by Raven Snow
“Okaaay,” Rowen said slowly, still not entirely sure about what had just happened. Was she trapped working here for an entire day now? It seemed a little up in the air whether or not Lydia was coming back at all. She had a tendency to say she was going to the bathroom so she could sit down and relax a bit behind closed doors. Rowen looked back to the heavy-set man as he began to talk again.
“Do you sell any telescopes?” he asked.
“What?” It took Rowen a moment to process that as well. Why would they sell telescopes? “No, I don’t think we’ve ever sold those.”
The man frowned. “You don’t think?” he repeated. “Can you go check and see?”
Rowen rephrased. “We don’t sell telescopes.”
“So, you’re not even going to check?”
“There are no telescopes.”
“Why wouldn’t you stock telescopes?” The man’s frown had deepened. “There’s aliens out here. You’d sell a lot of telescopes. I bet you have them. Just look in the back.”
Rowen was about to reply when something else caught her attention. Sara was following her mother out the door, shoving a crystal in the pocket of her denim dress. Great. She turned to Eric. “Hey, can you go check in the back?”
“For what?” asked Eric.
“Telescopes.”
“This place doesn’t sell telescopes.”
“Just make sure for the man.” Rowen inclined her head, trying to communicate to him that she knew full well how ridiculous this all was. “Someone needs me over there,” she told the heavy-set man. “He’ll be back in a moment.”
Rowen hurried toward the door. She was sure she had lost them when she heard a grown woman throwing a fit around the corner. Rowen rounded the corner, stepping up to where the car was parked. Sara and Roswell were standing there, looking at their mother with bored expressions on their face. “How am I supposed to get out of here?! Some idiot blocked the parking lot.”
“It wasn’t a parking lot,” Rowen said, drawing the woman’s attention as well as her wrath. “There was a sign.” She pointed at the sign now set up in the window of her car. “That sign.”
“You again? I didn’t see it!”
“Yeah you did,” said Roswell, correcting his mother, brow furrowed like he was confused. “You said-”
“Shh,” she hissed at her son. “The adults are talking.” Her attention switching back to Rowen, she continued. “Are you stalking me or something?”
“Did you buy anything today?” There was no polite way to bring up the subject. Honestly, the woman could just walk away, and there wouldn’t be a whole lot Rowen could do about it.
“What?” The woman asked. “No,” she said, scandalized. “I’ll never be shopping here again.”
Good, Rowen thought, but she didn’t say that. The woman was likely just a tourist anyway. Hopefully, they would all be gone before too long. “I hate to ask then, but I’m afraid your daughter might have put something in her pocket.”
Somehow, the woman looked angrier than ever. Her face went beet red. “What? Are you saying my children are thieves?”
“I think they’re children,” Rowen said with a shrug. “Beyond that, I don’t really know them.”
“They wouldn’t do anything like that. They know better.” The red-faced woman said all of this while Sara was busy pulling gemstone after gemstone out of her pocket. She had three of them. Rowen pointed. The mother looked down to her daughter. Her face went red, and she fumbled with her words a bit. “She came into the store with those,” she said, probably because she realized she could backtrack and say they really had bought them now.
“No, I didn’t,” said Sara, looking as confused as her brother had when their mom had said he couldn’t read the sign. Sara held the stones out. Rowen took a few steps forward to retrieve them, but the mother was quick to be the middle man.
“Here,” said the mother, dropping them all at once so that they almost fell on the asphalt. “I’m sure you need them. Gotta squeeze every little penny you can, right? Can’t even afford a paging system.”
Rowen ignored the mother. She smiled at Sara. “Thank you very much for being honest.”
“Leave the parenting to me, thanks. Now, are we finished yet? Can you move this hunk of junk?” The children’s mother kicked the tire of Rowen’s car.
Rowen threw up a hand to signal that she was done. She turned her back on the woman and headed back toward the store front. “A traffic cop is on the way. Take it up with him.” Rowen ignored whatever it was that awful woman yelled at her as she went. It took a lot of shuffling and elbowing to get back into the store. Everyone seemed to think she was trying to cut in line. “I work here,” she said, more than once. She wasn’t sure if that actually worked or not. Regardless, she made her way back into the store just in time to find Eric being complained at.
“Look, they don’t have any telescopes,” Eric said, firmly.
“You didn’t even look all that long,” whined the heavy-set man. “Let me go back there. I’ll look.”
“There aren’t any telescopes,” Rowen said, stepping up between the both of them. “I checked in our computer system. No telescopes.”
“Are you sur-”
Rowen cut the heavy-set man off before he could get the entirety of his question out. “No telescopes here. Go check the general store down the street. Sorry we couldn’t help.” Rowen took Eric by the hand and stepped away. She knew she was kind of throwing the general store owner under the bus. She knew they didn’t sell telescopes either. Fortunately, she’d never liked the general store owner much. Every time she went there, he refused to talk to her. He knew everyone else by name and would chat with them for ages, but Rowen just got stony silence. All the Greensmiths did.
“I should call Norm to come in, maybe figure something out with Rose too while I’m at it.” Rowen pulled her phone from her pocket. “I’m going to head into the back. I can’t hear myself think out here.”
Eric nodded. “Sounds like a good idea… I’m going to go help Nadine behind the register there. She looks overwhelmed.”
Rowen smiled at her husband and rose up on her tiptoes to give him a peck on the cheek. “Thanks, Sweetie. That’s really thoughtful of you.” Rowen watched as Eric made his way to the front register. She quickly slipped into the back before a customer could approach her again. She made it to the storage room and immediately noticed that the back door was open. She quickened her pace to go shut it before spotting Lydia standing just outside. She was smoking a cigarette.
“Aunt Lydia!” Rowen was stunned to walk in on her aunt smoking. It was bad enough that Margo did it.
Lydia jumped, nearly fumbling her cigarette. She turned to face Rowen, her eyes wide. She choked on smoke as she attempted to breathe again after gasping as she had. “Rowen,” she managed finally. “It’s not what it looks like.”
“Really?” Rowen dropped her gaze to the cigarette between Lydia’s fingers. “Because it looks like you’re back here smoking a cigarette.”
Lydia looked down at the cigarette she was holding. She frowned. “Well, yes, I suppose I am doing that.”
“Why? You lecture Margo about smoking every chance you get.”
“Right! And that’s exactly why I have these. I confiscate packs if she tries to smoke in the house or leaves them out on the counter.”
“So… What? You confiscate her cigs so that you can smoke them later?”
Lydia stood up a little straighter, squaring her shoulders. “Better I smoke them than her!”
“I mean, you could just throw them away.”
Lydia opened her mouth like she was going to argue further on the matter. She gave up before getting even her first word out. It looked like she was simply too tired to come up with a good excuse that would both convince Rowen and make her feel vindicated in some way. “Fine, yes, it’s a terrible habit. It’s something I only do when I’m anxious, though! This is a very anxiety-inducing day.”
Rowen had
to give her that. “Yeah,” she chuckled. “I guess so… Seems like you’re pretty used to smoking, though.”
Lydia shrugged. “Used to smoke all the time back when you were just knee high. Your mom and Norm were always out and about. Nadine was dealing with the death of her husband. I had you and Margo and Rose and Willow and Peony to take care of all on my own a lot of days. Sometimes meditation just didn’t cut it.” The look on Rowen’s face must have changed, because Lydia quickly smiled. “Don’t think that means I don’t have any regrets. I miss you all being my little babies.” She rubbed at her eyes with the heel of her hands. “Now you’re all grown up and don’t need me anymore.”
“Oh, stop it.” Rowen went and gave Lydia a hug. She was pretty sure that’s what it was Lydia was fishing for.
Lydia held on to Rowen for several long moments before she stepped back. She dropped her cigarette on the pavement and ground it out with the toe of her loafers. “What brings you back here?”
“I was going to give Norm a call. You need everyone on staff today, don’t you think?”
Lydia nodded. “I already gave him a call. He said he’d be here soon, but you never can tell with that man. He could get here in ten minutes, or he could get here in a matter of hours.”
“Well, the roads are super backed up, so I doubt it’ll be minutes. Is there anyone else you think I should call? One of my cousins, maybe?”
“Aren’t they busy with that paper of yours?”
“Things seem to be a little locked down at the moment. I’m not sure how bad it is compared to this. Obviously people who aren’t employees aren’t going to be let into the building. We can all work from a distance on the paper. It seems to me like this place needs a lot of extra, in-person help right now.”
Lydia nodded, her gaze distant and a bit distracted. “You’re right,” she agreed. “I don’t want to be a bother, though!”
“It’s all right. We have to do something.” Rowen stepped outside the back door and made a few calls. It was on her second call that she actually found someone willing to help. “Are you sure she’ll be all right with that?”
“Tina? Oh, yeah. Sure. She doesn’t have any work to do today anyway. She’s been talking about trying to find ways to make my family like her,” said Peony.
Rowen wasn’t sure this was what Tina had in mind, but she wasn’t going to push the matter. Her family needed the help. “All right. That sounds great.” After saying her goodbyes to Peony, she immediately called Rose next.
“Rowen?”
“The one and only. How are things going down there?”
“They could be better,” Rose said, wistfully. “I guess things are a little improved. Some people got bored and left. Some others left when the News put the sign up on the door.”
“What sign up on the door?”
“Margo is going to give an exclusive live interview both tonight and tomorrow night.”
“Seriously?” Rowen knew that Margo liked being on camera, but she couldn’t imagine why her cousin would agree to do an exclusive. “How did Julia convince her of that?”
“It wasn’t Julia,” said Rose, three words that caught Rowen entirely off her guard. “It was Irene Jones. At least, I think that’s what her name was. I wrote it down somewhere… Ah, yes, here. Irene Jones. She’s a correspondent for WNT. World News Tonight, I think it’s called.”
WNT. Rowen remembered hearing that acronym. She had to think about it for a moment, but it came back to her soon enough. It had been mentioned on Channel 2 News. Julia had looked awfully upset to find out they had been on the scene before her. “Margo is probably just drawn to the exposure.”
“That’s not necessarily a bad thing,” Rose said in their cousin’s defense. “Right now, we need some exposure. People aren’t going to calm down until they know a little more about us.”
“We have the Lainswich Inquirer for that.”
“Yes, but it’s mostly just print. People want to meet us, see us, make sure we are who we say we are. They want another source for more information, more than something like our paper or the blog. They may view those as biased.”
“Who cares?” Rowen still didn’t see the point. “Honestly, who cares what these people know about us?”
“Well, we’re hoping that the less of a mystery we are, the less of a spectacle we’ll be. People know us around town now. They aren’t so eager to catch glimpses of us ever since our family stopped being so secretive.”
“That doesn’t mean they like us,” Rowen pointed out.
“They don’t have to. They just have to get bored of us.”
Another pertinent question occurred to Rowen then. “Where is WMN… WWN… whatever.”
“WNT.”
“Right. That. Where are they based out of?”
“They seem to have a few offices all over the country. If something is outside the US, they’ll fly their correspondent there. It looks like their news is an internet broadcasting thing.”
“Julia doesn’t have anything to be worried about then, I guess.”
“You’d be surprised. Internet news has really taken off. It’s where the future is at. The WNT reaches a lot more people than Lainwich’s Channel 2 ever has.”
Rowen took a moment to process all that was wrong with that statement. “But… What if that draws in more tourists?”
Like Rowen, Rose lapsed into silence. This was obviously something she had given consideration. “I’m honestly not sure at this point. At this point I’m just hoping everything dies down, and things go back to normal. Until then, I feel like we need to defuse things as much as possible. I’m not completely sure if what Margo has in mind will work, but I’ve chosen to trust her. She’s our PR person, after all. I have to let her do her job.”
That made sense… unfortunately. Margo was good at her job. She had a real way with people. Not that any of that would make a difference in the end. Not if those lights stayed in the sky and more people kept coming.
Chapter Six
Rowen spent the day at Odds & Ends. Willow and Benji were out on foot taking pictures. Rose was working on articles. Margo was getting ready for her big interview. Rose insisted again and again that she had a handle on things where she was. “It’s fine, really. Thanks for offering, but it sounds like Lydia and Nadine need help more right now.” While that was true, Rowen would much rather be working from the comfort of her desk at the Inquirer office. Stuck at Odds & Ends like she was, she was getting a whole bunch of Black Friday flashbacks.
Eric was more than a little out of his element. He had clearly never worked a day of retail in his life. He wandered from customer to customer, unable to answer most of their questions. They wanted to talk aliens or star charts or the practical use of pyramids in meditation and spell casting. Nadine finally saved him from the sales floor and put him on the register instead. Money, at least, he understood.
Peony and Tina arrived soon enough. Peony was wearing a cute sweater and denim shorts over thick leggings. Her shoes were the black, thick-soled ones she went hiking in. Tina, meanwhile, wasn’t dressed practically in the least. A knee-length ruffled skirt and three-inch heels didn’t exactly scream retail.
“Oh, Peony! Tina! So glad you both came.” Lydia gave both girls a little side hug before turning to Tina. “It’s so sweet of you to come here on top of your work at the library. Did you bring a change of clothes?”
Tina’s face reddened. Like Peony had mentioned, this had been her day off. Rowen was sure Tina had dressed like this in the hopes of making a good impression. Not that she needed to. All the family knew her pretty well by now. They weren’t judgmental people… Well, not all of the Greensmiths were anyway. Either way, Rowen felt certain they all liked her well enough.
“Oh!” Lydia patted Tina on the shoulder. “Well, if your feet start to hurt in those shoes, don’t hesitate to sit down in the back.”
Tina put a smile on, her face still red. The smile fell as soon as Lydia had turned to go. “O
kay,” she said, taking a deep breath like she was mentally preparing herself for the rest of the day.
“Excuse me, but do you work here?” asked a reed thin man with a wispy mustache.
Peony turned her smile to the man asking the question. “I do! One second.” She turned back to Tina. “Maybe you could, like, stock shelves or something. Like, you know, get some stuff to sell from the back. The shelves are looking a little empty.”
Rowen nodded. “That sounds like a great idea. Come on, Tina. I’ll show you where everything goes. It’s really a two person job anyway.” She headed into the storage room, closely followed by Tina.
Rowen pointed out the gems and the candles and the sachets of herbs. “These are what sell the fastest, so they’re going to be the first thing we need to get out there on the shelves. Lydia and Nadine usually have them sorted properly, but they hadn’t really predicted today. At this rate, they’ll have to order a new shipment by tomorrow. The box I’m opening now wasn’t meant to be opened for a couple of months.”
“At least it sounds like they do steady business,” Tina offered, that forced smile still on her face. “I mean, it sounds like they’re making a steady profit if they buy that far ahead.” Her eyes widened slightly then. “Not that—I mean, they seem like shrewd business people. Of course they make a steady profit.”
“Actually, they barely scrape by. This place is mostly kept open by donations from past patrons and people who are thankful to the Greensmiths in a different capacity.”
“Like me,” Tina said with what sounded like a genuine chuckle. She was speaking, of course, of the time the Greensmiths had saved her life from a serial killer. Peony had even taken a bullet for Tina. Technically. It only sort of grazed her.
“Like you.” Rowen stopped unpacking the box long enough to take a good long look at Tina. “You know you don’t have to pretend to be thrilled to be here. No one is going to think less of you for it. I know Peony probably didn’t even ask you, right? She just volunteered you.”
