“I know my customer. She really likes that lamp, Leo. She’s trying to frighten me by playing hard to get, but she’ll end up buying it for ten.”
“You’re ruthless.”
“I’m a ruthless garage-saler, yes. You’re a considerably less ruthless garage-saler, I’ve noticed.”
“Considerably less.”
She scanned the shoppers, her attention pausing on a twenty-something woman who looked like she may live on a hippie commune. “You should go tell that woman that the books she’s pondering are straight out of the library of famed research scientist Oliver Donnelly.”
“Are you suggesting I lie to her?”
Her face swung toward him. “No! I thought thosehadcome out of your dad’s library.” Her smile transformed her face and . . . he forget what he’d been about to say.
“Whose books are those?” she asked.
“Mine. That big stack of books over there is from my dad.”
“I’m surprised that you had anything to donate to the sale just a few months after moving.”
“I’m always buying more books.” He ran through the monthly book budget he set for himself within the first two days of every month, then had to wait weeks before he’d let himself buy more.
“You don’t watch a lot of TV, do you, Leo?”
“I watch soccer sometimes.”
“Mm-hm. What aboutTop Chef? OrNCIS? OrSo You Think You Can Dance?”
“No. The only show I watch isNBC Nightly News.” After he put Charlie down and straightened the house, he stretched out on his sofa with a pillow behind his head and read.
“I’ll have to introduce you to those shows sometime.”
“I’ll have to introduce you toRobespierre, Architect of the Reign of Terrorsometime. I just finished it last night, and it was excellent.”
“I love to read, but that book sounds incredibly boring. No offense.”
“None taken.”
“I like funny love stories or fast-paced suspense novels.”
“I never disparage anyone’s taste in literature.”
“That’s good of you, Professor.”
“To each her own, so long as the cause of literacy is furthered.”
The twenty-something woman was still looking through his books.
“Go over and tell her that those books were yours,” Maddie encouraged. “That’ll result in an instant sale.”
“Famed research scientist Oliver Donnellysounded a lot more impressive.”
“No way. The fact that they were yours will make them far more enticing to her.”
“How do you figure?”
“Because you’re persuasive in your own way. You must have noticed.”
“I’m an un-ruthless garage-saler, remember?”
