doubt he was listening to me; he was simply choosing not to engage on a subject where we were bound to disagree.
That was the first time it occurred to me that it would be a bad thing, the world losing a guy like him again.
Chapter Seven
Foxy was extra protective during the day Friday, and Gideon gave me lots of room. I supposed it didn’t matter to him how long I took to learn what he wanted to teach me. It wasn’t as though he had somewhere else to be.
I wasn’t sure if either of them had a clue why I was on edge, but both seemed to catch it and react with kindness.
It was a hell of a change from Dad, who kept right on as usual.
Friday was almost always a busy day in the shop; I couldn’t say why. I don’t think reading is a thing people make big weekend plans to do unless they’re me.
“People are going to start leaving if you don’t hurry it up,” my father said, standing there staring at me as I tried to work my way through the line at the checkout. “They can get books anywhere, but they chose to get them here because they liked the place before.”
“Before” being before he died, of course. No one would come to the shop for me, only him.
One or two people in the line did, in fact, look disgruntled. Most were on their phones or chatting with each other, but really, the last thing I needed was Dad distracting me while I tried to catch up with the people waiting in line.
Of course, if I told him that, at best I’d look like an asshole who told his customers to shut up. At worst, I’d get a reputation for talking to myself, which was statistically more likely to be a mental illness than a mage seeing ghosts. Not that society much liked either option.
A longtime customer of my father’s was third in line, staring me down and clicking her tongue every now and then. The woman in front of her, thank goodness, was on her phone, but every time the older lady gave a dramatic sigh, she’d glance up at her.
As the college student at the checkout packed his purchase into his backpack and vacated the counter area, the old woman clicked again, muttering, “I remember when the clientele here weren’t all children.”
The woman in front of her set her books at the register, met my eye, and rolled hers. “What ever happened to the old guy who used to work for you?” she asked.
I blinked and it took me a moment to shake off my astonishment, because in the last decade, the only two people who had worked at the store were me and Dad, and I doubted anyone could have mistaken Dad for my employee. “He, um—”
“Was so much better than this,” the other woman sighed. “Poor man must be rolling in his grave at the way you’re running his store.”
My father liked that, of course. He nodded. “You have no idea, Mrs. Wellington. It’s like a nightmare.”
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly as I took the books from the younger woman and started ringing them up. “I’m afraid he passed away,” I told her.
“Tell that girl I did not work for you,” my father snapped, ignoring the fact that “that girl” looked to be a professional woman in her thirties or forties, and turning to me with a glare. “I won’t have her thinking that.”
Instead, I turned to the older woman. “I was sorry you couldn’t make it to his funeral on Wednesday, Mrs. Wellington. I’m sure he would have liked to have you there.”
The woman at the counter, in the process of pulling out her wallet, stopped and covered her mouth, hiding a smile, if poorly. “I’m sorry if you were close,” she told me, and considering she was a step removed from laughter, the words seemed sincere. “But he was always kind of a jerk. You’re probably better off without employees who go around insulting half your customers.”
Mrs. Wellington gasped—I half expected her to reach for a string of pearls she wasn’t even wearing—and turned to stare at me. When I didn’t say anything, she slammed her book down on the counter. “Well I won’t be shopping here anymore. Not if you’re going to let strangers disrespect your poor dead father.”
Considering the fact that she didn’t immediately storm off, she must have expected me to