She walked Goldie to the train station around the corner and hugged her goodbye. Goldie kissed her on the cheek as the train pulled in. 

"Text me when you get home," said Nina.

Goldie winked. "Yes, ma'am."

Nina barely made it to the store before opening, earning herself a disappointed "tsk" from Desiree when she finally came in through the back. 

"She's not actually late," Kate pointed out, but was ignored.

Nina made it through the day with a bit more pep than she usually had after working through a weekend (and six days in a row, come to think of it.) The cafe breakfast helped, but so did her activities the night before. She felt looser, more relaxed, not as tired as she should be on her sixth consecutive day of work. It was good, almost.

Sundays were a strange combination of students rushing to grab emergency supplies for last minute assignments and random tourists passing through. They were less busy than Saturdays on the whole, but they had their own peculiar energy. It didn't help that a lot of people took Sundays off, including, usually, Nina. Sometimes there were only three people in the store at all on a Sunday. It could be chaotic, but it could also be quiet.

"Did you have a nice time with your friend yesterday?" Kate asked Nina as they unlocked the front door from the inside. Nina nodded.

"We actually met at that exhibition you told me about, the one I went to last week. So thanks."

Kate smiled. "I'm glad it worked out well for you!" 

Nina smiled back and nodded again, and walked over to her position behind the register.

The ideal level of busyness for a store is for there to be enough people needing help that you couldn't be made to start any intensive projects, but not so many that you were overwhelmed by the questions. Unfortunately for the businesses of Main Street, a miserable cold drizzle started up around noon that didn't quite kill the foot traffic on the sidewalk but did at least knock it down and mug it for loose change. This left the employees of For Art's Sake with not much to do except restock merchandise, check inventory, and "test out" the watercolor brush markers and postcards they just got in stock by drawing funny doodles. Kate drew a taco on roller skates for some reason. Graham started to paint a succulent plant, but accidentally picked the wrong color marker and ended up turning it into a vampire succulent.

"No, come on, we should make an actual sample we can show to customers," Graham said, holding back laughter at Nina's careful recreation of the blini cat meme.

"What's wrong with this one? It's just a cute little cat with a stack of blini," she said.

"I thought it was waffles," Kate said, looking closer. "I've always seen the cat with waffles before."

"I can't believe they gentrified blini cat. Is gentrified the right word? They Americanized him." Nina pulled up the photo she was using as reference and zoomed in on the sour cream container behind him. "You can tell this is the original photo because first of all, who puts sour cream on waffles, second of all, that cat on the container is a popular character from a Soviet kid's cartoon. So it's a Russian cat eating Russian blini. Or at least a post-Soviet cat. The waffles are a ridiculous photoshop job."

There was an awkward silence. "Didn't know you were so passionate about blini cat," Kate said finally.

Nina shrugged. A hot flush of shame ran through her. She reminded herself suddenly of the annoying boys she had Russian class with in elementary school, who wore "real Soviet hats" to school and thought Soviet Russia jokes were funny. They took pride in their heritage in a way that made Nina want to squash hers down like an unruly cowlick sticking up where it didn't belong. And now here she was, getting weirdly worked up about a meme cat.

She put the postcard on the windowsill to dry.  

The drizzle outside seeped its way into the store, droplets from umbrellas and coats resting on the blue lineoleum squares. Nina and Kate took turns swiping a mop through the aisles during lulls. It felt endless. The steady susurration of the rain made it even more so.

The rest of the day crawled by, but the customers lingered until three minutes past when they were supposed to close, checking out as slowly as possible as if to purposefully exhaust the poor shop staff. "I actually hate it here," Kate said, putting her head down on her arms. 

"It's not that bad," Nina said, though she fully sympathized in the moment.

"When people start buying my papercrafts," Kate said, looking up again, "then I'll quit and never come back here ever again."

"Maybe," Nina said.

"We'll all miss you deeply when that happens," Graham said. 

"If that happens," Nina said.

"Have some faith in me, Nina," Kate sighed. "I got a table at a craft fair in Hopewell in a few weeks, that's something." 

"Sure." Nina shoved down the inexplicable spike of envy that sent through her. She didn't even want to sell anything at a craft fair. Where was the spike coming from? The fact that Kate was doing something with her art beyond letting it gather dust in her basement? She should be happy for her. "Have fun. Hope it goes well."

"Thanks." Kate smiled. She was wearing an outfit she had described as "clowncore" that morning, all bright colors and suspenders and a patterned bowtie. She said she often got mistaken for an elementary school teacher. She did teach classes at the local art center on the side.

Now that she thought about it, Nina realized she didn't do much of anything besides work at the store. She'd applied to teach a class at the art center once or twice, but they never got back to her emails. She could try other things. Craft fairs. Zine fests. She could start making zines. She could, she could, she could. 

Nina zipped up her raincoat and headed out through the backdoor with a quick wave goodbye to Graham and Katie.

She wanted Goldie. It wasn't so much a conscious thought as it was a feeling spreading from her core out, warm and syrupy sweet, curling around her bones and between her muscles. Goldie's long legs and shining hair. Her nimble fingers and commitment to fairness, her openness to experiencing everything. Her quiet rich-kid self-assurance under the layers of anxiety. The way she could make Nina come faster than anyone else Nina had ever been with before.

Nina walked quickly down the back alleys to get to her car so she could get home before the want and the memories of last night suffused her in public. She wasn’t sure how she was supposed to get through another week of waiting for the weekend to reach her.

When she got home and checked her phone, there was a text from Goldie waiting for her. Several.

Goldie: home safe! survived the perils of NJ Transit lol

Goldie: miss you already 😘

Goldie: do they give you vacation days at the art store?

Goldie: what do you think about getting away for a few days sometime soon?

Nina checked her payroll app and saw she did have a decent amount of vacation days accumulated, since she’d basically done nothing but work since the year started. “Maybe,” she sent back, and switched tabs to see who else had been messaging her.

There was a text from Cory about a new ramen restaurant opening up in town and did Nina want to go check it out with them sometime this week.

Nina: yes of course

Nina: NYCgirl came over yesterday btw

Cory: ??? you dragged a new yorker OUT of new york???

Cory: powerful and iconic

Nina: sure am 😌 she stayed over and then I dropped her off on the station on my way to work

Cory: whirlwind romance

Nina: we left before my parents woke up so not that fast lol

Cory: mm. did she say anything abt you still living at home?

Nina: nah.

Nina: I’d rather tell you abt it in person

Cory: gotcha. tomorrow at 7? you’re off on mon right

Nina: yup. sounds good 👍

Nina shoved the phone back in her pocket and joined her parents for dinner: leftovers from the party they’d been to the night before.

“I heard Benny Eisenstein joined a cult,” Nina’s dad volunteered, over reheated potatoes and refrigerated salads. 

Nina rolled her eyes. “Like, for real, or did he just turn into a tech bro?”

“The latter,” her mom cut in, rolling her eyes as well. “Ira was complaining that he never returned her calls, and when he did he tried to sell her cryptocurrency or something.”

“Gross,” said Nina. “But was the lecture fun at least?”

“Pretty good. He read some of his poetry and talked about his opinions. The Frolkins brought that amazing cake they do, the chocolate one with the nuts. I wanted to save you a piece, but they’d run out before I got a chance,” Nina’s mom said.

Nina shrugged. “It’s fine, I didn’t like that cake that much.”