Chapter 15
STEPHANIE
“Same shit, different day huh?” Tim remarked as he breezed past me into the store, briefly pausing to cast an eye over the display I was setting up at the entrance. “Looks good though, Steph. I like it.”
I stepped back, narrowing my eyes as I surveyed my handiwork. “Me too. Do you think it needs more height? I think it needs more height.”
Tim chuckled, shaking his head. “You’re the queen of the display. I would just have put the books in piles on the table. I’m useless at displays, I bow down to your expertise.”
“Oh, I know,” I deadpanned, twirling out of his reach when he reached out and pretended that he was going to shove me. “I was here the day before opening weekend for the last installment of… what was it again? Oh yeah, no one would remember because you couldn’t even see the title of the book.”
Tim laughed and scrunched up his face, sticking his tongue out at me. “At least I made the display, someone had to do it.”
“You unpacked the boxes,” Jenny piped up from the bakery section, looking up while busily wiping down the counter. “There’s a difference between unpacking boxes and setting up a display.”
Tim threw his hands up in defeat, trying and failing to hide his smile. “Enough of you two ganging up on me. I’ll never do another display for as long as I live now, which means you two have just been awarded lifelong display duty.”
“Pass,” Jenny said quickly, chuckling. “I’m already on lifelong pastry duty, I don’t need display duty too.”
“I’ll take it,” I told Tim, putting on my best game show contestant enthusiasm.
He formed a gun with his fingers and pretended to fire it off. “Sold! To the lady in black.”
Jenny and I both looked down, both wearing black clothes. We started laughing just as Tim huffed a deep breath. “I can never win with you two.”
“But we love you,” I sing-songed as he ducked into his office. He shot me a grin over his shoulder and shook his head like he was disappointed in both of us. I knew better though, he enjoyed our joking around as much as I did.
“Got any big plans for the weekend?” Jenny asked, stacking the pastries from that morning on top of the display case to make way for the fresh ones. The Friday afternoon after-work crowd loved to spoil themselves with a fresh pastry when they came in.
I shook my head, squinting at the display I was busy with and tilting my head from side to side as I contemplated what was missing on it. Something was definitely missing. “No big plans, other than doing as little as humanly possible. There’s a fun run around Governor’s Island tomorrow Tiana and I were thinking of checking out, though god only knows what’s fun about running.”
“Amen sister,” Jenny agreed enthusiastically. “The only time I run is when something is chasing me, and it seems really, really dangerous.”
I laughed and nodded along with her. “Would you believe it was my idea to go? I don’t know what got into me when I suggested it.”
“That Tiana would chase you and can be really, really dangerous?” an amused voice piped up behind me.
I turned to face my best friend, finding her standing with her hands planted on her hips and that slave driver smile she sometimes got in the gym on her face. “Please, you’re harmless.”
“But I can withhold baked treats and awesome meals.” She knew she had me there.
Even Jenny shuddered and shook her head. “Looks like you’re running, Steph.”
“Looks like it,” I conceded and pointed at my display. “Something’s off with it, what does it need?”
Tiana rounded the display table, used to my perfectionist nature when it came to work. She tapped her chin, moving her pursed lips from one side to the other. “Let’s see, you’ve got the movie posters and cutouts, you’ve got the stock set out and the bottom display novels facing the window. Does it strike you as a little boring though?”
I snapped my fingers. “That’s it. There’s nothing wrong, it’s just really fucking boring.”
“Need any help glamming it up?” she offered, dropping her messenger bag to the floor at the register and returning to my side.
“Sure.” Tiana and I worked well together creatively. Building displays was one part of this job I actually enjoyed, creating a new table with books to catch the eye of customers as they walked in. It was an outlet for me. Doing it with Tiana would only make it more fun. “Where do you want to start?”
She walked around the table slowly and eyed it critically, looking at the titles of the books for inspiration. “How about if we move the cutouts to tell a story of their own? Draw attention that way too?”
“It could work,” I told her, then I remembered some props I had in the back from another display a few weeks ago. “I think I’ve got just the thing. Give me a minute.”
I headed to the back, digging around the boxes in the storeroom for the props. After a few false starts, my hands were full of dust from old stock, but I finally hit pay dirt. Balancing the box on my hip, I closed the storeroom door and inhaled deeply.