“Another letter?”
“Kind of, yeah.”
He seemed to know his way around. He led me to adisplay of vintage record players, all with a tiny white price sticker on one corner.
“Have you been here before?” I asked, looking at the different models.
“It’s a small town,” he said in way of an answer. “I’ve been to most places.”
“Do you know anything about record players?”
He bent down to examine the options, then pointed to a little suitcase player with built-in speakers. He rattled off some specs (that I didn’t understand at all, all about something called RPMs and platter weight), the conclusion being: get this, it’s a good one.
“Are you kind of a genius?” I asked as he handed it to me.
“What do you mean?”
“All these college courses, all this random knowledge. Like, who knows this much about record players?”
“I guess I read a lot,” he said.
“About record players?”
“About lots of stuff.”
“Do you ever sleep?”
“Once a week I try to take a little nap,” he said, smiling, sliding past me to the checkout. Em was already there, talking to a very bored-looking twentysomething proprietor about the records she’d just bought. The shopkeeper’s features were androgynous, and they wore a small pin on their lapel that listed their preferred pronouns “they/them/theirs.”
“Do you like vinyl? Did you go to school around here? Do you like working in a thrift store?” Em asked rapid-fire.
“Yes I do,” the shopkeeper responded to Em’s questions in order. “Yes I do. No I don’t.”
I put the record player on the counter.
“Forty dollars!” Em said, reading the price. “That’s a steal. Seriously. It’s like you’re stealing from this store, Lottie!”
Abe dragged Em away from the register as I paid. Sam came up beside me; the shopkeeper smiled when they saw him.
“Hi, Sam.”
“Hi, Zen.”
“Is your name really Zen?” Em called as Abe all but pushed her out of the store.
“Sorry about her. She can get a little enthusiastic,” I said.
“Actually, I’m used to it. Thrift stores make people oddly energized,” Zen said.
“Zen, this is my friend Lottie,” Sam said. “Lottie, Zen.”
Zen extended a hand over the counter and smiled at me, and I got the feeling that any friend of Sam’s was vouched for.
“It’s nice to meet you,” I said.
“Likewise. This is a good little machine you picked out,” they said, tapping the record player. “Forty even. Notax for Sam’s friends.” I handed them two twenties. “You guys should go down to the beach. Mikaela built another driftwood sculpture.”
“Really? Oh, we definitely have to check it out,” Sam said. “Mikaela is Zen’s partner, and she’s an absolutely amazing artist.”
