Broken Records by Belle Chapin EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author: Belle Chapin
- Language: English
- Genre:Popular
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
Forty dollars and an hour of peace at last.
Lucy stood outside a hole-in-the-wall record store with two crumpled
twenty-dollar bills clutched in her fist. The building was nondescript, a
white two-story with chipped paint and a hand-lettered sign that read
Raymond’s Music Store. Sandwiched between a deli and a Cuban takeout
place, anyone could have wandered right by it and not realized it was there.
But not Lucy.
That morning, she had searched for record stores in the area and found
this one just a two-mile walk from her temporary Airbnb apartment. It was
completely worth the battle against the roar of traffic and brusque
pedestrians to find a place where she could relax for the first time since
coming to that godawful city.
The window front was crooked and grimy, but wide enough to get a sense
of the place. A slim man operated a wooden sales counter while an older
woman browsed a shelf of vinyl records. It wasn’t crowded at all. She could
handle this.She entered with a bracing breath, the bell’s ting-a-ling announcing her
like a musical butler. The man at the counter lifted his chin in greeting and
offered help if she needed it.
She didn’t.
She was surrounded by her friends.
The atmosphere was infused with the scent of plastic and patchouli,
topped with the musty, worn smell of pre-owned things. Pre-loved things.
Lucy had no set purpose there, so she chose a shelf at random, leafing
through the vinyl albums. Some of the records for sale were brand new, the
cellophane unbroken and clean. Others were used, vintage copies that held
forgotten memories like an explorer’s journal. She picked up the soundtrack
to Elvis’s live NBC television special, a favorite of hers, but her copy was
back at home in Indiana with the rest of her things. She outlined the familiar
cover with her hand—the nebulous red lights, the solitary figure crooning
into a microphone. It was like clutching a security blanket, and her mind
stopped racing at last.
A figure stepped into her peripheral vision, but she didn’t acknowledge
them. She believed that music stores should be treated like a church—holy
and reverently. Silent except for the sermons of singers past and present.
A rough, calloused hand with long fingers flipped through the albums
next to her. It selected Elton John’s Greatest Hits, and her hand jerked. She
pressed her lips together and gritted her teeth. The urge to speak bubbled
like molten lava inside her, a reflex she had fought her whole life to control.
The hand turned over the album to the tracklist on the back. Lucy’s toes
curled inside her shoes, and she tightened her lips until they ached. Her
hands were balled fists, her nails biting at the palms.
“You don’t want that one,” she blurted out.
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