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Her name is Helen, she works in Romance

8 December 2006, around 8.13pm... It’s just over two weeks before Christmas and late-teen Helen operates the busy Register 4 in an inner-city Dymocks bookshop on a quiet Friday night. She pauses to listen into a customer’s book enquiry over at Register 2.

“I’m looking for a compilation of all the naughty bits taken from a range of big-name classics,” the customer asks the short, bookish girl operating Register 2. Helen twists her shoulder-length, light-brown hair and thinks. The title is on the tip of her tongue.

“It’s got ‘naughty girls’ in the title, I’m sure of it,” the bookish girl says before ducking out behind the counter to race off to Popular Fiction. Helen stretches her already tall frame to watch the search.

A search through Popular Fiction proves fruitless, as does a keyword search through the bookshop’s database. Helen can no longer resist joining the book hunt.

“It’s not in Anthology, or in Romance,” Helen says through the heavy breathing of over-exertion. “I know I’ve seen it. It has a white cover. There were two copies. They were initially in Romance, but I moved them to Anthology where they should be.”

She moves off quickly for one more look, her long, dark pigtails flipping around her shoulders with each step. Within a few minutes she is back, slightly sullen with the information that the book can not be found.

Her pretty face lights up when the customer promises to ring in with the exact title name and author. “Ask for ‘Helen in Romance’,” she says. “I’m in Romance all day, everyday.”

She hesitates, stepping from foot-to-foot, unsure of whether to stay or go. “I really like that colour pink,” she says pointing to the hot pink notebook in the customer’s hands. “I normally hate pink, but I like that pink.”

She throws her head back and laughs when the customer suggests that it’s more likely that someone who works in Romance all day and everyday to like pink.

“I grew up in a pink bedroom,” she explains, and then starts to tug at her oversized Dymocks-branded navy t-shirt. “But I recently bought a pink bra, so I guess I’m starting to go back to pink from the inside out.”

Helen disappears back into the bookshelves and the customer makes her way towards Register 1 to pay for the hot pink notebook. Just before the cash handover, Helen thrusts the just-found 'naughty girls' book onto the Register 1 counter.

“Ahhh,” Helen sighs with relief and returns to Register 4.

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