The Vinyl Princess (9 page)

M
onday’s daily blog is about Marianne Faithfull’s
Broken English
. When I listen to this LP, recorded in 1979, I try to imagine what her life must have been like then. After building a career on sounding fresh and young and folksy, her voice was now raspy and world-weary from years of drug use. She sounds raw and damaged. This album makes me curl into a ball. It was one of the first LPs I ever owned. I bought it at Bob & Bob’s.

When I check on yesterday’s blog, eight more people have posted comments: seven Europeans and one guy named Gerry, from Louisiana. He posted a comment that says,
Hey, Seattle Guy, you’re missing the boat. Vinyl is where it’s at. Long live the Vinyl Princess. You rock
. I send Gerry a response, thanking him for the support. I feel my little community slowly growing. Every day my number of hits increases. World domination can’t be far off now. I’ve also noticed that the zines are slowly disappearing from the magazine rack. Sure, maybe people are using them for scratch pads but some people have to be reading them too.

M doesn’t appear at the store at all on Monday. By Tuesday I’m feeling a little desperate, wringing my hands and watching the door obsessively and occasionally wandering out onto the sidewalk to look up and down the street. This is what it’s come to. My moods are now determined by whether or not I see M (and by “see” I mean catch a glimpse of or maybe, if I’m lucky, eye contact). I’m officially pathetic. I’m in love with the idea of a man.

But someone does appear. The guy from the Sunday flea market, the one I shamed into buying the Flaming Lips LP, suddenly materializes in front of me with a stack of used LPs under his arm. Why didn’t I see him come in?

“Hi,” he says. Then he recognizes me. “Oh, hi.”

“Where did you come from?” I ask him suspiciously.

“New York, but that’s not important right now.” He grins.

“No, I mean when did you come in?”

“Oh, ages ago. I’ve been digging through the understock.” He wipes imaginary dirt off the counter. Then he carefully sets his LPs down and takes a white hankie out of his pocket, wipes his hands on it, folds it carefully and puts it back. His brown hair shoots off his forehead in a wave like the French cartoon character Tintin, and he peers myopically out from behind his horn-rimmed glasses.

“Would you like to purchase those?” I ask.

“Well, maybe, eventually. I’d like to have a look at them first.”

He sets to work, carefully sliding each LP out of its jacket and holding it close to his face for inspection. He blows off the specks of lint and looks again, holding it under the light, tipping it one way and then another.

“Do you have any Discwasher?” he asks.

I look at him in disbelief and riffle through the drawer. I pull out the Discwasher liquid and a brush, handing it to him.

“Knock yourself out,” I say, pretending to be annoyed, but the truth is I’m fascinated, much the same way a hunter in the jungle might stop to watch another one’s technique.

“Thanks.” He clearly doesn’t care that I might be annoyed.

His LP selection also fascinates me. He has Jimi Hendrix’s
BBC sessions
, Sun Ra’s
Space Is the Place
,
A Portrait of Patsy Cline
, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Roy Orbison’s
Greatest Hits
, and Kate Bush’s
The Kick Inside
. That’s a pretty eclectic stack of records even for someone who looks like him.

“What’s your return policy?” he asks, wiping down the LPs like an expert.

“Seventy-five percent store credit if you return it within seven days with a receipt.”

“Store credit? No cash refunds?”

“No cash refunds.”

“Hmmm, well, then, do you think you could play this for me?” He slides the Roy Orbison across the counter at me.

“No, sorry. We don’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because, here at Bob and Bob’s, we like to provide our customers with a completely positive shopping experience, which includes carefully chosen musical accompaniment. If I put your LP on right in the middle of things, the musical flow would be interrupted and that’s just not the way we do things here.”

He looks at me like he knows I’m full of crap. He turns around and surveys the empty store. “There’re two people in here—oh, wait, I think one of them works here. There’s one person in here and he’s talking on a cell phone.”

I hold my ground. “Look, I just can’t do it, okay?”

“Why?”

“Turntable’s broken.”

“Oh.” He scratches his cheek. His fingernails are bitten to the quick. “Do you have a bathroom I can use?”

“No. There’s one next door at the Café Med.”

“Is it clean?”

“No.”

“Are you always this unpleasant?”

That’s a good question. Am I? Am I mad at this guy because he’s not M? “Are you always this obtuse?” I respond.

“Can you hold on to these while I go next door and possibly contract a life-threatening disease off a toilet seat?”

“No problem.” I take his LPs and watch him leave. He almost clips M, who’s just walking in the door, in the shoulder. My heart starts to thump. As M walks past me he gives me that same half smile. I’m paralyzed. I try to force my mouth into a smile but I’m so nervous that I think I probably look like I just came from the dentist and the novocaine hasn’t worn off yet. He walks over to the used rock CDs and looks around a bit; then he walks back over to me. My heart cartwheels into my throat.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

His calm blue-green eyes stay locked on mine as he digs through the front pocket of his jeans. “Sorry, hang on.” This is the first time he’s spoken to me. I commit it to memory—
Sorry, hang on.
Three little, beautiful words—an apology—sweet. He pulls out a crumpled piece of paper and unfolds it. He reads from the paper. “Yeah, um, I’m looking for a Joe Strummer CD. It’s called
Streetcore
.” His voice is deep but just a touch on the feminine side, with a hint of a somewhere-else accent. He pronounces every letter of every word like someone who didn’t go to public school. I gulp him in, his face, his hands, his hair, his eyes, as much of him as I can store in my brain for consumption later.

“Oh, yeah, sure, it’s great. The last thing he did before he died.”

“Uh-huh. So, do you have it?” His eyes lock onto mine again; my heart leaps back into my throat.

“We should. Let me have a look.” I walk out to the used rock CDs with M trailing behind me. I’m acutely aware that he has a full view of my ass. Now he’s standing next to me, breathing the same air as me, his shoulder lined up next to mine. It’s all I can do not to lean into him. I quickly flip through the section and locate the CD almost immediately. I hope he doesn’t notice that my hands are shaking. Will he be dazzled by my Joe Strummer–locating abilities? Probably not. I hand him the CD, resisting the urge to “accidentally” touch his hand with mine. He flips it over and reads the back. Is he buying it for someone else? A girl? Or dare I hope that he’s stalling so he can keep me here next to him?

“Yeah. That’s the one.”

“It’s great.” Is
great
really the only adjective I know?

Then he looks me in the eye and out of nowhere he says, “Hey, you wanna get a coffee later?”

I freeze. “Do I want to get a coffee later?”
Think. Respond. Do something.
“Uh, yeah, sure.” I unclench my hand from the CD bin in front of me, where it’s turning blue.

“What time you off?”

“Uh . . . five.”

“Okay, where would you like to meet?”

I think fast. Not next door—everyone knows me there. Somewhere a little farther away, somewhere quiet. “You know the Bateau Ivre?”

“Not sure that I do.”

“It’s just up the street, that old house. Next to the grocery store.”

“Perfect, five then.”

He brings the CD up to the counter with him and I ring him up. He seems to be watching my hands with interest. Are my hands unusual? I’ve never thought so. Maybe he’s a hand guy. Maybe girls’ hands drive him insane. Or maybe he’s not sure what to say now that he’s asked me to meet him. He takes a twenty from his slim wallet and gives it to me, his eyes finally on my face again. He does look a bit nervous. Imagine that: M is nervous over me. I open the register and get his change.

Meanwhile, Annoying New York Guy has reappeared on the scene. He stands there twitching, impatiently waiting for me to finish with M, who seems not to notice him at all. I rack my brain for something clever to say. I come up blank.

I slip one of my fanzines into the bag as I hand it to him. “Have a nice day,” I say.
Have a nice day?
Kill me now.

“Thanks, you too. See you later.” He smiles at me, a real smile this time, dazzling and unguarded, and walks out. I stand there, watching him leave. The guy I just made a date to see later.

“Hello?” says Annoying New York Guy, tapping the counter impatiently with his skinny fingers.

“Hi.” I look at him, uninterested.

He points next door with his thumb. “Everyone in that café is bipolar.”

“I know.”

“Can I get my LPs?”

“Sure.” I grab the stack and hand it to him. I want desperately for him to go away so I can relive the last five minutes and mine it for something salvageable but he’s not going anywhere.

“Are you okay? You look a little shaken up.”

“No. I’m fine. Are you going to take those?”

“Can I put them on hold and think about it?”

“We hold merchandise for twenty-four hours.”

“That’s not very long.”

“No. It’s not. But then, you’re not buying a yacht.” I grab a bag and slip his LPs into it. “Name?” I ask.

“Zach. Z-A-C-H. Short for Zachary.”

I write his name on the bag with a Sharpie and put the bag in the hold bin under the counter.

“Okay, so I’ll be back tomorrow. Will you be here?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“And what’s your name?”

“Allie.”

“Allie, like Alexandra?”

“Alberta. Long story.”

“What, like the song . . . ‘Alberta, Alberta, where you been so long’?”

“Nope, longer story.” I’m not really interested in discussing the origins of my name right now and my face tells him so. I wonder why M never asked my name.

“Oh. Hi, Allie, I’m Zach.”

“I know.” I point to the hold bin. “Remember?”

“Right.” He stands there for a moment, looking at the magazine rack in front of him. He takes one of my fanzines out of the rack and flips through it, reading.

“Who’s the Vinyl Princess?”

“Some girl who used to work here. She quit, though.”

“She must have been cool.” He folds the zine in half and sticks it in his back pocket. “Well, bye, then.” He saunters out of the store like a guy with no particular place to go.

The phone starts to ring and I grab it. I imagine M saying, “Hey, I’m sorry but I have to cancel our date.” But it’s not M; it’s Kit. I exhale.

“Hey. What are you doing?”

“Nothing. Guess who was just in?”

“M?”

“Yup.”

“Really? Did he ask you out?”

“Yes! I’m meeting him for coffee later.”

“Oh, my
God
! What are you wearing?”

I look down. “Uh, my brown sweater.”

“The pilly one?”

“Yeah, and my black jeans.”

“Jesus, you want me to bring you something?”

“Won’t that make it look like I’m trying too hard?”

“Yeah, probably. Let’s not mess with his presumption that you shop at Goodwill.”

“Shut up.”

“So, I got an appointment with that plastic surgeon.”

“Where is he, Silicon Valley?”

“Funny. No, he’s in the city, on Market.”

“Does he know how old you are?” I watch Aidan walk past me on his way to the Cave. When I’m on the phone he doesn’t feel obligated to even look my way.

“I told his receptionist that I was eighteen. I’ll deal with the truth later. But will you come?”

“I don’t know. When?”

“Friday, two p.m.”

“Well, if you don’t mind me expressing my views and opinions on the way.”

“Look, it’s just a consultation. No big deal.”

I sigh. “All right. But let’s have some fun afterward, okay? Maybe we’ll go to Haight Street or something? It’s my day off too, after all.”

“Sure, fine.”

“Have you heard from Niles?”

“No, but I drop-kicked a box of his shit onto his front porch this morning. I heard the coffee mug he made me for my birthday smashing. I’m sure that sent a message.”

“What’s the message?”

“‘Here’s your shit, asshole. And some of it’s broken.’”

“Good one. Hey, I gotta go.”

“Okay, call me later; I want to hear everything.”

“’Kay, bye.”

I hang up and start sorting through some LPs that Laz bought over the last few days; I need something to do to keep my mind off my coffee date, and this is my very favorite part of the job because I get to cherry-pick all the good stuff before it hits the bins. But this particular stack is joyless for me. It’s all seventies soul and funk with some completely predictable eighties rock thrown in. I price it quickly and drop it into the bin to be filed into the sections. I leave it there as though there’s actually a person who might come along and start filing it. As though that person isn’t me. Bob comes out of the office looking almost happy. He’s in a better mood now that things have quieted down on the avenue. Several days have passed with no reports of any more robberies and it looks like the siege may be over.

“Al, I’m going to the bank,” says Bob. He’s wearing a cowboy hat that looks like it’s been run over a few times and an old Neil Young T-shirt from the
Rust Never Sleeps
tour. He could also use a shave and probably a shower. This is Bob on a good day.

“Sure. Is Dao coming in today?” I ask.

“No. Her mom’s visiting from Thailand. She’s taking her to Fisherman’s Wharf.”

I can’t imagine why someone from Thailand would want to see Fisherman’s Wharf. It’s basically a bunch of overpriced tourist traps selling souvenirs of San Francisco that were made in China. You can get a snow globe of a San Francisco cable car but you’d be hard-pressed to find an actual fisherman on Fisherman’s Wharf. A morbidly obese couple from Texas with seven fat kids would be a lot easier to spot.