She threw me a look, and I nodded.
It was wet and cold and had been wet and cold for months. Coffee was the only way to get through Oregon’s never-ending season of gloom, otherwise known as October to June. July couldn’t get here fast enough.
“I thought you weren’t going to do a sidewalk sale in January. In the middle of a storm,” I said.
“And I thought you were going on vacation.” He looked me over from head to foot, his clever eyes missing nothing. “Boo Boo. Are you okay? Are you and Ryder fighting? You got the pre-wedding blues? Talk to Uncle Crow.”
Nope. No way. Not going to discuss my love life with a trickster god.
“How about Uncle Crow tells me what he did with the traffic light?”
The corner of his mouth rose, and his eyes curved into crescents. “Why do you think I did anything with it?”
I waved a finger at the impromptu garage sale we were standing in the middle of. “You have a thing for selling off bits of Ordinary any chance you get.”
He made a sound and slapped his hand over his heart. “Wounded. You know I do just fine with the glass shop. This is only to drive traffic to my Blow Your Own Balls class.”
“Really wish you’d rename that thing.”
“No, you don’t.” He waggled his eyebrows, and he was so much my uncle in that moment, so much the man I’d known since I was a kid, that it was everything I could do not to laugh.
“Nice record collection.” Jean strolled over, balancing two Styrofoam cups and a brownie wrapped in a napkin. “Anything valuable?”
“Couple of them,” Crow said, much to the interest of the gray-haired woman who was following Jean back from the snack station and obviously eavesdropping. “If someone had a good eBay shop, they could turn a tidy profit.”
The woman stilled, then hurried back to retrieve her companion, a woman who could have been her sister.
“You sly dog, you,” Jean said, as she handed me one of the coffees. “Look at you driving up sales. Now I know why you put up a whale tent.”
“Oh?” Crow asked, all innocence.
Jean nodded. “They’re buying this stuff hook, line, and sinker.”
“Delaney,” Crow said, “your sister is making me look bad in front of customers.”
“By telling the truth?” I said sweetly. “Also, we’re not customers.”
Crow scoffed, but I was paying more attention to the ladies who had pounced on the boxes of records and started flipping.
“Jim Croce!” the eavesdropper shouted to the other.
“What?”
“Bad Bad Leroy Brown!”
“I have cream for that!”
“Time in a Bottle!”
“Oh, no, dear. You don’t want to put it down there!”
“Croce! Croce!”
“Well, what I do with my crotchy is none of your business.”
“No. The songs! Jim Croce!” She waved the album at her friend who gasped.
“The record player!” Two gray heads swiveled, their eyes glittering with Black Friday glee.
