You only become aware of her after twenty or thirty minutes in the shop. Maybe even longer. God knows how many times she’s glanced over at you already, but she finally catches your eye when you drift over to a pile of old magazines. A stack of Life and Look, each one trapped in a faded sleeve of plastic and left there to rot. It’s Gene Tierney’s face on the cover of one that you notice first—she’s an actress, an old-time movie actress, in case any of you are wondering—and she’s someone that you’ve always liked. Not that she was ever as famous as some of those ladies or is remembered in the same way as a Liz Taylor today, but she had something special about her. Oh yes, in her eyes. That’s what you liked about her. And this girl, the one who seems to have been watching you all this time, well, she’s a little bit like her in some way. That Gene Tierney person.

There’s no reason why you should go over there and introduce yourself to her, so you don’t. Why should you? This isn’t the kind of place where you’d do a thing like that, slide over there and make small talk. No. It isn’t some sports bar in Chicago or a club in South Beach—this is a two-bit sort of antique store just off the main highway that caught your eye as you were waiting at the single traffic light in the center of town. A billboard attached to the roof of a local restaurant—called The Rustler’s Roost, if you must know—grandly stated that here resided the “Single Largest Antique Mall in the Tri-State Area.” Well, well, you thought, now that is something. Not that you’re one of those garage sale freaks who goes from house to house, neighborhood to neighborhood looking for old G.I. Joe clothes or Roseville Pottery. Absolutely not. But as you were sitting there and waiting for the green, you idly tried to figure out which three states that sign might be referring to. Which led to you wondering just what treasures might indeed be hidden away in Herb’s Antique Grotto. Because if a name like that can’t draw you in, well then, nothing ever could.