Page 101 of With a Little Luck

“I’ll talk to Pru about it tomorrow,” says Ari. “You know she lives for this sort of challenge.”

Dad nods, though he looks unconvinced. “That she does.”

“You should go home, Dad,” I say. “You’ve worked every day this week. Ari and I can finish closing up.”

He looks between us, and I expect him to argue, but then he rubs his brow some more and nods. “I think I’ll take you up on that. Thanks. Both of you. I’m sure I’ll have a clearer head about this in the morning.”

After Dad leaves, Ari and I finish putting the chairs away.

I walk to the end of one of the display shelves and wait for Ari to grab the other side so we can roll it back to its normal place, but Ari stands with her head crooked to the side, studying the store.

“Ari?”257

She twirls toward me. “I’m going to mop,” she says, with a determined nod.

“What? Now?”

She heads to the back room. After a second, I hear the water running in the large utility sink, and I walk back to see her filling our mop bucket with sudsy water.

“It’s after nine o’clock,” I say. “Why are you mopping?”

“Because it’s filthy,” she says. “When was the last time these floors were cleaned?”

I consider this, and don’t have an answer. Not since I’ve worked here, I don’t think.

“Exactly,” says Ari, thrusting the broom into my hands before grabbing the mop for herself. “And now is the best time to do it, when all the furniture is pushed off to the side. We’ll have to do it in two stages. We’ll do the part that’s clear now, then move all the shelves into the front part of the store and do the back. You sweep up the big chunks first, and I’ll follow after you with the mop.”

“Okay, but … why?”

She rolls her eyes. “Your dad is clearly very stressed out about Record Store Day. We can’t make those records magically appear, but don’t you think it would be a nice surprise for him to show up tomorrow and have the store looking a little bit nicer?”

To be honest, I’m not sure that clean floors are the sort of thing my dad will notice, but I can tell Ari’s heart is in the right place. So I take the broom and get busy.

For a long time, we work in silence. And no, it isn’t weird.

There are no awkward vibes between us. Why would there be? It isn’t like I’m analyzing every look she gives me, or every time we bump into each other, or wondering what it means that she’s humming to herself while she works, practically waltzing around with the mop.

Eventually Ari breaks the silence by telling me about some new song she’s been working on that she’s really excited about, and I tell her some258of my early ideas for our next D&D campaign, and it feels like old times. Like nothing has changed at all.

Except for when Ari’s feet give a tiny skip that I’m not sure she’s even aware of, and my heart exactly mimics the movement.

That part is new.

I give my head a quick shake, trying to erase the vision of the long threads from her frayed jean shorts swaying against her thighs.

Once we’re done with the front half of the store, we move over the furniture and repeat the process with the back. Once we’re done, we both stand back to admire our work.

“It’s beautiful,” says Ari.

“I would eat off this floor,” I tell her.

She taps her fingers contemplatively against her mouth. “I woulddanceon this floor.”

I peer at her from the corner of my eye, but she’s already prancing over to the record player and digging through the bin of records beside it. “What album should we christen the space with?” she asks.

I don’t bother making a suggestion, because she’s the one with the encyclopedic musical knowledge. I watch her pull a record from its jacket and set it on the turntable. She lowers the needle, and the store fills with familiar crackles, more noticeable in the silence than they are during the day.

Then an almost eerie voice coupled with a hypnotic drumbeat.

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