“Cash, card, or check,” I said.
“Right.” She glanced up at me, then quickly away. “For cash, you just enter the amount they give you and the register calculates the change. The cash drawer opens automatically.”
She demonstrated, punching in a number, and the drawer slid out with a mechanical click. I leaned in to look at the compartments: organized bills on one side, coins on the other, and caught another wave of her rosy scent.
Her shoulders tensed when I leaned closer. She was aware of me the same way I was aware of her, though she was trying damn hard to hide it. I straightened up faster than I needed to.
“Checks are a little more involved,” she continued with a warble in her voice. “We don’t get many from the tourists anymore, but our older customers still prefer them.”
Avery glanced up at me, “You need to check that the date is correct, that the amount matches the total, and that they’ve signed it. Then you write the customer’s driver’s license number on the back.”
“And if something doesn’t match?”
“You ask them to write a new one.” Her lips pressed together briefly before she added, “Politely.”
There was something about those lips. Thin and delicate, covered in a soft pink lipstick that looked almost natural. Every emotion she tried to keep off her face showed up there instead, in the way they pursed or flattened or curved at the corners.
Right now they were pressed into a careful line, professional and guarded.
I wondered what they’d look like if she actually smiled.
“Credit cards are easiest,” she said, moving on. “You just select the card option, and the reader does the rest. Customer inserts or taps, enters their PIN if it’s debit, and signs on the screen if the purchase is over fifty dollars.”
She walked me through the process twice, her explanations thorough and patient despite the subtle tension I could feel radiating off her.
Avery didn’t want me here, although I had a hunch that she didwantme.
That much was obvious from the moment I’d walked through the door. She’d looked at me like I was an invader in her territory, which I supposed I was. But her eyes had also skimmed my whole body, her lips parting delicately as if she’d wanted to eat me up, too.
But what this delicate snowflake wanted wouldn’t change anything. Marlene had asked me to do this, and I planned to do it. My aunt was the only family I had left, and she didn’t ask for favors often.
“What about returns?” I asked.
“There’s a separate function for that.” She showed me where to find it on the menu, explaining the store’s policy about receipts and time limits. “Marlene’s pretty flexible with regulars. If someone’s been shopping here for years, she usually takes the return no questions asked.”
That sounded like my aunt. More heart than business sense.
“That’s the basics,” she said, stepping back and putting some distance between us.
The space behind the counter felt bigger immediately, though I couldn’t say I preferred it that way.
“What about deposits?” I asked. “Marlene mentioned there’s about a week’s worth that need to go to the bank.”
Something flickered across Avery’s face. A tightening around her eyes that she quickly smoothed away. “The deposits are kept in Marlene’s office. In thesafe.”
“Show me.”
She hesitated for just a moment, then nodded and led me through the storeroom toward a small office tucked in the back corner. The space was cramped and cluttered with papers, but there was a sturdy metal safe sitting beneath the desk with a drop hinge on the front.
“That’s it,” Avery said, gesturing toward it. “But I don’t have the combination. Marlene never gave it to me.”
“I’ve got it.”
Her lips scrunched up at that, a tiny pucker of displeasure that she probably didn’t even realize she was making. It was the most expressive thing I’d seen from her yet, and I felt my mouth curve into a smile before I could stop it.
She’d worked here six years and didn’t have the safe combination. I’d been here ten minutes and my aunt had handed it over without hesitation.
I could see why it stung.
