Page 3 of Level Up
Summer is still clingingto the ass-end of September like a wad of rumpled toilet paper, but because it istechnicallyfall, according to the equinox, I’m decked out head to toe in fuzzy earth tones. As a result, my hair is plastered to the back of my neck with sweat by the time we reach therecord store two blocks away from the café, but I refuse to admit that it’s not actually sweater weather yet.
Reggie’s Records is a remnant of the past that has been teetering on the very cusp of obscurity for years, never giving up hope that one day—one day—vinyl records would be widely popular again. And huzzah, that time has come.
The only reason they’ve been able to hold on so long, I’m guessing, is because their storefront is practically microscopic, wedged between a vintage clothing store and an old school butcher’s, and has very little overhead cost. That, and the hipsters in the area kept them going through the Dark Ages. I have much respect for my millennial elders who, with their triangle scarves and ironic moustaches, bravely fought for creepy little shops like this. We salute you.
The shop, however, is like the opposite of a TARDIS: it looks tiny on the outside, and it feels even more minuscule on the inside. It is packed floor-to-ceiling with shelves and bins and racks of vinyl records, some brand new, but many are vintage as well. It’s a bit of a treasure hunt, trying to find what you actually want in here, but the endless browsing potential is like a dream come true for music connoisseurs.
But neither Victory nor I are music connoisseurs.
We had a friend in university, Chelsea, who loved this stuff, and she would drag us here every week to see the new releases and scour the vintage gems. It was fun to see it through her eyes, but we stopped coming in after she moved away. It wasn’t until Victory was hired for a mural at the shop last year that we started coming back in regularly. Most likely due to her incredibly obvious—yet denied—crush on the newest employee.
Still, I feel like it’s written all over my face that I’m not the kind of person who shops here, that this isn’t me. As much as I think it’s a cool place, I don’t fit in it. And while Victory doesn’t really look like she fits in it either, the way herpastel clothing contrasts dramatically with all the worn out colours in the shop, that never stops her. She can go anywhere and seem like she belongs there simply because she decides to.
Kinda wish it worked that way for all of us.
I catch a glimpse of Pal leaning against the checkout counter when we walk in, head lowered, blue hair hanging over their eyes, but they don’t seem to notice us. Victory pretends to ignore them and strides to the back of the shop to start flipping through the bargain bin of old records. The hand-scrawled label taped to the front of the bin literally saysREJECTSon it. She is undeterred.
I absently flip through a nearby rack of albums, not really reading any of the titles, just trying not to look completely lost.
“Can I help you find anything?” A voice behind us makes both of us jump, and I turn to see Pal standing there, leaning against a rack of top condition vintage records, looking smug and vaguely amused.
Victory looks at them without turning her head. “No, we’re fine, thank you.”
“Great.” Pal smirks at her. “Nice jacket, by the way.” They snicker before walking away, and I glance at the back of Victory’s denim jacket, the one that she painted last year to sayI am Kenoughafter watching the Barbie movie for the seventeenth time.
She glances back at me anxiously. “That was sarcasm, right?”
Her uncertainty makes me smile. “I think they’re just teasing you. You should try talking to them. Make a joke or something.”
She stares at me, wide-eyed, like she has no idea what a joke is. Like she’s never made me choke on cold brew from laughing so hard.
“I’ve read enough low-stakes, quasi-enemies-to-loversfanfiction to know that the way Pal teases you means they like you,” I assure her. Not that she should take my advice on anything relating to having a love life—like I said, I’ve only ever dated one person, and it was, as Victory explained to me afterwards,not cute.
Victory picks out an album—I’m not even sure she looked at the title—and heads up to the front of the shop where Pal is standing by the checkout again, holding her chin high with the confidence of someone who didn’t just pick an album at random. Like she knows what she’s doing.
“Find everything you’re looking for?” Pal asks her with an eyebrow raised, though I don’t think Victory notices the way they subtly look her up and down while she’s fishing her wallet out of her purse shaped like a donut.
“Yes, thank you,” she says stiffly, then adjusts her posture and smiles up at them. “And if you like my jacket so much, why don’t I make a matching one for you?” I think she means it to be a sarcastic jab, but Pal just looks like they’ve been threatened with a good time.
Their face splits into a grin, without a hint of irony. “Yeah?”
Victory blinks at them and then looks over at me with desperate eyes, silently asking if that was sarcasm too, but I give her a nod to keep going. “Um, yeah, I mean—If you have an old jacket you don’t mind me painting, I could?—”
“How much?” Pal asks, still grinning.
“How much what?”
“How much do you charge for painting a jacket?” They nod towards the rainbow tiger mural that Victory painted on the shop’s wall for Pride last year. “You paint stuff for a living, so I assume you have a going rate.”
“Oh, uh, no.” She laughs awkwardly. “This would just be for free. For fun. It’s not?—”
“Can I at least buy you dinner to make it up to you?” Pal’sconfident smirk returns, and I clap my hands over my mouth to stop myself from laughing out loud—because they seriously just didthatand I am in awe. When they wink at me, like I’m in on the whole thing, I suddenly have a better understanding why Victory has a crush on them.
“Dinner?” Victory is visibly flustered, but she holds her head high, despite her short stature. “I mean, I guess—Yeah. Okay. Yes. We can—Yes.”
“Great!” Pal picks up the record and hands it to her before she has a chance to pay. “Enjoy Weird Al’s greatest hits, Victory.”
Victory takes the record and nods, and we leave without another word. Not until we exit the shop and make it a block down the road, where she stops and takes a look at the album she acquired. She frowns at it, like she’s only now looking at what she just purchased—though not what Pal said it was—and when she turns it around, she finds a sticky note on the back.
