Secondhand Stiff by Sue Ann Jaffarian

mall in Torrance.
    â€œLook at that.” Mom was pointing to one of the reviews, the last one. Unlike the others, it had given Buck’s store a bad review, saying the owner was surly and the store dirty and filled with broken junk. The review had been left by someone named Bob Y from Los Angeles. Unlike most of the reviewers on About Town, Bob Y did not use his photo but instead posted a cartoon of a goofy kid as his profile pic. I clicked the link to his profile and found it to be bare-bones. The profile did show, however, that he’d posted over twenty reviews and had given almost all of them one to three stars; only two had been given a four- or five-star rating. Based on the reviews posted on his profile, it looked like Bob Y frequented secondhand and consignment shops, along with Southern California–based food trucks. Food trucks had received the coveted four- and five-star ratings.
    I scanned the list of reviews and saw that Bob Y had also reviewed Second to None, Tom and Ina’s shop in Culver City. Like Buck’s shop, Bob Y had found Second to None way under par, calling it a “rusty junk heap with rabid owners.” Greg and I had visited Second to None once, and it was hardly a junk heap. I’d found a lovely side table that proudly sits in our living room and an antique dresser for the guest bedroom. Tom and Ina may have been “rabid” from time to time, but they’d kept the shop orderly and well stocked. It was a vocation they’d stumbled upon and discovered it suited them.
    I clicked over to see other reviews of Second to None. There were some four-star reviews, but none with five stars. Several gave the store two and three stars, with most citing surly customer service for the lower ranking but liking the store in general. One went so far as to say, “Have the chick wait on you. She’s the nice one.” Only Bob Y had given Second to None the lowest ranking of one star.
    â€œDoes Ina’s store have a website?” Mom asked. I was moving slower than normal through the information because she wanted to read it along with me.
    â€œYes, it does.” I found the website. Unlike Buck’s, the website for Second to None was custom. I knew that because Greg had designed it for them and had showed them how to maintain it. It was clean and uncluttered, containing photos of the shop inside and out, including all the pertinent information like address and hours. According to the website, Second to None boasted vintage furniture in addition to used household goods. I could vouch for that. Besides the two items I’d purchased, there had been a small but nice collection of gorgeous pieces in the store when we visited. Ina told me that most of their antiques came from estate sales in nearby Beverly Hills and Brentwood. She would have liked to expand that part of their store, but they could not afford to buy many pieces at a time. With their store very close to Sony Studios and not far from the Fox lot, they’d also built up a clientele that collected movie and TV memorabilia, which lately had become Tom’s passion. Those items were usually smaller than furniture and were easier to store and sell.
    â€œYou done reading?” I asked Mom.
    When she nodded, I went back to Bob Y’s profile and checked out some of the other stores, hoping to find one connected to Mazie Moore. I remembered Buck saying she had several locations, but I had no idea what they might be called. I was hoping, like Buck, she used her own name in the store’s name. A store among Bob Y’s reviews caught my eye. It was called Otra Vez. Like Buck’s and Ina’s stores, it had received a bad review and even an ugly racist comment saying the proprietor could “make more money running drugs like the rest of his kind.”
    Following the links, I found the official website for Otra Vez, which I knew meant “again” in Spanish. The website was very