“You sure find your perspectives changing.”
“Ain’t that the damn truth. Everybody gets old in different ways. Me, I’m just slowing down. Neffs becoming a recluse. His uncle died a year or so ago and left him a scruffy broken-down ranch in Longmont. He lives up there on weekends now, and you know what?…he won’t even give me his goddamn phone number. He’s like Greta Garbo, he vants to be alone. He says if the store burns down he don’t want to know about it anyway, and he doesn’t want to be bothered for anything less. But I’ll tell you a secret, Dr. J, if you don’t tell anybody you heard it from me. 1 think he’s gettin’ in that Millie Farmer’s pants. She let something slip last week about the ranch, so I know she’s been up there. She thinks Neffs the most brilliant bastard she’s ever met. Hard to believe, considering she’s also met me.”
I was still at least two weeks from opening, but already the books were piling up. Bookscouts were coming by at all hours, tapping on the glass, offering their wares. People were curious and that was good. Neighbors looked in and some gave me a thumbs-up gesture as they walked away.
I knew I would open with good stock, but it wouldn’t begin to fill the place up. I had to decide about the books in Arizona. Ruby waved his hand, a gesture of dismissal. “I’ll tell you something, Dr. J, and I’ll tell you this in good faith because you and me, we’re becoming friends, I hope. You don’t need that stuff. I would really give my left nut for that finder’s fee, but if I were you I’d build this mother from the ground up. That’s how you learn, that’s how you keep deadwood off your shelves. Trust me. You’ll be up to your ass in books before you know it. As soon as people find out you’re paying real money, you won’t know where all the damn books came from.”
We had barely begun work that night when the girl arrived. It was still midsummer and the door was open to catch the early-evening breeze. I looked up and she was standing in the doorway, looking about seventeen in her spring-green dress. She had long coppery hair and when she spoke her voice had Scotland stamped all over it.
“Is this the bookstore? The new one the paper wrote about?”
“You’ve found us,” I said. “You’re a little early, though. I haven’t put out the Shakespeare folios or the Gutenbergs yet, and we won’t open for another week or two. What can I do for you?”
“I’m looking for a job. I’m honest and I work hard, I’m pleasant to be around and I like books.”
“You’re hired,” Ruby said from across the room.
“Pay no attention to this street rat,” I said. “I’m the boss.”
“I knew that from your picture. I did think when he spoke up so forcefully that perhaps he’s the power behind the throne.”
“Hire this kid, Dr. J,” Ruby said. “In addition to all the obvious stuff, she sounds smart.”
“I am smart. I’ve got a brain like a whip. Ask me something.”
“What’s your name?”
“That’s too easy. Ask me something bookish.”
“What’s the point on The Sun Also Rises?” Ruby said. “Every bookman knows that.”
“What’s a point?”
We laughed.
“You can’t expect me to know something I never learned. But tell me once and I’ll never forget it. Oh, I forgot to mention one other thing. I work cheap.”
“Hire this woman, Dr. J, before the word gets out,” Ruby said.
“Don’t pressure the man, I can see he’s thinking it over. Why don’t you make yourself useful and tell me what a point is.”‘
“Three p’s in ‘stopped,’ page 181,” Ruby said. “That’s a point.”
“In other words, the first edition has a mistake and the later ones don’t. Now that I know that, I’m a valued employee.”
“How old are you?” I asked.
“What difference does that make?”
“I’d like to know I’m not aiding and abetting a runaway.”
“For goodness sakes! I’m twenty-six.”
“In a pig’s eye.”
“I am twenty-six. What are you looking at, don’t you believe me? That’s another of my virtues—I never lie. My judgment’s good, I’ll always give you a sound opinion, and I’m compulsively punctual. What more do you want for the pittance you’re paying me?”
We looked at each other.
“I have a great sense of humor,” she said.
“You don’t look a day over fifteen,” I said.
“I’m twenty-six. When I come back tomorrow, I’ll bring you something to prove it.”
“We won’t be open tomorrow. I won’t be ready for a couple of weeks.”
“I know that. I’m coming in to help you paint and stuff.”
“Look, miss, I haven’t even opened the door yet. I don’t know if I can afford an employee.”
Ruby cleared his throat. “May I interject, Dr. J?”
“I haven’t found a way to stop you yet.”
“A word to the wise is all. You don’t want to shackle your legs to the front counter. You don’t want to be an in-shop bookman. You want to keep yourself free for the hunt.”
“Exactly,” the girl said.
“You need to be out in the world. Meet people. Make house calls.”
“House calls are important,” the girl said.
Our eyes met. Hers were hazel, lovely with that tinge of innocence.
“If you’re twenty-six, I’m Whistler’s mother,” I said.
“I’m nineteen. Everything else I’ve told you so far’s the truth, except that I do fib sometimes when I have to. I’m hungry and tired and I desperately need a job. I need it bad enough to lie, or to fight for it if I have to. I’ll come back tomorrow in my grubbys if you’ll let me do something—no charge, just a bite to eat during the day. I’m wonderful with a paintbrush. I could save you a lot of time staining those shelves.”
I started to speak. She cried out: “Don’t say no, please! Please, please, please don’t say anything before you at least see what I can do! Just have something for me tomorrow; in a week you’ll wonder what you ever did without me. I promise… I promise… I really do.”
She backed out the way she had come and hustled off down the street.
“Well,” I said. “What do you make of that?”
“I told you what I think,” Ruby said. “She’s a Grade-A sweetie, right off the last boat from Glasgow. She’s just what this place needs, the piece de resistance. She might even be two pieces.”
We went back to work. After a while Ruby said, “Remember what Neff told you about the book business, Dr. J? Honey draws flies. Truer words were never said, and it works on more levels than one.”
“She never even told us her name,” I said. “Five’ll get you ten she’ll never come back.”
* * *
But there was something relentless about her, something that didn’t give up, something I liked. She was sitting on the sidewalk in the morning when I got there; she was wearing an old gingham dress that had seen better times.
“You’re late,” she lectured. “I’ve been here since eight. Here, I brought you a plant for the front window.”
She handed me a tin can in which grew a pathetic little weed.
“It’s a symbol,” she said. “It starts out little and insignificant, almost nonexistent like your business. Both will get strong together.”
“If this thing dies, I guess I can give up and close the doors.”
“It won’t die, Mr. Janeway. I won’t let it.”
I opened the door and we went inside. The early-morning rays from the sun came through the plate glass, making everything hazy and new. The place smelled like fresh sawdust, tangy and wonderful.
“Are you gonna tell me your name or is that some deep secret you’re keeping?”