Jade “Hi, Charlie,” she said as the old man walked into Grady’s carrying an armload of LPs. She gave him a kiss on the cheek and took the records from him. “Ready to turn these in?” Every time he came into the store lately, he brought more records to sell to Grady. He’d reached the age where it was time to pare down, he’d told her, but even though he was turning in ten or twenty a week, he was buying at least five to replace them, so it was going to be slow going. She set the pile of records on the counter in front of Grady, who would tally them up while Charlie wandered through the aisles, looking for something new. “I’m going through some boxes in the back,” she said to them. They were the only people in the store, and she usually looked forward to catching up with Charlie, but today she needed to be alone. “Let me know if you come across anything back there that I can’t live without,” Charlie said. “I will.” Sitting on a stool in the back room, she pulled old vinyl albums from one of the estate sale boxes.
