Albert flushed, but said nothing.
The strain showed in the store. Lively little Brad nearly burst into tears when a customer berated him. He argued that his beloved J.Lo should have stayed with Puff Daddy.
Helen took that as a sure sign he’d snapped.
Stuffy Albert was rude and peremptory. Matt disappeared for two hours at lunch, which made more work for everyone.
Only gentle Mr. Davies remained unchanged, sitting in his nook in the back, reading his beloved books. He presided over the store like some literary spirit. Thursday night, Helen found Mr. Davies asleep over his paperback when the store closed. She woke him up.
“Oh, dear, dear, I’m so sorry. Did I hold you up? I know you want to go home.” He gathered his book and sandwich wrappings and headed for the exit.
Helen was back at the store at nine the next morning. She didn’t care that she’d had six hours of sleep. Today was Friday. Her beach vacation started this evening. She couldn’t take another weird late night.
Instead, she had a bizarre day. The first man at her register had coal-black hair, eyes like twin pools of tar, and a copy of
“I want to return this book,” he said.
Helen was afraid to ask why. She didn’t know which scared her more: if the book worked—or if it didn’t.
She gave him his money back without comment.
“Is this a full moon?” Helen asked Brad. Like most people in retail, she believed the full moon brought out the crazies. “We’re going to have fun today at the registers.”
“Not me,” Brad said. “I’ve got slush duty.”
“Poor you,” Helen said. She meant it. “Slush” was the staff word for the books people left all over the store. Art books heavy as paving stones were abandoned in the Children’s section. Mutilated children’s books were dumped like slashed corpses in Mysteries. Bodice-ripping romances turned up in Sports. Copies of the
The living room attracted the most slush. Old Mr. Turner had created “book nooks” for his customers. Brown leather wing chairs with comfortable reading lamps were scattered all over the store. In the center, sheltered by mahogany bookcases, he designed a living room with a beautifully worn Persian carpet, comfortable leather couches, and armchairs. Here, the slush gathered in three-foot heaps, until it was retrieved and reshelved by tired, footsore booksellers.
Brad, skinny and agile as a monkey, could carry an amazing number of books. He returned from the slush run with tomes stacked to his chin, and a wild look in his eyes.
He dropped the books on the shelving cart and said, “Do you have anything I can use to clean the coffee table?
Someone knocked over a caramel latte and covered it with a stack of Harry Potter books.”
“Are they ruined?”
“Four totaled, and the finish is coming off the coffee table.”
Helen rummaged under the register for paper towels, spray cleaner, and furniture polish and put them on the counter. She heard Brad say, “Thanks,” and stood up to face the sublime smells of hot grease and pepperoni. A delivery man was at the counter with a fragrant pizza box.
“Pizza delivery for Clemmons,” he said.
“We don’t have a Clemmons on the staff,” Helen said.
“It’s not for the staff. It’s for a customer. Large pepperoni and mushroom. He called on his cell phone. Said he’d be in the living room.”
Helen paged him. Clemmons turned out to be a much-pierced young man in a black T-shirt. Helen was used to people treating Page Turners like their home. They put their feet on the sofas, spilled coffee on the carpet, and left books everywhere. But ordering a pizza went too far.
“Sir, we have a cafe where you can buy food,” she said.
“Too expensive,” Clemmons said, taking his pizza to the living room.
Helen tried to keep above the chaos by thinking of her beach vacation. Rich was meeting her tonight at the motel.
They had three days together on the romantic ocean, their first long weekend together.
These rosy dreams departed when Page Turner lurched in carrying a Bawls-and-vodka. He was not flushed and jolly this afternoon. He was plain drunk. He walked around the bookstore, annoying customers with his vulgar question.
He even went back to Mr. Davies’ nook, held up his blue bottle, and said, “You got Bawls, buddy?” The old gentleman seemed embarrassed for Page. Helen was relieved when he finally stumbled off to his office.
Page’s wife, Astrid, called and said, “Can I speak with the son of a bitch?”
“Which one?” Helen said.
“The one who owns the store.”
Helen paged him, but he did not reply. Rather than keep the owner’s wife on hold, she went to his office. There she heard an angry woman insisting, “You are. I know you are.
My mother said so.”
“Your mother’s crazy. And so are you. Get out.”
Helen knocked on the door.
“What?” Page said.
“Your wife is on the phone,” she said.
“Just what I need. Another crazy woman,” he said.
The door opened. The little psychic Madame Muffy stumbled out, clutching a bottle of Bawls with a bent straw.
Where did she come from? Was she Page’s newest girlfriend? Muffy didn’t seem his type.
At four-thirty, Page called the staff together for an announcement. “The Wilton Manors store will close this weekend,” he said.
There was a shocked silence. Matt radiated “I told you so” vibes. Helen could almost see them flashing in neon over his dreads.
Why close that store so soon after Palm Beach? This was crazy. This was something a drunk would do, Helen thought.
“This store will receive no new books until further notice,” Page said, and hiccuped loudly. “That should make your job easier. Less to shelve. Because there will be less work, all hours will be cut. Full-time workers will be cut from forty to thirty hours a week, part-time from twenty to ten.”
Helen had just been whacked with a sixty-seven-dollar pay cut. Maybe if she didn’t eat, she could pay her bills. If the store closed, she would not get unemployment. She was paid in cash under the table.
She looked over and saw that Albert had gone lard white.
He was clutching his chest. Helen was afraid he was having a heart attack.
“Does that mean we’re closing?” Matt asked.
“It means we’re not getting more books until I say so,” Page said. “That’s all it means.” He walked up the stairs to his office.
Albert began talking to himself. “What am I going to do?
I’m fifty-six years old. Who will hire me? Where will I get health insurance?”
“I told you,” Matt said. “Never believe a rich white guy.”
The phone rang. It was Page’s private line. The ringing stopped and the light for that line went on.
Five minutes later Page Turner staggered out of the bookstore, holding a bottle of Bawls and whistling a happy tune. The staff watched silently until he disappeared from view. Then everyone talked at once.
“I’m going to be out of work again,” Helen said to Matt.
She was almost in tears. “I’m going to have to look for another job. I hate it. I hate it.”
She remembered the petty humiliations, the endless forms to fill out, the interviewers who said she was overqualified, the worries about making the rent. A surge of self-pity washed over her. “I hate him,” she burst out.
“We all hate him,” Matt said. “Man doesn’t care what he does to people.”
