The Pepper in the Gumbo (Men of Cane River #1)(25)
“Are you ready?” Alice came toward him, holding out her hand. Her cheeks looked pink but she didn’t have the glow of a woman in love. She seemed under stress, anxious.
But of course she was. Paul was still in her store. She probably thought he was going to launch into another litany of insults. “Almost. I was wondering if you had a few more books I need.”
The blond man let out a deep sigh. “Where’s Charlie? You promised she’d be here and we’d go to lunch. I know I didn’t imagine that.” His voice was bordering on whiney and it grated on Paul’s nerves.
Paul saw the little grimace Alice made, but she recovered quickly and turned back with a smile. “Sorry, Eric. She’ll be here in a few minutes. I think you’re early. We said noon, right?”
Eric shrugged. “Okay, but if we say noon for lunch, that means I come down here at eleven forty-five so we can get to the restaurant in time.”
“Oh, did you make a reservation somewhere? How thoughtful.” Alice’s voice was a little too sweet. Her sarcasm said this guy wasn’t the type to bother with making a reservation at a nice place on a Friday at noon, but he wasn’t above whining when his plans got bumped.
She was half-turning back to Paul when Eric stumbled out a denial. “No, but I have patients waiting on me. You don’t even have customers, usually. You could close and no one would even notice.”
“I guess I would notice,” Paul said. He shouldn’t get involved but the man was talking as if Paul didn’t exist, even though they stood less than five feet apart. Paul was trying hard to keep a straight face. This couple was in the last stages of a relationship. They’d probably been together for years and years, clinging to the comfort of old arguments. He glanced at Alice, saw surprise in her eyes. She deserved better than this too-tight-polo-and-loafer guy.
Eric gave him a once over, letting his eyes rest on Paul’s favorite Converse shoes and then turned back to Alice, as if Paul hadn’t spoken. “Maybe you could call Charlie. I bet she answers her phone.”
Ouch. The snide comment made Paul’s offhand remark seem even more pointed. He saw Alice’s face go red and he regretted ever having said those words. He stepped toward Alice, holding up the book. “I’m sorry to keep you. If you need to leave, I can come back later.”
Alice bit her lip, glanced at the poetry books and then at Eric, as if mentally calculating how much it was worth to keep her boyfriend happy. “Well, maybe you should…”
“Or maybe I’ll just buy these if you don’t have the others I need,” Paul said. “It would take just a second to check your inventory, right?”
Eric made another noise and walked to Alice’s desk, slumping down in her chair. Alice kept her eyes straight ahead but her face went tight. Paul felt her frustration, being caught between the rudest customer she’d probably ever met and the boyfriend she apparently couldn’t stand.
“What are you looking for exactly?” she asked. “I’m afraid we don’t have much more poetry than what you saw in that section.”
The weariness in her voice triggered something in Paul, and he made a decision without really thinking it through. “I’m looking for a present. This person is a collector, has almost everything. I need something really impressive. Doesn’t matter what.”
Alice frowned. “It should matter if they’re a collector. Have you ever seen their shelves? Maybe you have some idea―”
“Nope. And don’t worry, I won’t come back and return it if he doesn’t like it,” Paul said. “But if you have something rare and valuable, I think that would be best.”
“Eleven fifty-two,” Eric intoned from the desk chair.
Alice closed her eyes briefly and Paul wondered if she was going to tell Eric to get out. Instead, she nodded. “I’ll show you where we keep our most valuable editions,” she said, and she led Paul toward the far side of the store, through a little doorway. There stood wall-to-wall cabinets, all climate-controlled. Paul peered into one case and was momentarily speechless. He didn’t expect this little shop to have a treasure-trove of rare books that would put his own collection to shame. He thought back to the front of the store and wondered why she had no security system, no cameras, no alarms. She was asking to be robbed of she didn’t take more precautions. But it all sort of fit with her refusal to join the modern world.
“A Farewell to Arms. Signed?” Paul didn’t need a signed copy and he didn’t really like Hemingway. But he knew how much that little book cost. He’d seen one in a bookstore in New York City for close to twenty thousand dollars. “Cat’s Cradle. I don’t think he has any Kurt Vonnegut.”
He moved to the next cabinet without waiting for her to answer. “You have a lot of children’s books,” he said, almost to himself.
“The previous owner, Mr. Perrault, had always wanted children but he and his wife were never blessed with any. “ Alice came to stand beside him and turned, eyes bright. “Would you like to see my favorite?” Paul nodded. If she had asked him to step off a cliff, he might have agreed. She took a small key from a bracelet around her wrist and opened a low display case.
She quickly tugged on a pair of white cotton gloves and brought out a cream-colored box. Inside was an artist’s portfolio. Leaning over, the rings on her necklace swung forward and he could see they were plain gold bands in two different sizes. She untied the ribbons and moved close to him so he could see. “It’s not really a book, but rather the pictures to a book. Little White Bird, by J.M. Barrie, was illustrated by―”