That one time I was magic.
I worked for four years at Borders Books & Music. During the time I worked there, I got a reputation for being good at finding stuff and recommending books. I was the one the other sellers would come to when a customer had one of those “It had a blue cover” questions. My best dude friend B (who I met working at Borders) likes to tell the story about how he was attempting to help a woman who could only tell him that she wanted a book about this woman who took a vacation from marriage. He was stumped, until (in his words), I suddenly appeared out of nowhere and said “Do you mean ‘A Year by the Sea’ by Joan Anderson?” Which she did.
But that wasn’t my magic moment.
One time, the Columbus newspaper featured a little semi-self-published book about grammar written by a local woman. I know, it seems like an odd trend, but there you go. Fortunately I’d had a heads-up about this feature and had ordered thirty copies of the book to have on hand. I was working at the info desk and for expediency just kept about ten copies right there so when people came up asking for it, I could give it to them.
After awhile of working retail, you get to be able to read people’s faces and what it is they want. There’s a particular expression that says “I’m looking for a thing but I’m pretty sure you’re not going to know what I’m talking about but I’m going to try anyway” and every single person who had come in asking for the grammar book had been wearing this expression.
Around noon, and after having sold a good dozen of those books, I’m standing there and a woman comes walking up wearing the exact expression I just described. I decided to risk it. Before she could even open her mouth to ask for it, I just picked up a copy of the grammar book and handed it to her with a smile, saying “Here you go!”
She stared at it, and then stared at me. “How did you know??” she said.
“Bookseller magic,” I replied.
She wandered off to pay for it, still kind of shocked. I looked around and my co-workers were all staring at me like I’d grown a second head.
And that’s the time I was magic.
