Chapter 1

“If I haveto listen to that song one more time…” My voice was strained as I hefted a crate of records onto the workstation behind the checkout counter. “No jury in the world would convict me.”

“I like it,” Briar said with a pout. “Here. Drink some coffee before you do murder, you grump.”

I accepted the cup of coffee because I’d never been a morning person, and Briar and I both knew it.

“What do you want me to put on?” she asked, removing the Ariana Grande album from the turntable, which had been good the first dozen times I heard it but had since lost all meaning.

“Put on some Sleater Kinney,” I said.

“Of course,” Briar mumbled.

“What was that?”

“Nothing!”

Briar wasn’t a fan of the female indie rock band, which seriously made me question her taste, but she was still young at seventeen. She’d learn better. Sleater Kinney was an awesome band that got its start in Olympia, Washington, and I liked to show appreciation for music that originated in our area, not just the mainstream hits. I had a whole section of the store devoted to it.

I gulped some more coffee and gestured to the crate of records I’d brought out from storage. “Make yourself useful and sort this into genres so we can get them cleaned and priced.”

Briar sighed mournfully—not exactly a fan of cleaning records, which could get tedious—but began making stacks of albums while I headed to the front window to turn on the Open sign.

It brought me less satisfaction than it should have. No one was waiting outside. The trickle of customers had been getting slimmer lately, even with vinyl making a comeback. This neighborhood had changed with redevelopment, pushing out many small businesses, and as a result, it lost some of its quirky indie personality.

Tech firms and upscale boutique shops had been moving in. But that I could handle, even if my margins were running lean. The mega entertainment store moving in across the street and half a block down? That made me nervous.

Fox Entertainment Zone promised to be a one-stop shop for books, music, and gaming. They could sell all the Xboxes they wanted; it was that little M word that worried me. If they carried vinyl records to go along with their varied merch, what was to stop someone from bypassing my little shop with its small, unobtrusive signage and heading straight for their obnoxious four-door entrance?

“Did you at least pre-order the new Taylor Swift album?” Briar asked.

I glanced over. Today, she wore her hair pulled into two Princess Leia-style buns with chopsticks shoved through them, not that I’d be dumb enough to compare Briar to a princess. Herstyle spanned the gender spectrum, and she’d mixed combat boots and a band T-shirt with three bead bracelets and eight sparkly rings.

“You know I did,” I said.

Swifties were basically keeping the store alive, popping in while they did their boutique shopping. They weren’t exactly the record store clientele of the eighties, but I appreciated their enthusiasm. Unfortunately, all of Taylor’s records were new, meaning my profit margin was a lot smaller than it was for sales of older, used records.

The metal door of the shop swung open, and I perked up, but it was just Martha again. She came in with a tote bag that dwarfed her short, scrawny body. I hitched on a smile, even though I knew she wouldn’t be buying anything.

“Got some records for you to buy,” she rasped.

“Let’s see them,” I said gamely. Martha rarely had good records, but seeing as she didn’t have more than a couple of dollars to her name, I usually bought them anyway.

She set the bag on the checkout counter, which doubled as a glass display case for some of the most expensive records in the shop, and I pulled out the albums.

The problem wasn’t the music she was bringing me, but the condition of it. The covers looked worn at the edges, and a few were moldy. The records inside didn’t fare much better, many of them scratched. Still, I dutifully sorted through them, resolving to toss them all in the trash bin later.

“I can give you five bucks.”

“That’s all?” she asked plaintively.

“Highest I can go is seven,” I said, knowing she probably needed the cash. “I can’t really sell these for much.”

Or anything at all.

She brightened. “I can take seven.”

While I opened the cash drawer and retrieved the bills, Martha rambled about the music collection she’d started thirty years ago and some of her favorite concerts over the years.

“I bet that was something,” I said, only half-following the story.

“It sure was!”

Eventually, she ran out of steam and left with her money, which would hopefully buy her a hot meal.

Briar shook her head. “You’re a real softie, huh?”

“Me? Nah. I figured you could use some more records to clean.”

Briar eyed the moldy records with trepidation. “You wouldn’t! That’s probably a health code violation.”

I smirked. “No, but I could. Remember that before wrinkling up your nose at good music.”

“Sleater Kinney is great,” Briar said quickly. “The best!”

I laughed. “Don’t worry. These are going in the big filing cabinet out back.” At her blank look, I explained, “The garbage bin.”

“I don’t know how you do it.”

“What?”

“Stay in business. I don’t know much, but even I know you’re supposed to sell more than you buy.”

I swatted her on the way by. “Shut it, kid, or we’ll be discussing how I need to make money in order to pay employees.”

Briar quickly mimed zipping her lips, but the truth of what she said weighed on me the rest of the day. This record store had been my great-uncle’s pride and joy, a legacy he’d wanted me to carry on. Somehow, he’d weathered the years when CDs were all the rage, and I’d be damned if I couldn’t do the same during a vinyl revival period.

Yes, the pandemic had killed my reserves. Yes, the neighborhood had been shifting, changing the customer demographics.

Yes, there was more competition than ever with dozens of Seattle record stores.

But this was my great-uncle’s legacy, and I would find a way to keep it alive.