had gone through a tumble dryer, her hair wild and messy, her clothes rumpled and smeared. She gave me a quick official smile as she scanned my books, and coming to the Goya text she paused, holding the book in her hand with a look on her face that reflected what mine had been.

�Oh, I wondered if someone would buy this. I found it during our stocktake last week � we don�t have many people looking for books on Spanish artists, except for Picasso of course. Are you a painter?� She looked at me intently, as if I might have a deeper answer for her.

�No. I just like the lady on the front. She reminds me of someone.� I wanted to run.

�Oh. Well, that�s nice. And that comes to�� she hurried to finish the transaction. �Lucky find, I guess.�

�Thanks.� Her eyes followed me as I struggled with my bags of books out the door.