I yawn as I sit down my can of Diet Coke, the pink bendy straw swirling in anticipation. I know I need to work, but I'm preoccupied by the man letting his dog take yet another shit on the small patch of grass outside of my independent bookstore.

That was the thing about owning a bookstore in the small waterfront community of Marina City. Anyone could take a shit on your lawn and there wasn't much you could do or say about it, especially as a business owner. If you say something, the next thing you know you're blackballed from the community and no one is buying from your store.

Blackballed ' hm ' oh the amusement of irony. Interesting term to use in a community that is 98.8% Caucasian. It makes me nervous just thinking about it ' the lack of diversity, that is. I have traveled all over the world only to settle in the small community of about 4800 people. Marina City is certainly no melting pot, unless you count seven different kinds of redneck trucks proudly displaying the confederate flag. Instead, Marina City is the kind of place that baggy-ass jeans hanging down over boxers and Mohawks were popular approximately 2.5 and 4 years, respectively, after the rest of the country had long since seen those fads come and go.

My attention snaps back as the bells hanging from the store door clank against the glass. I look up in time to see Claire. The young woman had introduced herself two months ago when the store opened. From that day forward I couldn't help but hearing 'Claire's a fat girl's name'� in my head every time I see the round, overweight, acne-ridden young woman. She reminds me of a
Weeble. I wonder if I push her over if she will just bounce back up.

'Have you thought any more about the job?'� Claire asked. She didn't seem to be very personable and certainly wasn't someone that I wanted representing my store. I do have a reputation to withhold, after all.

'Well?'� Claire interrupted my thoughts when I didn't answer quick enough. I stare at Claire long and hard.

Blink ' blink ' blink
That's my customary way of dealing with customers that I really want to tell to fuck off. I make my face expressionless and blinked three times in a row really fast. I clear my throat and look down before she could speak again.

'You know, we really can't afford to hire anyone right now.'� I busied myself with stacking a group of used books to enter into inventory.

'I said I would volunteer.'� I noticed that she lisped on the s.

Claire's a fat girl's name.
Claire's a fat girl's name.
Claire's a fat girl's name.

'Yes, well'�'�
'I could give massages to your customers,'� the lisp interrupted me mid-sentence and my head snapped up in disbelief. 'You do know that you have to have special licensing for that?'�

'I could give foot massages!'�

'SAME THING!'� I couldn't help the annoyance that crept into my voice. I know that the customer is always supposed to be right, but there were a lot of fucking idiots out and some days my patience wore too thin to let them win.

I watch as Claire waddles over to the science fiction section. No shock there, a sci-fi geek. After a few moments, I heard the unmistakable sound of books moving around on the shelf.

'You're not re-shelving my books are you?'� I say in my best fake-happy-smile-plastered-on-face bookstore owner voice.
'Well, you have some stuff in sci-fi that doesn't belong here.'�
'In my store, it belongs there.'�
'But I just wanted to show you that I could do this,'� she grunts heavily as she tries to get up from a kneeling position.
'Don't. Re-shelve. My. Books.'�
A staring stalemate ensues.


***

Claire checks out with at least 15 sci-fi books.Counting the 10 she bought the day before and at least seven she bought the day before that, it makes for a hell of a lot of science fiction ' even for the geekiest of geeks.
I'm pretty sure that I know what Claire is doing with the books, and it's not necessarily reading them. A bookstore opened four blocks from mine a week after we opened. I'm pretty sure that shunning Claire's volunteer-working-re-shelving-massage advancements has netted Claire a job working covert ops for that other bookstore ' The Read-n-Drink. I figure Claire's-a-fat-girl's-name buys the good used books at my store and then takes them down the street to add them to the inventory at the crappy used store. It shouldn't matter, money is money, and I am getting money for a shitload of sci-fi, but it's the principal. Get your own damn books and ideas.

I hate liars.
Worse than that, I hate copycats.
Loathe.
Detest.
Fucking hate.

That other bookstore has been a pain in my ass since the first day that I heard about the rumors they were spreading. I have never been in that other store and now never plan on setting one foot in the there. Again, it was a sheer matter of principal. If they hadn't spread those rumors then it may have been different. But forgetting and forgiving easily wasn't in my nature. I am, after all, part Cherokee.
And a Capricorn.
A deadly combo for stubbornness.

(Next up: Chapter 2: Introducing The Read-n-Drink)

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