the Sidewalk street story cont.

 Once the play-dough girl and Jess were ushered out, Faun watched him lock the door

“I’m sorry, what did you say your name was?” she asked looking up at him

“I hadn’t, actually —I’m sorry, that was rude of me,” he said now and reached to shake her hand, 

“I’m Grant Stephenson,” and shook her hand noticing how delicate and small it was with slender long fingers. Her nails were clean and neat but not manicured, he noticed, but then, her hands did not require embellishments as they’d only detract their elegance, he thought. 

“I’m Faun,” she said redundantly and felt quite foolish after saying as he had established before that he knew who she was…. she stepped back carefully 

“So….well —just let me clean up, the coffee grinds need ….to be dumped….” she began to walk in the direction of the little coffee shop, which was just an alcove in the wall with a surround counter and a tall long marble table in the center with surrounding dark green upholstered tall bar stools. The barstool’s dark green matched the walls interiors exactly, as well as the velvet draperies that adorned all the tall windows. The wall paper, with the dark green background had a Victorian floral fine print with dark shades of deep burgundy, teal and navy blue and the print matched all the Victorian lamp shades in the shop; it was like walking into a pre-Raphaelite painting, Faun had thought, the first time she went into the shop.

Grant watched her as Faun systematically washed the coffee shop items; two small espresso shot cups and saucers, lemon peels, two small saucers and little spoons. She laid each item out to dry on the coffee cup rack. Then she wiped down all the tables and counters and put away the cleaning supplies. 

“I’ve been locking up the till,” Faun headed toward the purchasing desk where there was an antique burgundy and gilt painted cash register that had been refurbished and worked with on POS computer which also ran the credit card; another interesting detail for a modest shop. Without waiting for a reaction from him, she ran the close outs of both machines and opened the register to remove the cash drawer. Without looking at him she took the paper receipts with the closing reports and with the drawer headed to the bookshop’s office. 

She went in first and put the till down on the desk. He watched her open the safe. It was an odd safe, an antique, like the cash register, was also painted burgundy and gilt. It was custom made and opened with a skeleton key and face-recognition, which, if tricked wrong set off an alarm and called the local police. 

Once Faun completed closing up the safe with the till she stood aside and motioned Grant to the chair behind the huge antique wooden desk that served all the store’s office needs. 

But Grant did not sit down,

“oh, I think we had best go to Uncle Arthur’s office—the papers and ….the shop and other matters are all back in there….”

“Is it in the building?” she asked, not having realized Mr. Bishop had an office 

“Yes, it’s in the cellar….”