Gigi, Listening

by Chantel Guertin

Genres: Women's Fiction; Romantic Comedy

Synopsis

A touching and witty novel about a woman who takes an impulsive trip to England to meet the man behind the voice she’s fallen for. From the author of the PopSugar Beach Reads Selection Instamom, this book is perfect for fans of Kate Clayborn, Christina Lauren, and Sophie Kinsella.
Gigi Rutherford loves love stories. She reads them, she sells them at her romance bookstore, and she could spend hours imagining the meet-cutes of every couple she encounters. But when it comes to her own love interests, Gigi is out of stock.
Instead of enduring bad date after bad date, these days she’d rather curl up with her favorite audiobook and the only man who makes her heart skip a beat: Zane Wilkenson, the smooth-voiced narrator Gigi is convinced is her soulmate.
Then, she’s presented with the chance of a lifetime: a ten-day bus tour through the English countryside, an ocean away from her bookstore—all in the presence of Zane, in person, as he leads the tour.
But when Gigi arrives at the bus terminal in London, Zane is nowhere to be found.
Until he shows up, she’s stuck with an eclectic group of fellow travelers: recently widowed and chatty Charlotte; trivia-obsessed Francis; Jenny, a true-crimemakeup YouTuber documenting every detail for her subscribers; and Sindhi and Roshi, a long-married couple who can’t stop bickering. Then there’s
the brooding bus driver, Taj, who Gigi finds infuriating yet also incredibly alluring …
With heart and charm, warmth and humor, Chantel Guertin explores the meaningof love and family—and how, sometimes, the journey to yourself is where you’ll find everything you’ve been searching for.

Release date: March 28, 2023

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 368

Sample

Ann Arbor, Michigan

I just want to read my book. But it’s too dark in Knight’s, the steakhouse on Liberty where I’m perched on a white pleather chair at a table by the window. Not even the glow of the lights on the marquee at the Michigan Theater across the street is bright enough to illuminate the space in front of me.

Plus, I’m on a date with Kevan. Ke-van. Rhymes with se-dan.

He’s at the bar, checking the scores of the games currently showing on one of the flatscreens.

Maybe I could use the flashlight on my phone to read just a few lines of the Julia Quinn novel I started earlier today. The romance was just starting to heat up.

I reach into my black leather bag, slung over the seat, my fingers touching the soft paper as Kevan returns. As he slides into the seat, I drop the book.

“Tigers are up, Pistons are down. You wanna share the shrimp cocktail?”

“I’m good. I ate earlier.”

“It’s just a shrimp cocktail,” he says. “They comp it for me. Part of being a member of the best customer club”—he thumbs to his black-and-white photo on the wall behind him, where dozens of other best customers are framed, including his father, who is also a prof at the University of Michigan. “There’s calamari in it, too. You’ve gotta try it. Best thing on the menu.” A guy at the bar cheers, his arms raised above his head, hands in fists, as he bounces up and down on his stool. Kevan lifts a finger to me. “BRB. Order the shrimp cocktail if the waitress comes by while I’m gone.”

I’m going to kill Dory. It’s the third time Kevan’s gotten up to check the scores. If he can do that, why can’t I pull my book out and read it? Because I promised Dory that I would give this date my best shot. Unlike the date with Roman a few weeks ago, and the guy before that. Aidan or maybe Adrian. The one with four cats.

Kevan returns—again—sits down and taps his fingers on the edge of the mahogany high-top, leaning back in his chair. “Do you wanna sit at the bar?” I say, because maybe if he’s watching the game I could read my book and we’d both be happy?

But he shakes his head. “No way. This is a first date. I’m here to talk to you. Now, where were we? Oh, right, I was telling you about my band.”

I don’t think he ever mentioned a band, but I might have been daydreaming about being here with Zane instead. I look out the window. Across the street a lanky teen in baggy cargo pants has set up a metal ladder. Now, he’s on the top step, holding a long pole with a metal claw on the end, changing the plastic rectangular letters on the sign that indicates the movies playing this weekend.

“We’re called the Double As,” Kevan says. “It works on a bunch of levels. All of us guys are profs in the Anatomy department, but also because we’re here in Ann Arbor. We’re playing at the Mash next week,” he says. “You should come.” He points a thin finger at me. “You could be my groupie.”

“Sorry, I can’t,” I say.

“I didn’t even tell you what day,” he teases, the corner of his mouth turning up. He lifts his beer stein and clinks it against my half-full glass of wine, a move he’s done every single time before taking a sip. I’m pretty sure there’s beer in my sauvignon blanc.

I blink and try to be positive, like I promised Dory I’d be. Kevan isn’t terrible looking. He has nice amber eyes and straight teeth and hydrated lips, though he also has a bit of a weird patch of hair under the bottom one that I didn’t notice in his profile pic. And a row of earrings in his left ear, all amber studs—his mother’s birthstone, he’s told me.

As Kevan prattles on about something else, I go through what I’ll tell Dory when she inevitably asks, with overwhelming optimism, how the date went.

I won’t be going on a second date, I’ll tell her. And she’ll tell me to give her reasons why not. And I will. But the thing is, none of these little quirks are the dealbreakers. It has nothing to do with his earrings or the fact that he’s a sports-score checker or in a band with other professors or is a little too enthusiastic about the shrimp cocktail at Knight’s. It has nothing to do with Kevan at all, just like it had nothing to do with Roman or Aidan or Adrian or any other guy I’ve first-dated on the XO app. It has everything to do with the fact that Kevan is not Zane. Kevan and I will never have a romantic start to our story. That’s the problem with dating apps, at least for me. The beginning is always the same: an algorithm. I want a story. If I can’t have a story, I’d rather be reading my book.

Thankfully, a shrimp cocktail and a half hour later, we’re out on the street, and since Kevan parked in the opposite direction to my apartment, I manage to convince him that I’d prefer the solo, seven-minute walk home.

The air is warm and smells like apricots, thanks to the tiny white flowers that blossom on the Osmanthus bushes under the canopied maples in Liberty Plaza. I turn up Washington, the mix of moon and sporadic streetlamp lighting my route back to Love Interest, my bookstore and my home. I unlock the shop’s front door on Washington and pull it open, the bells clanging and the familiar smell of worn pages filling the air. I make my way down the Persian rug–covered hardwood floors that cough up a puff of dust with every step, tossing my purse on the scratched oak of the cash desk my grandfather built, where dozens of famous authors have etched their names over the fifty years the store’s been around. I duck into the back storage closet to grab the broom, the metal cold in my warm hands. I pause. My black leather headphones sit on the shelf under the desk, beside a spray bottle I use to keep the air plants alive. I grab them and place the leather-cushioned cups over my ears. My phone is buried at the bottom of my purse and my fingers tingle with anticipation when they grasp it. The pad of my index finger flicks at the screen, and I hover over the title: Their Finest Hour. My heart swells, remembering the first time I saw the book appear in the audiobook app.

How I was reminded of my parents’ own meet cute.

How I dismissed it, then finally listened to it.

How I heard Zane’s voice for the very first time.

Now, I press Play. As Zane’s voice fills my ears, reality slips away.

Zane’s smooth tone glides over every word, and I block out the story I know by heart and pretend he’s talking to me, telling me about his day. While to any passerby on the street it might look like I’m just sweeping the floor, to me, Zane’s here with me as I tidy up the shop.

Tonight, tidying the shop isn’t the worst part of the day. It’s the absolute best.

Zane’s voice carries me through my chores. The floor goes from gritty to smooth. The bin of garbage under the cash desk, filled to the brim with paper coffee cups, plastic lids and cash register receipts, becomes empty. The worn rugs cough dust clouds onto the brick wall outside. The heavy wood counter goes from cluttered to neat. All of it happens as I’m alone with his voice.

An hour later, with Zane’s voice still speaking to me through my headphones, I step outside, locking the door behind me before I nip around the corner to Fourth, to the first metal door. The stairs to my second-floor apartment creak underfoot, and the old oak door at the top catches, as it always does, on a raised floorboard. I give it a nudge and push it open to the room. The apartment is starting to show its aches and pains—many more than when Mom and Dad lived here with Lars and me. Dory’s always suggesting I hire a handyman to fix the sticky lock, the dripping tap, the nail in the floorboard by my bed, which always snags my socks. What she really wants is for me to hire a handyman for more than his ability to fix my faucet—and then tell her all about it. “He might be cute, he might be single,” she’s said more than once, but let’s be real: he’s never going to end up being like Dominic, the handyman and single father that Emma falls in love with in Jane Green’s Falling. They never are. And they’re never going to have the same soulmate quality as Zane.

Turns out, it’s not that hard to fix a leaking kitchen faucet, and doing so myself reminds me I don’t need a man to complete me—even if it means the faucet ends up leaking again a few weeks later because I haven’t actually fixed it properly. Dad always struggled with repairs, and Mom always put up with it because she knew it meant a lot to him to do it himself, too.

I kick off my soft blue leather flats, bend over and place them neatly on the small tasseled mat, then make my way through the apartment, passing the small room where years ago Lars and I used to sleep in bunk beds. It’s now an office and a spot I go to on nights I can’t sleep, to curl up on the blue velvet chaise lounge and read.

The back wall of the apartment is exposed brick, and overhead wooden beams span the entire width of the apartment, where I’ve attached so many twinkle lights I don’t have to turn on any of the harsh overhead lighting. While the apartment was cramped for a family of four, it’s plenty of space for just me.

The tile floor in the kitchen is cold on the soles of my bare feet. From the fridge I pull out a Tupperware of tomato soup and pour it into a pot. While I’m waiting for the soup to warm on the stove, I arrange a few crackers and cheese on a cutting board, then pour myself the remains of an open bottle of white wine. My headphones are still on and Zane is still whispering in my ear as I eat my dinner cross-legged on the mustard love seat in the living room. When I’m finished, I move the dishes to the sink, turn off the twinkly lights and make my way into my bedroom, where I change out of my long, flowy dress and pull on cotton shorts and a tank that takes a bit of maneuvering to slide over the headphones. I wash my face, brush my teeth, then crawl into bed. Under the heft of my duvet, I let myself sink into my mattress, realizing how many nights I’ve fallen asleep listening to Zane’s voice. Tonight, the part after the date, was like any other day, but it’s the kind of day I like best. I don’t care that I ate the simplest meal at home, or that I spent a good part of the evening cleaning the shop, just like every other night. I’m happier doing this—any of this—than spending yet another night out on a dud date with someone who isn’t going to turn out to be the one.

I close my eyes and, with no other distractions, reward myself with the pure joy that comes from listening to Zane read Their Finest Hour.

His voice is like poured chocolate, the kind you buy at a fancy shop, not Walgreens. In the funny passages, his voice belly-laughs. And in the sad parts, his voice hugs me. In the intimate parts, it’s like he’s right there beside me, whispering in my ear. I know he’s just a voice, but whenever I hear his voice, I feel this connection to him. Like I already know him.

Listening to him read gives me all the feels. The way I first felt with David. When I couldn’t wait to see him, and couldn’t stop thinking about him when I wasn’t with him. That’s how I feel hearing Zane’s voice. So much so that even when I’m on a date with one of the guys I’ve matched with on the XO app, I can’t wait to get home to Zane. And it’s not just his voice—it’s everything that voice holds, everything it represents. It feels like more than just a coincidence that he’s narrating the very book that brought my parents together.

I close my eyes.

Later that evening, by the snap and crackle of the dwindling fire, Jack wrapped his arms around Mirabelle as they lay on the couch. He smoothed her hair out of the way and nuzzled her neck. “Are you awake?” he said, but now, it’s Zane whispering in my ear, to me, not Jack. I sigh and relax. My free hand touches my face, then slides down my neck, tracing the edge of my body to the top of my shorts. His breath is hot on my face, his whispers making my whole body tingle. My fingers slip under the elastic band of my shorts, dancing over my skin, warming it with every touch. My free hand reaches for the other pillow and I hug it into my body. My back arches. I moan softly, then cry out. Then sink into the mattress.

Eventually, I press Pause on my phone, then pull off my headphones, and toss both onto the rug beside my bed. The notched switch of the lamp is just barely in reach, and I twist it once, then roll onto my side, sighing with contentment.

I’m not delusional. I know Zane isn’t my boyfriend—but when I’m lost in my own world with him, everything feels right. I wish I could find a real person who gives me the same feeling, but frankly, I don’t think I ever will.

Dory bursts through the bookshop doors on Thursday evening, a whoosh of color, chatter and infectious energy, just like she’s been doing since we were kids. “Gigi, you wouldn’t believe what just happened,” she puffs, her arms laden with tote bags, a bunch of rose-gold helium-filled balloons tied to one of them. “Oh, wait, forget I said anything. Just pretend I’m not here!”

“You’re early,” I say, looking up at the clock on the wall behind the cash. It’s quarter to six, and the romance book club doesn’t meet until 7:15, once the shop has closed. And judging by the balloons, my best friend has other things planned.

“Don’t ask questions,” she says, and the curls touching her eyebrows float upward, then settle back on her dark skin again. “Just pretend you didn’t see me. The side door was locked even though I specifically unlocked it earlier today so that I could sneak in that way.” She scuttles past me toward the back of the store, under the glass atrium that juts into the sky, high enough to house the Millennium Falcon model that Lars built when he was a kid and a pair of sombreros my parents brought us back from a vacation in the Mayan Riviera. I’ve already set up chairs, with a copy of next month’s book pick—Rosh Hash-Anna, a modern rom-com retelling of Anna Karenina set in an Orthodox Jewish community in New Jersey—on each of the five chairs. When the group first formed, we met once a month to discuss a romance novel. Now, we still discuss a book once a month, but we meet every week to chat about everything else.

“I was wondering why that door was unlocked!”

“Mystery solved, Finlay Donovan,” she calls. “You’re really Killing It.” She disappears behind the bookshelf of LGBTQ2S+ romances.

“I told you I just wanted my birthday to be low-key,” I say. “That’s why we’re still having book club.”

“No comment!” she hollers from the back of the store. If she’s got a plan, it’s bound to be a late night, so I check the fridge to make sure there’s plenty of chilled wine, then pull out the wine glasses from the low teak cabinet, as well as the box of chocolate chip cookies I picked up at the bakery down the street earlier today.

An hour later, the rest of the book club has arrived—also early—through the side door, which Dory has clearly unlocked again, failing to be quiet enough for me not to notice. At seven I flip the Open sign to Closed, cash out the till and turn off the front lights, before making my way down the dark aisle between the western romances to the long velvet curtains that separate the back room from the rest of the shop.

Years ago the cozy space used to be the children’s section—back when the bookstore was a general interest one—where Mom used to host Saturday morning storytime. Now it acts as an event space for visiting romance novelists, as well as the gathering spot for the book club every Thursday night. I pause before the velvet drapes, listening to the not-so-hushed chatter of my best friends, and stifle a giggle. Even though I said I didn’t want to make a big deal out of my thirtieth birthday, I’m secretly glad they planned something.

“Honey, I’m home,” I call out, and the whispering decreases in volume and increases in urgency.

The drapes part and Dory appears, grinning. She’s taken off her jean jacket and is wearing a gorgeous bright wrap dress that cuts into a V, revealing a silver necklace decorated with beautiful gemstones. She presses a champagne flute into one of my hands and a paper noisemaker into the other, and everyone else shouts Happy Birthday in a very Something Borrowed surprise-party moment. Like Rachel, the heroine of one of my favorite rom-coms, I’m not surprised, but I fake it just the same.

Beautiful floral buntings drape from wall to wall, tiny paper lanterns in various shades of blue hang from the ceiling, and in the corner, a white poster board is taped to the bookshelf and features a dozen pictures of me with my closest friends—the women in our romance-novel-loving book club.

“You guys,” I say, wiping away a tear.

“Someone put the music on,” Cleo says. At six-foot-one, she towers above everyone else, and we’re all used to listening to her because we can’t hide from her. Emily lifts the glass cover on the vintage record player, pops a record on and lowers the needle. Not surprisingly, Dolly Parton’s Jolene album starts playing. Cleo and Jacynthe groan.

“What can I say? I love Dolly,” Emily says. “You want to pick the music, you put the record on.” She tucks her black bob behind her left ear. “Can we give her the gift?” Emily says.

“Already?” Dory says, looking around the room at the other three women. They’re all nodding.

“You’re going to love it,” Emily says to me. “It’s completely one of a kind.”

“What she means is no one else would want this gift,” Cleo laughs, taking long strides in her black Converse high-tops to pick up a tray of oysters from the top of a short bookshelf on the right side of the room. There’s also a tray of sushi, a bowl of chips and guac, and a small cooler stocked with various drinks in cans and bottles.

“Here, everyone take an oyster and then let’s just give her the gift,” she says, holding out the dish.

“Are you ready?” Dory says excitedly. Her brown eyes are shining.

“I’m not sure whether to be excited or afraid,” I say, taking an oyster and adding mignonette to it before popping it in my mouth. “But I’m loving that all of you did this for me.”

Dory puts down her glass and claps her hands. “OK, who has Part One again?”

Jacynthe, my roommate from my first year in Kappa Kappa Gamma, who speaks fluent French and only wears black, pulls a slim envelope from between two books to her right, and then hands it to me.

I hand my glass to Dory, place the empty oyster shell back on the tray, then take the envelope, prepared to read a card filled with thoughtful sentiments from these women I love, the women I’ve spent every Thursday night with for the past several years. Sometimes it crosses my mind that the group means more to me than everyone else because I’m single. Jacynthe’s divorced with a toddler, and Emily had a baby two months ago. Dory’s been married for nearly a decade and has two kids, and Cleo’s been with her girlfriend for several years, too. They’re all busy with work and families. So it means even more that they planned this.

I slip a finger under the seal and open the envelope and pull out a homemade folded card, the creamy textured paper rough to the touch. The room is quiet except for Dolly quietly singing “When Someone Wants to Leave,” and all eyes are on me. On the cover is an illustration of a woman sitting on a bus, looking out the window. She has long, wavy dark-brown hair like me, big sunglasses resting on her lightly freckled nose. Jacynthe’s the artist of the group, and I suspect she drew it. “Is this me?” The skin around Jacynthe’s eyes crinkles as she smiles and nods.

“Just open it,” Dory says.

I do as I’m told, and read aloud:

You’ve listened for months. We can’t let it be years.

If he’s the one, it’ll bring us to tears.

You have to find out, so don’t make a fuss

Just pack your bags to get on the bus.

It feels like the temperature in the room’s suddenly increased fifty degrees. The back of my neck starts to sweat and my heart pounds in my throat as I re-read the poem. Have my eyes betrayed me? When I get to the end, will I realize I completely misread the entire poem?

No one knows about the bus except Dory.

No one knows about Zane except Dory.

I take a deep breath and try to act cool. “Is this an XO singles bus tour?” I joke, staring at Dory. A few months ago I agreed to an XO singles boat tour, so I wouldn’t put it past her to surprise me with a bus tour. Except . . . would she really do that when she knows all about the bus tour?

Dory waves a finger at me. “No, but a singles bus tour is a great idea. You’re not that far off.” A smile slowly spreads across her face.

My throat constricts. Talking is no longer possible.

“Who has Part Two?” Dory looks to Emily, who musses the roots of her black hair and pulls a slip of paper from the back pocket of her jeans. It’s been folded in thirds, and as I unfold it, I can see that it’s a confirmation email that’s been sent to Dory.

The confirmation is in my name, for a ten-day bus tour, leaving next Saturday, from Victoria Coach Station. “We don’t have a Victoria Coach Station,” I say slowly, my heart pounding. But I know what city does.

London, England. The setting of some of my favorite romances: Bridget Jones’s Diary, One Day in December and the Bridgerton series.

More importantly, I know which tour company departs from this bus station: Wilkenson Tours.

For a long time after first listening to Zane read Their Finest Hour—OK, six days, total—I resisted looking him up online. If he turned out to be ninety years old or worse—dead—what would that say about my intuition?

Then I broke the seal. After I’d binged all twelve hours of the book—twice. After another doomed XO date where I put in zero effort. After a few too many glasses of wine. After doom-scrolling through David’s photos on Instagram of him and the woman who appeared in the last seven of nine pics. After all of that, I typed Zane’s name into the Instagram search bar.

It turned out, based on Zane’s Instagram account (updated three days earlier), that he was neither ninety nor dead. And that sexy, gravelly voice that wrapped every word in an embrace was attached to quite possibly one of the most good-looking men I’d ever set eyes upon: shiny, perfectly styled hair—short on the sides, just slightly longer on top—clean-shaven, impeccable skin, broad shoulders; green, almond-shaped eyes; thick lashes; good teeth; full lips . . .

Not that looks matter. But of course they do. It’s the whole reason nobody wanted to marry poor Mr. Collins in Pride and Prejudice. Or Albion Finch in the Bridgerton books.

Still, what really made my heart feel like it was filling my entire chest was discovering Zane’s story. His bio linked to the Wilkenson Tours website, and when I clicked over there, I discovered that his job wasn’t reading audiobooks at all. In fact, Their Finest Hour was the only audiobook he’d ever narrated, which made the whole coincidence even more incredible because what were the odds that the one book he’d narrated was the book that brought my parents together?

Zane’s real story was published in fine detail on the About page of his parents’ British tour company website: years ago, when his father, Graham, was just a teenager, he booked a seat on a bus tour to get himself from Cornwall to Manchester because it was cheaper than booking a train ticket. Zane’s mother, Anne, was the tour guide on that bus, working for the summer between years at university because her parents owned the tour company. A few days later they were in love. A few months after that Graham started working at the tour company, too. And a few years after that they were married, they bought the company from Anne’s parents, who were looking to retire, and renamed it Wilkenson Tours. A year later, Zane was born. He grew up on the tour buses and now, having worked alongside his parents for years, he’s pretty much taken over the business himself.

I read all this sitting on the edge of my yellow sofa, light-headed.

Swap buses for books and Zane’s origin story is almost identical to mine; his parents’ love story is really similar to my parents’ own. There has to be something to that. But, now that I know who Zane really is, and now that I know his story, anyone else I meet, by coincidence or on dating apps, doesn’t even come close to him. He’s like finding a first edition among a stack of mass-market paperbacks—and he happens to live 3,777 miles away from me. And even though, more than once while listening to him read, I’d pictured myself in England, with him, I never indulged the thought of making a concrete plan to meet him.

And now . . .

My ears are ringing and there are black spots in front of my eyes. I’m actually going to meet Zane.

I reach behind me to grab the closest chair and plunk myself in it.

“Are you OK?” Emily rushes over and lowers herself beside me. I nod.

“I think it’s safe to say she’s figured it out,” Cleo laughs. “Are you surprised?”

“I thought you’d get me a pair of earrings or something,” I say as I try processing what’s happening. I can feel my heart beating in my ears.

“It’s your thirtieth,” Dory says. “Anthropologie was not going to cut it.”

I’m going to be on a bus with Zane. I picture myself sitting beside him on the bus, our legs touching, sending electric shocks through my core.

“The look on your face is priceless,” Dory says, pulling out her phone. “I wish I’d videoed it.”

“She doesn’t even have the itinerary yet,” Cleo says, leaning over. “Where’s the itinerary, Dory?”

“Who was on the itinerary? That was Part Three, right?”

“You!” Cleo laughs. Dory nods and holds up a finger.

“Right.” She looks around, then walks over to her red leather bag and pulls out a red folder thick with papers.

I take the folder, juggling it with the other papers in my hands and open the top flap and read:

I mouth his name, and the familiarity of his voice, of Zane saying his own name at the start of Their Finest Hour, fills my ears: “Read by Zane Wilkenson.”

It’s like all the air’s been sucked out of the room. The words in front of me blur as I blink away tears.

This isn’t the first time I’ve read this itinerary. And it definitely isn’t the first time I’ve fantasized about going on this trip—even if there are churches involved. I take a deep breath as that familiar feeling of anxiety creeps into my chest.

“So?” Dory says, grinning. I refocus on the present.

The papers drop to the floor, and I hold out my arms and instantly, my best friends throw their arms around me and each other, champagne flutes clinking, our heads close together, all of us laughing and hugging and sharing what feels like the best moment of my life.

When we untangle ourselves, Jacynthe smiles at me. “I hope you’re not mad that Dory told us about Zane,” she says, twisting her caramel-colored hair up onto the top of her head and securing it with a chopstick from the platter of sushi.

I shake my head and laugh. “You guys, how could I be mad? Embarrassed, maybe, that you all know I have a crush on a guy I’ve never met, but mad? Nope.” My long hair swings in my face as I shake my head. “But I can’t believe you did this, Dor.” I lock eyes with Dory. “You don’t believe in soulmates.”

She shrugs. “So? It’s not my story, it’s yours. Plus, when I told the girls the whole story, there was no way they were letting us not  get you this gift.”

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell us that was the reason you’ve been going on and on about that audiobook,” Emily says, her b. . .