Hear the Wind Sing

15

The next morning, I put on that brand-new, scratchy shirt and wandered around the harbor for a while, when my eyes fell upon a tiny record shop with the door open. There weren’t any customers to speak of, just a girl sitting at the counter looking bored as she went over the receipts while drinking a soda. I stared at the record shelves for a while before I came to a realization about the girl behind the counter: she was the girl from the week before, the one with the missing finger who was passed out in the bathroom. I said hey. She looked a little surprised when she saw me, looked at my T-shirt, then drank the rest of her soda.

“How’d you find out I work here?” she said, sounding irritated.

“Just a coincidence. I came to buy a record.”

“Which one?”

“A Beach Boys album with California Girls on it.”

Looking deeply suspicious of me, she got up and took long strides over to the record shelf, then brought it over to me like a well-trained dog.

“How about this one?”

I nodded, looking around the store with my hands in my pockets.

“I also want Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3.”

She was silent this time, coming back holding two records.

“We’ve got Glenn Gould and Backhaus, which one do you want?”

“Glenn Gould.”

She set one record on the counter, then took the other one back to the shelf.

“What else?”

“A Miles Davis album with Girl in Calico.”

She took a little longer this time, but finally returned with the record.

“And?”

“That’s it. Thanks.”

She lined up the three records on the counter.

“You’re gonna to listen to all of these?”

“Nah, they’re presents.”

“You’re a generous guy.”

“Seems that way.”

She shrugged her shoulders uneasily, five thousand five hundred and fifty yen, she said. I paid her and took the records.

“Well, anyway, thanks to you, I was able to sell three records before lunch.”

“That’s great.”

She sighed and sat in the seat behind the counter, starting to look through her pile of receipts.

“Are you always working in this store all by yourself?”

“There’s another girl. She’s out to lunch right now.”

“And you?”

“When she comes back, we switch off.”

I took a cigarette from the pack in my pocket and lit it, watching her work.

“Say, if it’s okay, how about we go out to lunch together?”

She shook her head without looking away from her receipts.

“I like to eat lunch alone.”

“Me too.”

“Really?”

She deprioritized her receipts, looking annoyed, and lowered the needle onto a new record from Harper’s Bizarre.

“So…why’d you invite me, then?”

“Just wanna shake things up once in a while.”

“Shake ‘em up by yourself.”

She went back to working on the receipts at hand.

“Forget about me, already.”

I nodded.

“I think I said it once already, but I think you’re a complete sleazeball,” having said that, with her lips still pursed, she flipped the receipts through her four fingers.