“Wow,” said Maya in a way that was meant to indicate that she was visibly impressed. Rinn could tell that Maya wasn’t, and the fact that she was trying so hard was only making it all worse for Rinn.

Maya got up close to the register. “I haven’t seen one of these since I worked retail when I was a teen a thousand years ago back in my hometown.”

“Oh?” asked Rinn, swallowing every last inch of pride that she had left. “What’s your hometown?”

“Houston,” said Maya in that overly chipper way that she did when a situation was growing increasingly uncomfortable.

Rinn had learned this about Maya in the last half hour. Maya overcompensated for stress with overly performative cheerfulness. It was like seeing a version of herself reflected tenfold, and Rinn wished she could bury herself in a fort of books and never have to come out ever again.

“Wait, is that one of those credit card swipers?” Maya pointed to the imprint machine that was truly from 1996. To get it to work, Rinn would put the card in, then receipt paper, then she’d swipe the handle over the whole thing. It made a nice katching-katchung noise as she used it.

“It is indeed,” said Rinn.

Maya picked up the device, wonder all across her face. “Can you even take imprints of cards anymore? I mean, why wouldn’t you just use a Square account?”

Rinn opened her mouth to explain. That it added to the charm of Wild Nights Bookstore and Emporium. That yes, sometimes it was a drag that they had to write down credit card numbers since half of them didn’t have an embossed edge anymore that would imprint against the machine. That sure, it meant sometimes Rinn spent her day arguing with credit card companies to make sure the charges went through, and they believed that Wild Nights wasn’t some kind of fraudulent business. “It adds to the authenticity. I mean, I think our customers really enjoy it. The experience. Of an old machine. And we don’t allow phones in the store. So it’s like, part of the employees keeping to that as well. Because if we had our phone or a tablet at the register, we would … check it? I think. That’s what Mr. Hunt always said. We’d be checking our phones and not working, and the customers would sense the inauthenticity of them not being able to use phones but us being able to use them.”

But that reasoning sounded hollow even to Rinn. More of an excuse not to update. More of a cover, a deflection. Not anything real or substantial. Nothing that couldn’t be overcome with a sound business argument.

“But you’ve got electronic records somewhere, of sales, I mean?” Maya switched gears—out of her typical cheerfully-tap-dancing-through-uncomfortable-situations and into what was unfortunately genuine concern.