"Beautiful day," Natalie said rubbing the duckling fuzz on her scalp and
closing her eyes.
"Found any work yet?" Alan said remembering his promise to put her in
touch with one of his fashionista prot?©g?©s.
She made a face. "In a video store. Bo-ring."
Link made a rude noise. "You are *so* spoiled. Not just any video store,
she's working at Martian Signal on Queen Street."
Alan knew it, a great shop with a huge selection of cult movies and a
brisk trade in zines, transgressive literature, action figures and
T-shirts.
"It must be great there," he said.
She smiled and looked away. "It's okay." She bit her lip. "I don't think
I like working retail," she said.
"Ah, retail!" he said. "Retail would be fantastic if it wasn't for the
fucking customers."
She giggled.
"Don't let them get to you," he said. "Get to be really smart about the
stock, so that there's always something you know more about than they
do, and when that isn't true, get them to *teach you* more so you'll be
in control the next time."
She nodded.
"And have fun with the computer when it's slow," he said.
"What?"
"A store like that, it's got the home phone number of about seventy
percent of the people in Toronto you'd want to ever hang out with. Most
of your school friends, even the ones you've lost track of. All the
things they've rented.
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