The Pepper in the Gumbo (Men of Cane River #1)(22)

“I said I wasn’t--” He rubbed a hand over his face. He was really nice looking, in an offbeat sort of way. If life were like the movies, he’d always be cast as the not-too-handsome supporting actor, the kind that viewers naturally trusted and admired. But she knew better.

“People like you are the reason the world has given up reading,” Alice said. “Everyone is stuck on their phones and their computers, never bothering to pick up a book unless they want to make some horrible art out of it, which they can post on Facebook for all their friends. But these,” she touched the leather bound volumes, her voice rising, “are my friends. I only want them to go home with people who will treasure them.”

His eyes narrowed. “That’s a lot of persnickety proprietary nonsense. And that’s also why you’re not making any money.”

She sucked in air. “Who said I wasn’t making any money?”

“I did.” He gestured to the center of the store. “No trinkets, no greeting cards. No board games or junior chemistry sets. No coffee mugs with inspiring quotations or T-shirts with Colin’s Firth’s face.”

“I don’t run a Hallmark store. I sell―”

“I know.” He stepped closer. They were just inches apart now. “You sell books. There’s no real money in books, you know. Especially if you work yourself into damp spot on the floor trying not to sell them, even to people who come in and ask for them ever so politely.”

She blinked up, struggling to ignore that part of biology that convinces a woman that a handsome man means well, even when his words don’t add up.

“Are you a book smuggler? Do you sell them on the black market? Just tell me what you’re doing and let me decide whether to give you the books,” she said.

“The black market? You mean eBay?” He seemed honestly confused by her question.

“Just tell me.”

“I can’t.”

“It couldn’t be worse than what I’m thinking. Anything that doesn’t physically harm a book should be okay.” She wasn’t sure if what she was saying was exactly true. She preferred that books be read, of course. She’d sold a beautiful set of Thomas Hardy to a realtor from Atlanta, who then moved it from house to house as scene-setting décor, never to be read. That still bothered her and every now and then, late at night, she dreamed of stealing them back.

He shook his head, half-turning “You wouldn’t believe me. And there’s nothing I can say to convince you. I’ve met people like you before. Stuck in the past, refusing to move into the modern world. I could quote the greatest minds of the past century and you’d still believe technology was a curse.”

Alice crossed her arms. “Give me one. And not a scientist. Give me a great mind, someone who wrote something I might actually have read.”

“Alexander Pope. ‘Be not the first by whom the new are tried, not yet the last to lay the old aside’.” He gave her a look of triumph.

It was strange to hear that name just hours after seeing it in an email. Alice shrugged. “That’s hardly a ringing endorsement. Sounds cautionary to me.”

“I’ve met dozens of bookstore owners like you. I know how you think. Even if I did explain what I was doing, you wouldn’t approve because these books should be treated like the rarest treasures. Nothing else matters and you’ll do anything to inhibit progress.”

Alice let that sink in. She wasn’t sure what was offensive about his statement. She’d had her share of being overlooked, especially by handsome men. Maybe it was because it made her sound so common, so bland. Resisting the urge to order him from the store, she said, “I can’t imagine that you know how I think. We’re nothing alike. You’re obviously some type of mid-level manager who wants a few pretty editions on your office shelf to impress the visitors.” She paused. “Except you smell like you’ve been rolling in old books.”

He stood motionless for a moment, a look of disbelief on his face. “Mid-level manager? Is that your best insult?”

“It’s just a guess. But although you say you know everything about me, all you did was point out the fact my store doesn’t sell trinkets. So, tell me what I am, if you’ve met dozens of me.”

He blinked, as if not sure what to say. Then he shrugged. “Okay, I’ll tell you.” He turned and walked back down the aisle, headed for her desk. “You have a laptop, but I bet you only use it at work. You probably live close by in a little apartment that’s stuck in the last century. You don’t own a television. You might have a cell phone but you don’t use it.”

He ignored her little sound of objection and walked to her desk, standing over her workspace. He pointed to her fountain pen, her mint green rotary phone, and Van Winkle. “You still write letters, and only email when you have to. You think people who play computer games are wasting their lives and losing brain cells. You probably believe the world is going to hell in a hand basket because of technology. If you could jump back in time a hundred years, you would be perfectly at home in a world without any technology at all.”

He was perfectly controlled, but Alice could see the anger flashing in his eyes. “You think it was more civilized, more humane, more genteel back then, and that people like you are the only reason the earth is still turning. You’re proud you didn’t drink the Kool-Aid like the rest of the deluded population. You’re on a mission to turn back the clock. Only difference between you and the last ten booksellers I’ve met is that you’re young and beautiful, but give it another forty years and a few more cats and ―”