The Serpent King(4)

The shop smelled of old leather, wool, and denim. An air conditioner purred, pumping out cool air with a whiff of clean mildew. Fleetwood Mac played over hidden speakers. The wood floor creaked under them. A pretty, bohemian-looking strawberry blonde in her twenties sat behind a glass counter display full of handmade jewelry, staring intently at her laptop screen. She looked up as they approached.

“Okay, I love your look. How hot are you, seriously?” she said to Lydia.

Lydia curtsied. “Why thank you, madam shopkeeper. How hot are you, seriously?”

Lydia gave Dill a look that said Try to get this kind of treatment at stupid Opry Mills Mall.

“Are you guys looking for anything in particular today?”

Lydia grabbed Dill by the arm and pushed him in front of her.

“Clothes. Duds. Britches. That will fit this guy and make women swoon across Tennessee’s Cumberland Plateau region.”

Dill averted his eyes. “Let’s maybe focus on the fitting part for now, Lydia,” he said through clenched teeth.

The woman gasped. “My parents almost named me Lydia. They went with April.”

“Lead the way, Miss April,” Lydia said. “I see you have an excellent and well-curated selection.”

Dill went in and out of the dressing room while Travis sat on a creaky wooden chair and read, lost to the world. Lydia was in her element, seldom happier than when playing dress-up with Dill, her own little fashion charity project.

Lydia handed Dill another shirt. “We need some clothes-trying-on-montage music—‘Let’s Hear It for the Boy’ or something. And at one point you come out of the dressing room wearing a gorilla costume or something, and I shake my head immediately.”

Dill pulled on the shirt, buttoned it up, and studied himself in the mirror. “You watch way too many movies from the eighties.”

Eventually they had a stack of shirts, jeans, a denim jacket lined with sheepskin, and a pair of boots.

“I love vintage shopping with you, Dill. You have the body of a seventies rock star. Everything looks good on you.” Mental note: in college, any boyfriends should have Dill’s body. It’s a fun body to dress. Actually, it would also probably be a fun body to—well…anyway, it’s a fun body to dress.

“I can’t afford all this,” Dill said under his breath.

Lydia patted his cheek. “Calm down.”

April rang them up. Thirty dollars for three shirts. Thirty dollars for the jacket. Forty dollars for the boots. Twenty dollars for two pairs of jeans. One hundred twenty dollars total.

Lydia leaned on the counter. “Okay, April. Here’s the deal. I’d love it if you’d sell us all this for fifty bucks, and I’m prepared to make it worth your while.”

April gave Lydia a sympathetic head tilt. “Aw, sweetie. I wish I could. Tell you what. I’ll do one hundred, the friend price, because I wish we were best friends.”

Lydia leaned over the counter and motioned at the laptop. “May I?”

“Sure.”

Lydia typed Dollywould into the browser and waited for it to load. She turned the computer toward April.

“Ever been here?”

April squinted at the screen. “Yeah…looks familiar. I’m pretty sure I have. Was there an article on here about the best vintage stores in Tennessee?”

“Yep.”

April scrolled through. “Okay, yeah, I’ve been here before. That was a great article.”

“Thank you.”

“Wait, you wrote that?”

“That and every other article on Dollywould. I run it.”

April’s jaw dropped slightly. “No way. Are you serious?”

“Yep.”

“What are you—maybe eighteen?”

“Seventeen.”

“Where were you when I was in high school?”

“Forrestville, Tennessee, wishing I were you. How do you advertise?”

“Word of mouth, mostly. I don’t have much of a marketing budget. I’ll run the occasional ad in the Nashville Scene when I’ve had a good month.”

“How about I prominently feature your store on Dollywould in exchange for you cutting us a break on this?”

April drummed her fingers on the countertop and thought for a second. “I don’t know.”

Lydia whipped out her phone and typed while April mulled. She set her phone on the counter, stepped back, and folded her arms with a broad grin. Her phone buzzed and beeped.

“What’s that? What’d you do?” April asked.

“Thought I’d give you a taste. Are you on Twitter?”

“I have an account for the store.”

“I tweeted to tell my 102,678 followers that I’m currently standing in the best vintage store in the state of Tennessee and that they should come check it out.”

“Wow. Thanks, I—”

Lydia raised a finger and picked up her phone. “Hang on. Let’s see what we’re getting. Okay, we’ve got seventy-five favorites, fifty-three retweets. Thanks for the tip, will def check it out…Always trust your taste…Need to make a trip to Nashville, maybe we can meet up and do some shopping…”

“What if—”

Lydia raised her finger again. “Oooh, here’s a good one. This is from Sandra Chen-Liebowitz. That name probably doesn’t ring a bell, but she’s an associate features editor at Cosmo. Let’s see what she has to say: Great tip, actually working on Nashville feature as we speak. Thanks! So you maybe made the pages of Cosmo. Convinced?”