Standing at the front desk on a morning like this, when the sun outside the big windows invites your mind to wander, the voices in the air start to sound like a radio program with award-winning script writers.
Bruno and Daniel are helping an elderly woman with a carpentry-related question, and as the conversation lengthens into several moments, perhaps they are starting to think that they might have, somewhere along the line, given her the impression that they might come along and do it for her, right now. "Well, I guess what you'd need is a jigsaw...oh, what? yes, yes I have one...but it's at home, of course."
The dress on the model on the cover of this month's Town & Country is surprisingly beautiful, soft pink cloud with an elegant, simply built corset of what looks like unbleached linen. The customer buying the magazine agrees, "you know, they're usually pretty staid, so it's nice. I'm getting it for the hair."
Any bookseller veteran can identify with this; we all talk to ourselves as we work. We're not really talking to ourselves, of course, we're talking to books. They talk to us, don't they?
Bruno, under his breath, beside me you gotta be kidding me, that thing's still here stooping down to look at a giant Taschen Da Vinci book, now long held for a customer, let's see...'customer really wants, is on crutches, hold indef.'
You spend enough time finding, carrying, and dusting them, you'll find yourself talking to them. why did I bring three of these up?...I know it's here, waitwaitwait stupid it's Hessler, not Horowitz...and you go with...with...after, L M O R Sisson, there you are, and.....coffee.....oh, two more of that, two of that "Can I help you find something?...Ok...Ok...so how thick is the piece of wood?"
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