Paige Turner (Love is Blind #1)

1. Paige

1

Paige

I ’m not sure what I did to deserve this.

Was it the minor —not so much—accident I got in two months ago that totaled my car? I swear the light was green.

Did I accidentally put a glass bottle in the trash? My mom would have my head for not recycling.

Maybe I’m being punished because I haven’t done enough good deeds. How many baby turtles can one person save in a week-long trip to Hawaii? Granted, that was two years ago, but I still think it was worth quitting my job writing personalized haikus for strangers online to do.

My Save the Turtles sticker is still my favorite.

I’d consider myself a mostly good person. My best friends would likely say the same thing since they’ve known me through headgear and acne and weird style phases that seemed to go on for too many years. Ska punk was not a good look for me.

I must be missing something since I’m currently in hell on earth, or at least, my hell on earth.

“Will you take a dollar?” the woman with pink painted across her lips asks.

Hilda .

She’s trying to kill me. Slowly. With a pitchfork. Or maybe just a fork .

I’m probably being over-dramatic, but I’m at that part of my day—the end—where I’m ready to lose my bra, kick off my shoes, and remove my glasses with an exaggerated sigh that lasts until the work day tomorrow.

Hilda is a few decades older than me with a fur hat, which only seems important to mention since it’s almost summer and at least seventy degrees today, and has said lipstick smeared just above her top lip. She’s a regular at Upstairs Closet Thrift and likes to act like the sticker price is merely a suggestion.

It’s mostly because the manager, Randy, gets aggressive with the sticker gun. I think he just likes the sound it makes rather than its true function.

I’ve had to restrain myself from wiping Hilda’s upper lip the entire time I’ve been ringing her up, which is going on fifteen minutes now. There is only so much a part-time thrift store employee can take before her shift is over.

“I’m sorry, Hilda,” I start, my fingers twitching to reach for a tissue under the counter. My circular glasses start to slip, so I push them further up my nose instead. “This isn’t a garage sale. It’s a thrift store, and prices are set.”

I have a few canned phrases, one for when regulars— cough —like Hilda want to barter.

“Two dollars. My final offer.” She waves a hand at the item in question. “It’s a glass duck. You can’t expect me to pay four dollars for it. Preposterous!”

She’s right. Randy, the store manager, must have been distracted tagging this one while telling anyone who will listen about the donated 1980s TV he tried to lift, landing him in a full leg cast and crutches. Four dollars does seem a little high. But I don’t set the prices. I only organize the items and spend way too much of my own money buying them .

“Let me see—”

Two familiar gremlins cut me off as they explode through the swinging front doors.

“Race you to the back!” the one with flaming red hair like mine despite there being no familial relation shouts.

“Wait for me!” the other kid with stubby legs and a higher-pitched voice screams in response.

It’s fine. I didn’t need functioning eardrums anyway.

Don, the owner, isn’t the most strict with his grandkids (a.k.a. The Tornado Twins) who are a special breed of chaos.

They almost side-swipe Hilda’s rear as they rush past us toward the back of the store where the Holy Grail—the toy section—is.

I kindly remind them they aren’t allowed to run in here like every other time they come to visit. “Cal and Norma! Don’t you dare make a mess again! I just finished organizing and cleaning—”

I’m cut off again by their squeals as they shove through the multicolored clothing racks, knocking over a dress form wearing a sequin number— ope , there goes her head—and nearly miss the giant glass pineapple tray on the seasonal display. Unfortunately, they do make contact with the flock of flamingos I stood next to each other, falling like a stack of plastic dominoes with beaks.

Hilda pushes the ornate glass duck across the counter toward me without a word and places two dollar bills on the counter.

After that epic display from Thing One and Thing Two, I pick up the duck, clutching it to my chest with a flat smile. “Should I wrap it for you?”

She won this time .

“Please.” She nods once, and I set to rolling it in paper so it doesn’t break in her car. Even though I’m seething, I’m not a barbarian. We can’t have her treasure breaking.

I can’t believe I’m doing this. I’ll have to front the other two dollars to make up the difference, which won’t push me over the edge, but I’m trying to save for another car.

For the last five years.

It hasn’t exactly been easy finding work since graduating from community college years ago—eleven to be exact—a fine arts degree in fashion design in tow with an emphasis on textile manipulation. This means I can pretty much add a pleat to anything, but I can’t find a job that will pay enough to eat. My other options were dinner service at an assisted living facility or snake milker, which does not involve any milk, but rather venom. No thanks.

Plus, I’m one to follow my passions, especially when they cost $2.99.

Upstairs Closet Thrift gives me both: passion and discounts.

“Here you go.” I can’t just let her leave to face the rest of the world like this, so I reach for a tissue and hand it to her. “For your…” I point at her upper lip, but she looks confused.

She grabs it, blows her nose, and tosses it back to me.

Well, I tried. “Thanks for shopping at Upstairs Closet!”

She leaves without looking back, and I use a pencil to carefully lift her used tissue and toss it in the trash.

“Until next week.” I slump forward on the counter, head to my forearms. “I love my job, I love my job, I love my job.”

This is true. I love working here. Getting a full behind-the-scenes scoop on items people donate is a daily highlight. I can’t say they’re all appropriate and worth a price tag, but they all have a story .

Buyers and donors, old, young, middle-aged, eclectic, and straight-laced individuals all walk through these doors. It doesn’t matter who you are, everyone is on equal footing when they step inside, looking for deals that rival the last. I’m convinced thrift stores are like Narnia, a wardrobe to another world. And yes, you can probably find a fur coat under twenty dollars nine times out of ten.

There really is a treasure for everyone.

But passion and love can only take you so far (or me in this case). I’m starting to get The Itch. The one just below the surface of my skin, making me crazy until I make a change. Sometimes that looks like buying a different brand of razor. Other times, I’m ready to start my whole life over from scratch.

Please be the razor .

Don, the owner with the two natural disasters as grandkids, walks inside after Hilda leaves and shoots me a side-eye, appearing twenty-seven shades of exasperated. “Why do you look guilty?”

Because I am .

Don hates when I let customers walk all over me, but I can’t help it. How could I force Hilda to part with an item she clearly has a connection to? It was life or death. “No reason. Cal and Norma are already in the back.”

He glares at me nearly the entire time it takes for his transition lenses to clear. “Have they destroyed anything yet?”

I shrug. “I haven’t been back there yet.”

“That’s a yes.” He nods once with a pinched expression. “Do not, for any reason, send them or anyone else to my office, especially—”

“Don!” Randy, the store manager, hobbles over on his crutches he bought here and slaps our boss on the shoulder.

Don’s white mustache moves with an irritated, “Don’t touch me. ”

“Noted.” Randy isn’t fazed and will probably touch him again. “Hi, Paige!”

“Randy,” I nod. “Kids are in the back.”

“What?!” he exclaims with enough joy to fill a gumball machine. “Here? Now? Do they have candy?”

Don’s brows dive together. “Hell no. I didn’t give them—”

“Yup.” The word is barely out of my mouth before Randy’s shuffling on crutches at a terrifying speed to the back of the store like the Tornado Twins did moments ago (minus the full leg cast). He loves it when the kids come to visit because it means he gets to test out all of the toys…again.

Don is right, though, to the dismay of many—only Randy and the kids—there is no candy. It’s a hard drug the Tornado Twins had to quit.

Don looks at me. “Thanks for that.”

“Anytime.”

He peers up at the ceiling, craning his neck from side to side. “What is that horrible sound?”

The only thing Don hates more than Randy’s obnoxious positivity is noise.

I hold up the ancient iPod Mini with a cord longer than the coiled one we used to have attached to our house phone, both of which are now extinct. “It’s music.”

“Why are they yelling?”

“They’re singing,” I offer, but he doesn’t seem convinced.

“Turn it down, would ya?” He rubs his temples. “I’ll be in my office until the kids, Randy, and whoever is trapped inside that small device stop screaming.”

That will be exactly…never. I’ve known the twins, Cal and Norma, since before my employee discount existed, and I was just a customer. Th ere hasn’t been a second they’ve spoken below eighty decibels. “Okay. I’ll go check on them soon.”

Don brings them in for a few hours every Friday. His daughter is a single mom, and he likes to help her out. Even if he appears in physical pain every time the Tornado Twins are around, he’s never missed a day. But he’s retiring soon and a part of me isn’t looking forward to this change. Maybe that’s why The Itch is bugging me so much.

He nods once and stalks off toward the opposite side of the store and through another set of swinging doors you really have to watch your back with. They like to slap your ass if you aren’t fast enough.

I sigh and grab a few of the go-back items in the bin behind the counter. Sometimes, this is where the best things are found. But not today. There’s a woven basket with fruit painted on the handle, a set of four plates with the faces of past presidents on them, and a plastic bag filled with corn-on-the-cob skewers shaped like watermelons. Make it make sense.

Gathering them in my arms, I take a shortcut through the seasonal section with extra dead flamingos lying around to loop the basket on a rung. Bending around the bookshelves—some with old VHS tapes—to housewares where I toss the skewers into a bin of other pointed objects threatening to slice me into a million pieces. I move along to decor, a far less intimidating section, where I leave the plates.

I don’t need to eat off Teddy Roosevelt’s face, but someone might.

As I pass the aisles of shoes, they call for me to organize them by size and style, but I cover my ears and walk quickly toward the toy section. It’s the place where children become kings and queens with gold overflowing from their pockets—or pennies—and they can afford just about anything since most items are marked well below retail. But it’s also a place that reminds me of someone’s weird Uncle Al who has a perpetual eye twitch and hair standing on end as if electrocuted. It’s a scary place with a questionable backstory.

“Bang, bang! Got you!” Randy yells, holding a squirt gun and pointing it in the air.

I stop short. “You’re going to break that.”

He rocks back and forth on curved wooden slats with a plush horse fastened to it, his crutches already discarded. “It’s fine. They don’t make them as sturdy as this anymore.”

Because they don’t make them at all anymore.

“Are you sure there’s no candy?” Randy asks with bated breath.

“Nope.”

“Dammit.” He immediately covers his mouth, looking to see if the kids heard him.

The floor space around the rocking horse is already scattered with game pieces, cardboard blocks I had stacked perfectly in a circular tower an hour ago, and toy cars that look like they could easily be someone’s demise if they stepped wrong. Cal is currently scaling the shelves along the back wall, which are not very secure, mind you, and Norma is talking with a porcelain doll. This feels on-brand for her.

I’m already walking away before I finish my sentence. “I’m gonna go straighten out the clothing racks. And get Cal down!”

“Pow!” Randy screams again, garnering Cal’s attention by how much fun he’s having. It doesn’t matter if Randy is in his mid-twenties with a style that screams I got this for free , he still plays like a six-year-old.

He’s been the store manager for the last two years and lives with his mom one town over. This isn’t a judgment since I’m now part of the club, my address being the basement of my childhood home. My parents and younger sister occupy the upstairs of our split-level and often question why I sometimes lock my door .

We’re working on the boundary thing.

It wasn’t my first choice, but after putting myself through community college and starting a few different businesses that flopped, I’ve been living with my family for the last year to get serious about saving money. Sure, it also means living in the same Washington suburb where I attended prom, but things have been worse.

I just can’t think of when.

My route takes me back to the front of the store again, and I get busy straightening hangers and picking up random articles of clothing carelessly tossed on the floor. The amount of people who decide in the general vicinity is better than hanging it back up is staggering.

A booming voice startles me from behind. “Watchu doing?”

“Delia.” I press a hand to my racing heart.

“Yeah. Who else would it be?”

“No one.” Or someone asking me for the hundredth time if an item has been tested.

Yes, I used that blow dryer on my own head this morning.

Not.

Despite the red, squeaky pleather shoes Delia likes to wear that match the streak in her black hair, she manages to scare me out of my skin more than I’d like to admit. She’s worked at Upstairs Closet only two months longer than I have and is about my age, which is only an assumption since Delia doesn’t believe in ages—something about ageless souls . She also doesn’t believe in things like Sunday brunch and red salsa.

“How’s the boy toy?” she asks, pulling out a dress, holding it in front of her, and studying herself in the mirror at the end of the aisle.

“Tucker?”

“Sure. ”

Men are Delia’s favorite thing to talk about aside from women. It just so happens dating and breaking up are an extracurricular activity I never wanted to be good at, but I am. Olympic gold medal good.

I flip a tank top missing a hanger over my shoulder. “He’s good.”

“That’s all you have to say about him?”

My cropped hair tickles my chin, and I swipe it away. “Yeah. I mean, he’s coming to dinner tonight to meet my family, but other than that, not much has changed since the last time you asked.”

Not much has changed in regard to Tucker. Period. We went to high school together, sitting side-by-side in computer class and when I agreed to marry him so he could obtain his green card, we just continued seeing each other, I guess.

Just kidding, that never happened.

But I wouldn’t be opposed to the idea of a marriage of convenience. I like the idea of skipping the dating part.

I turn the question back on her. “How’s your boyfriend?”

Delia hangs the dress back up and puts her hands on her plentiful hips. “Which one?”

“You have more than one?”

“Well, yeah,” she says as though this should be obvious. “I’ve got one waiting out in the car right now.” Looking at the tie dye wrist watch she’s wearing, she adds, “I should probably go let him out soon.”

I laugh.

Delia does not.

My phone starts dancing in the back pocket of my 501 Levi’s, one of the items recently secured on my thrifting bingo card. I work it out and read the name sprawled across the screen.

Rhodes

Your ride is waiting, but it turns back into a pumpkin in three minutes.

Me

Good thing you have a license to drive both.

Rhodes

But one will ruin your shoes.

Me

I didn’t like them anyway.

Smiling, I pocket my phone. Relying on my friends or family members to get me to and from work is getting annoying. Why are cars so expensive?

Delia starts flipping through the sweaters, side-eyeing me through the curtain of her cropped dark hair. “With a smile like that, whoever that is has to be your side-piece.”

“Who? Rhodes?” My laugh is strained. “No, definitely not. There’s no way. You know we’re just best friends. That would be…”

My words trail off at the thought of Rhodes and I becoming anything more than casual flirting and BFF bracelets I forced upon him. It would have happened ages ago when I invited him to sit at our lunch table in middle school, and he proceeded to save his chocolate milk for me every day after.

“Totally normal? No issue? Really sweet?” Delia fills in.

“I was going to say weird .”

She waves me off, and I decide the endless work of hanging clothes back up can wait. My time here is up. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Mhm. As long as one of my lovers doesn’t run me over.”

She’s had the same goodbye for the last six months .

I wave her off and quickly find a spare hanger to put the tank back on the rack, walking to the side of the store where the offices and drop off zone is. This is the area where all of the action happens, making it one of my favorite spots. Where we get to see all of the treasures people donate, sorting them into their proper sections. It makes me feel like I know the donors a little more, too. At least what they smell like and take interest in. It always surprises me what’s given away. That’s the life cycle of stuff , but it’s better here than a landfill.

Paper bags with donated items rustle as they’re tossed onto work benches, and the repetitive click and slide of items being tagged will always feel comforting to hear. I really do like this job, and I haven’t been able to say that about all of them. Door-to-door Tupperware sales was not for me.

Grabbing my purse and today’s finds, I push the side door open and a gust of wind greets me. I sigh with how good it feels to be outside. Spring in Washington is my favorite. Most of the days are warm and sunny like this with only a few sprinkles left in the sky for the season.

Today is no different. The birds are singing, the trees scattered around the parking lot medians are swaying, and my best friend probably has a snack waiting for me. He knows how grumpy I can be without food. And like the chocolate milk of earlier years, he’s still intent on bringing me something every time I see him.

Maybe life isn’t so complicated.