Buy the book (Part V in a series)

Time now for another installment about the trials and tribulations of working at an independent bookstore.

Party night in the neighborhood. Shop owners throw open their doors, set out hors d’oeuvres (well, chips and salsa) and stay open late to entice passersby to spend money. I’ve come in early to help Teri set up the bar. A DJ who goes by the name, Pisces (guess he’s water sign), is fiddling with his turntable in a corner of the store, sound checking a hit parade of eighties bands—Depeche Mode, Eurhythmics, The Fixx.

Teri and I have just finished cramming bottles of Heineken and Michelob into the ice bin when a young woman with pink hair teeters towards us on silver stilettos (their heels the width of a toothpick).

“Hi, I’m Bethany,” Ms. Toothpick Totterer says, offering us a sparkly hand (her silver nail polish matches the shoes, of course). “Is there anyone who can help me bring in my paintings? They’re pretty big.”

Our manager told us an artist would be exhibiting here tonight. But she’s just now arriving? (The bookstore often features the work of local visual artists but they usually give themselves more than thirty minutes to hang their creations.)

Teri obliges (thank God) and a few minutes later she and Ms. Too Tot carry in two gargantuan paintings. Where the hell are we going to put these?

“Uh, we’re going to have to rearrange some things to give you enough wall space for those,” I say.

“ Oh. I have more,” Ms. Too Tot informs us. “Is that a problem?”

I can practically see smoke rising from the top of Teri’s head.

“How many more?” I ask.

“Oh, about…” Ms. Too Tot pauses to count on her silvery fingers. “Five. I hope that’s okay. They’re not as big as these, well, at least two aren’t.”

Oh, gee. How helpful! Teri trudges back outside to Ms. Too Tot’s borrowed truck as I (panic, don’t panic) try to tear down publicity posters for upcoming book signings without destroying them. Oblivious, Pisces cranks up the volume on the eighties and the first trickle of party guests heads for the bar.

“Uh, Pat? Where do you think we should put this?”

I turn around and there’s Teri with a canvas about the size of a coffin propped against her hip.

Damn you, Ms. Too Tot!

***

“Can I get a glass of Pinot”

“Pardon?” I ask. Pisces has got the music so loud—Tears for Fears is in heavy rotation—I can’t hear the orders over the bar unless the customers shout.

“Pinot!” the customer—a guy with a red beard and matching underarm hair (a tank top, really?)–yells.

“Pinot what? Pinot Noir? Pinot Grigio?”

“Pinot Noir!” Red Beard is obviously incensed. “Do I look like a white wine drinker?”

No. You look like an asshole. I hand him his glass of color coordinated wine. What is this, theme night for matching colors?

“When is Carrie going to get here?” Teri asks. “Someone has got to cover the book counter.” (Oh yeah, the books! We’re a bookstore. In all of the party-on frenzy, it was easy to forget.)

"Hey. EXCUSE ME.” It’s Red Beard again, this time, waving a copy of Atlas Shrugged. “I wanna buy this.”

“I’ll get it.” Teri winks. “Even though I don’t wanna to.”

***

With Carrie—one of our part-time employees—finally arriving to anchor the book register, Teri and I can downshift a bit. Heading for a bathroom break, I pause to look at a couple of Ms. Too Tot’s oversized paintings. Picasso she is not. It looks as if Ms. Too Tot has thrown a bucket of paint, the color of an old bottle of Copper Tone suntan lotion, across the canvas. Then to brighten things up, she’s outlined the edges of the Copper Tone splotches with a peach hued pastel pencil.

“I was scared that one wouldn’t be ready in time.” Ms. Too Tot stands beside me, sipping a glass of blush wine. “I had to use the blow dryer on it and it took, like, forever.”

I look at Copper Tone more closely and see little cracks in the paint. One more reason it’s not a good idea to use the “high heat” setting on a blow dryer.

“How long have you been painting?”

Doing the numbers in her head this time, Ms. Too Tot says, “Oh, a long time. About a year and a half.”

I realize time is relative to us all but a year and six months is a “long time?” Seriously?

“So, what do you think?” Oh God. Didn’t someone tell Ms. Too Tot she wasn’t supposed to ask that question?

“Well, uh, it’s hard to put into words.”

“Oh, isn’t all good art like that? Whoops, I guess I shouldn’t brag,” Ms. Too Tot giggles.

About that time—hallelujah!—a big boned woman with a giant Celtic cross dangling between her Jayne Mansfield sized breasts grabs Ms. Too Tot by the arm and drags her off to the bar.

Wow. “Good art?” Poor Ms. Too Tot. Not only is she a terrible painter, she’s delusional. Before I continue on to the bathroom, a white sticker on the wall next to the painting catches my eye. $3000, the price tag reads. I adjust my glasses. Three thousand dollars? She’ll be lucky to get 300, even 30 dollars, hell, anything at all for this piece of Copper Toned crap. Ms. Too Tot has clearly spent too much time in the sun.

***

Back at the bar, guests are getting drunk.

“HEY!”

Red Beard is back.

“Pour my buddy Frenchy here a glass of merlot.”

A squat bald guy with a mustache so long it nearly tickles his teeth stands next to Red Beard.

I hand “Frenchy” his glass of wine.“Merci,” he says and wiggles his thick black eyebrows at me a la Groucho Marx.

(The second theme of the night appears to be facial hair.)

“French Fry’s from Paris,” shouts Red Beard. “And you know what they say about Paris?”

I look over at Teri. “Uh-oh. He’s going to tell us.”

Red Beard takes a swig of his wine, girding himself to impart his extensive knowledge. “Paris is a city in France!” Red Beard whoops and hollers and chugs the rest of his Pinot Noir.

“Oui, oui,” cries “Groucho,” placing his glass on the bar.

“More wine?” I ask.

“Oui, oui,” he grins.

What time is it?” I ask Teri.

Groucho wiggles his eyebrows at her.

“Not late enough.”

***

“Fly Me to the Moon,” cries Red Beard watching Groucho dance with Ms. Big Bones, her crucifix bouncing from one silicone twin to the other.

“Fly me to the moon,” Teri says. “You’d think he’d take the hint.”

We’d been trying to close for more than an hour. Aquarius, I mean Pisces, has already packed up his equipment and gone. Carrie left after shutting down the book register and Ms. Too Tot has wobbled off, leaving Copper Tone and their mates on exhibit through the weekend.

“Take me down to Moon River,” Red Beard warbles. French Fry and the Silicone Sisters shimmy over to us and FF ends their dance by flinging his left leg over the bar.

“Okay, that’s it,” Teri says. “We’re closing.”

“Huh?” Red Beard is, once again, not amused.

“Yeah, we’ve got to go home. Sorry.”

“Come on, Francois, this bourgeois joint is shutting down.”

“Oui, oui, says FF, and out he goes, followed closely by the twins.

“You know,” Red Beard pauses on his way out. “In Paris the cafes stay open all night.”

“Well, then,” Teri says, “perhaps you should go there.” 

She closes and locks the door.

“Au revoir,” Teri waves.

The party’s over.

***

Buy the book (part IV in a series)

Time now for the fourth installment about the trials and tribulations of working at an independent bookstore.

You’d think people who visit bookstores would have fairly decent intellectual equipment. At least that’s what I once thought. But after a couple  of months on the job, I began to reassess. Read along and weep with me…

Mid afternoon and a 30ish yuppie looking woman approaches the counter where I’m working at the computer.

“Um, excuse me.”

I look up.

“What are you supposed to do with those bags up there? I mean what are they for?”

YLW points at the shelf behind me. I turn my head to look in the direction of her well-manicured finger.

“Those are gift bags.” I tell her.  “For brides-to-be.”

“But I mean  what do you do with them?”

I’m getting a little confused.

“Well, you put gifts inside of them. For the bride.”

YLW appears dumbfounded. I try again.

“You know, you use gift bags instead of having to wrap the presents. You put the presents in the—”

“But what are you supposed to do with all of the bags stuck inside,” YLW practically cries.

What the hell is she talking about? I look at the display again. Oh, I see. In order to be economical in our use of counter space, we retail geniuses have fit five or six bridal gift bags inside of the display bag. As a result, you see not just one handle at the top of the bag, but several. I attempt to explain this phenomenon to YLW.

“Oh,” YLW looks positively relieved. “I thought it was really weird. I mean what would you do with all those bags stuck inside? How would you get anything else in there?”

Wow. Who knew gift bags could be so problematic? So troublesome? How does this woman get through life?

“Hey, are there any good bars around here?” she asks.

That’s how.

***
Another working weekend. A fairly even flow of customers in and out of the store. Here comes a tall skinny brunette with her hair pulled back into a pony tail. She’s wearing pink pedal pushers and blue flip flops. The 1950s are in swing again.

“Hi,” she says. “Are these free?”

“Pardon?”

“The Sunday paper? Is it free?”

Ms. PPPBFF  holds up two copies of the local daily newspaper.  Hmmm. Let me guess. Current events aren’t her thing.

I explain that the newspaper’s publisher does indeed charge a small fee.

“Oh. Well, I only wanted them for the grocery store coupons. Guess since I have to pay for them I wouldn’t get much of a discount anyway.”

Oy.

***

Buy the book (part three in a series)

This is the third installment about the trials and tribulations of working at an independent bookstore.

People who hang around independent bookstores tend to be more discerning about what they read than those who shop the box stores for popular titles. Now this isn’t always true, especially in areas where indie bookstores are non-existent (something that is becoming more common, I’m afraid), but for the most part, hardcore readers love to explore, collect, and are open to writers who don’t make their living off the New York Times Best Sellers list. They’re passionate about the books they love and are out to convert those who haven’t read them. As with anyone who wants to convince you of a cause, these proselytizers can be challenging to be around.

I was hanging out with my co-worker, Teri. We were tired and giddy after dealing  with tourists who had been attending a nearby street festival.  The a/c wasn’t working and, hoping for a breeze, we had propped open the front door of the store. It was September and damn hot. 

The store had pretty much emptied out when a tough-looking woman with hair the color of Bozo the Clown’s walked in and headed directly to the “Featured Fiction” table. Quickly finding what she wanted, Ms. Bozo-the-Clown-hair scooped up three books and marched up to the counter.

“I’ll take these. Have you read them?”

She pushed the books in my direction. She had tattoos on both arms  that reached all the way from her elbows to her hands. And man, were her hands ever big.

I checked out the titles. Blood Meridian. Cities of the Plain. No  Country for Old Men. All Cormac McCarthy novels.

“McCarthy is too dark for me. He’s–“

“Excuse me,” Ms. BTCH asked. Rather loudly, I might add.

I stopped scanning the books and looked up at her. She stood about six towering feet in her scuffed cowboy boots. And those hands!

“What do you mean he’s DARK?’”

“Well, I, uh…”

I looked over at Teri who was clearly enjoying this. I was on my own.

“I tried to read one of his earlier books but couldn’t get through it. I thought it was depressing.”  (Oh, God, please don’t let her hurt me.)

“Cormac McCarthy is NOT dark,” she said. “Which one did you read?”

Hmmm. Which one had I read? Had I read it? I couldn’t really remember.

“Well?” Ms. BTCH was waiting.

“I read All the Pretty Horses. But it was a long time ago and—“

“Well, it MUST have been. YOU don’t GET his stuff. ” Disgusted by my failure to see the joy in an author whose prose Time Magazine had called a “genuine diagnosis of the postmillennial malady, a scary illumination of the oncoming darkness,” Ms. BTCH grabbed the sack of books with her big hands and stormed out of the store. Sweet relief!

“That was a close one,” Teri said.

“Did you see those hands?” I started laughing. “She’s got man hands! Like on Seinfeld! She’s got man hands!”

Wait a minute. Teri jabbed me with her elbow. One problem. Ms. Man Hands had turned around.  The door of the store was open, remember? Oh God, had she heard me? How could I have been so dumb?

Ms. BTCH/aka, Man Hands stared into store for what seemed like an era. Oh, Lord, this was it. She had man hands and she was going to use them. On me.

Instead, she turned and walked off.

“You know…” Teri said.

I know. I know.

***

Buy the book (part two in a series)

This is the second installment about the trials and tribulations of working at an independent bookstore. You’ll notice liquid refreshment plays a rather significant role in this anecdote. On second thought, I’ll make it a double! Read on…

A relaxing Sunday afternoon. I’m sitting in our café area, delighting in the major perk of working at a bookstore–reading.  When I look up, a young woman is standing at the counter. How long has she been there? She must have tip-toed in wearing ballet slippers. She peers at me through wire-rimmed glasses. Her dark hair is pulled back in a pony tail so tight that it makes her face look like a stretched canvas. Ouch.

“My boyfriend is out there,” she says and studies the menu on the wall. I’m not sure why she’s offered the whereabouts of her boyfriend but whatever works. After what seems like an interminable  amount of time, she asks, “Do you have any coffee?” (That’s it?)

“Sure.”

“Do you have hazelnut coffee?”

“Sorry, no.”

“How about decaf hazelnut?”

“No. No hazelnut anything.”

“Oh. ”

She reaches back and tightens the rubber band on her pony tail. Oh god, it hurts to watch. I can barely stand it. How can she???

“Do you have any Sanka?”

I tell her I’m sorry, that we only have regular decaf coffee. No instant. 

“No hazelnut decaf?”

What is it with this woman?

I point to the two coffee pots.”Okay, I’ve got regular or decaf coffee. Those are the choices.” She stares at me as if from a faraway distance.

“Never mind,” she says. “I think I’ll just go to the grocery next door and get some coffee there.”

Suits me fine!

Later, I see her walk by with her boyfriend, sans coffee. Guess they didn’t have hazelnut either.

***

An October evening  and the downtown streets are filling up with people celebrating the cooler weather, the coming of Friday and the weekend. I’m busy scanning the ISBNs of new books into the computer. I look up when the front door jangles open, and a woman wearing a floor-length purple skirt and impossibly steep high heels practically runs to the counter.

“I’m meeting a friend for dinner,” she pants. “I’m in a hurry.”

“Okay. How can I help you?”

Once she catches her breath, she doesn’t so much as answer as enunciate. It sounds something like this:

“Gen-ah-swa. Gen-ah-swa. I want to know what gen-ah-swa means.”

She must have stopped for cocktails before her dinner date because I get a whiff of her wine breath*.

*It’s been my experience that people who frequent bookstores have two favorite drinks: Coffee and wine, usually decaf and preferably red.

“Gen-ah-swa. Gen-ah-swa. Don’t you have a French dictionary?”

We stock about five dictionaries, unfortunately for her (and me) they are all in English or Spanish.

You can tell she’s in love with her newfound French word (she thinks it’s a word anyway) because she continues to repeat it as she floats around the store, no longer in such a rush.

Being the nice gal that I (usually) am, I offer to look it up on the internet for her.

“Well, let me know when you find it,” she says and with that directive, goes back to browsing.

Gen-ah-swa.  Is this really a word? I don’t speak French but it sounds a bit off.  While I’m hunting around on the Web, a co-worker returns from her dinner break. When I explain my word search, she rolls her eyes. “She means je ne sais quoi.”

Duh! I should have known that. Je ne sais quoi meaning a “certain something, an intangible quality.”  Thanking my co-worker (who has bested me yet again—grrrrrr), I set off to find Madame, spotting her in the children’s section flipping through a Fancy Nancy book.

“Excuse me, I think I’ve found what you’re looking for.”

“Gen-ah-swa,” she informs me.

“Well, it’s actually a phrase–je ne sais quoi. It means—“

“That’s not it. Let me pronounce it again for you. Gen-ah-swa. See?”

Oh yes, I see. And the color is starting to turn red. I’ve spent over an hour with this silly woman.

“No, I mean, I understand that it sounds similar but it’s really…” And I repeat the phrase. “It basically means ‘an intangible quality.’ Is that how you meant it?”

“I didn’t mean anything by it. I just like the way it sounds.” She puts away Fancy Nancy and picks up her purse. “Gen-ah-swa!” she proclaims.

And with that (no doubt she really meant au revoir), she turns and flounces out of the bookstore.

Gen-ah-swa. I guess to Madame, it has a certain something.

Buy the book (part one in a series)

Writing a novel? Acting in a play? If you need story ideas or glimpses into human behavior, a bookstore is a great place to linger. I’ve been lucky enough to have jobs at a couple of independent (and one corporately owned) bookstores through the years. The money is lousy (you don’t work at a bookstore to make payments on your McMansion) but where else can you get paid to read?

 Generally, the people who hang out at bookstores are interested, curious types who respect the human intellect and imagination (in other words, you’ll see few politicians browsing the shelves). Many are writers (aspiring or otherwise) and in love with  language and wordplay. As a result, the job is more fun than, say, working at a big soulless department store. I mean you get to talk about books and ideas for a living! What could be better than that (I realize some of you may not agree but humor me).

As with any customer service job, there are times when you want to throttle the customer, no matter how big a Stieg Larsson fan s/he is. And it makes no difference what you’re selling, when you work in retail, you encounter a wide spectrum of personality types–pushy, paranoid, gracious, and grumpy.   I’ve decided to occasionally share some of these encounters on my blog. Ah, memories…

It’s a dull, slow Wednesday afternoon so I’m glad when a  fortysomething, slightly drunk woman walks in with her rumpled looking boyfriend.  Rumple heads to the history section while Ms. Malbec (I figure her for a red wine drinker) tells me she’s looking for a book she’s heard about from a friend. “She really knows how to pick em,” she tells me.  I ask her for the book’s title.

“I don’t know. Something “surge.”

Not much to go on but it’s a start.  “Do you know the name of the author?”

“I don’t know but I’ve got to have something to read on the plane. My friend says it’s really good.”

“I’ll be happy to look but I can also show you some new books we just got–”

“No! I want this one!”

Okaaayyy. “Well, is it fiction? Nonfiction…”

“I think nonfiction. Surge. Something, something, surge. I can’t fly without a good book to read!”

“I understand. Did your friend tell you what the book is about?”

“Oh, I can’t remember. But she says it’s good. Have you typed in “surge” yet?”

I google for a while and come up with a number of titles about the surge in the war in Iraq. Could this be what she is looking for?

“Well, that sounds familiar…no, wait. I don’t think it’s surge. Try this–”shoals.” Type in shoals!”

As in shoals meaning sandbar? Or Muscle Shoals, Alabama? The famous recording studio? Wha???

 Say what you will, Ms. Malbec is consistent: she doesn’t remember. Back to the internet.  Of course “shoals,” or a combo platter of “shoals + surge,” doesn’t bring us any closer to identifying the book and I start feeling the agitation associated with losing one’s patience, never a good thing in retail or, well, ever. What is it with customers  who want you to find a book but can’t tell you its title, author, or even subject? Remember Jerry’s friend, George, the bald chucklehead from Seinfeld? This is something George would have done.

“Waitwaitwait,” Ms. Malbec cries. “I know! I remember now. It’s, ‘The Seasons,’ something…something seasons, seasons something…”

Hmmm, and there are how many books with the word “seasons” in the title?

I try again. “Are you sure you don’t remember what the book is about?”

“Nooooo…just that it’s supposed to be really, really good. Never mind. Look up Infidel. That is a great book. I want that one! I have about four copies of it.”

Huh?

Whoever it was who said the “customer is always right,” forgot to add “and usually crazy.”I play along and look up Infidel and it turns out we own it but are out of stock. Would she like me to order her (another) copy?

“Never mind. (Sighs heavily, looks around for Rumple.) Have you tried typing ‘seasons…plus shoals?'”

Okay, that’s it.  I tell her I need more information. She says she’ll talk to her friend who knows how to pick em’ and get back with me. Oh, and she’ll get a Glamour magazine for her plane ride and don’t worry, she doesn’t mind reading that instead. (Gee, thanks!)

 On her way out the door, I hear her whisper to Rumple, “I didn’t think they’d be able to find that book.” 

 Lady, that is the most perceptive thing you’ve probably said all day.

***

To be continued.