The Fan Letter by Nancy Temple Rodrigue

her face, and an almost inaudible, “Oh, goody,” was heard.
    Three giggly high school girls armed with notebooks and pink feathered pens entered. They attempted to straighten their faces and become sophisticated, but failed in a chorus of nervous giggles.
    Leslie muttered to Janice, “Muffy, Buffy and Fluffy are here. No. No. Let me get them. I insist,” as she left to do her inflicted duty.
    Janice hid her mouth with her hand and saw Mona grinning off to the side. Wayne was forgotten for the moment as they all watched and listened. He didn't mind because buying a scarf wouldn't have taken very long and he wanted to stay and observe his target in her natural surroundings.
    Leslie fixed her smile. “Ladies?” she said in a way that would cut butter. “May I help you?”
    The one pushed forward first became the spokesperson for the trio. “Um, like, see? We didn't want to buy anything. Like, we're from Amherst High, you know? And, see, we're doing this project, like, in retailing, you know, and wondered if we could, umm, ask a few questions. ‘Kay?” she finished brightly as the other nodded in agreement.
    “‘Kay,” Leslie responded just as brightly. “Like, what did you, like, want to know?”
    “Okay, like, okay. What's your most expensive item?” Buffy asked looking around eagerly as the other two held their pens ready to write.
    That was always the first question. “If you'll come here, like, I'll show you.” Leslie shot a glance back to Mona who, in turn, pulled the corners of her mouth into a smile. Leslie batted her eyes at her boss and gave a rather silly smile. She dropped it before turning back to the girls.
    Janice's shoulders were shaking at her friend's antics and she had to turn away. She then remembered the customer, Wayne Something. “Oh! I'm sorry. You wanted a scarf or some other thing?”
    Wayne's eyes still followed Leslie. “What's the show about?” he quietly asked, indicating the girls with his chin.
    “Every semester the seniors in the retail management classes are sent out to talk to shop owners about their businesses. It's like a term paper,” she explained and then shook her head with a smile. “The ones who come here usually just want to see the ‘neat stuff’ as they call it.”
    Wayne indicated Leslie. “She's the owner, then?”
    “Oh, no. That would be Mona Green, back there by the piano. Leslie is the senior clerk. We all know how much she enjoys these interviews,” Janice grinned wickedly.
    “I can tell…. I'll take this scarf,” he said, picking up the closest one. “Do you have gift wrap?”
    They moved over to the cash register which brought them closer to Leslie. She was holding up a beautiful black velvet evening dress appliquéd with gold and silver beads.
    “This lovely creation is $4,500,” she told the gaping girls.
    They all wrote down $4,500 in their notebooks and added three exclamation points.
    Muffy asked, “So, like, how much would it have cost wholesale?”
    “A little less,” was her reply as they wrote down ‘a little less.’ “The beadwork is hand sewn and the velvet is imported from France. We captured some runaway grandmothers to sew the beads on. We keep them in the cellar.”
    “Can we see them?” Fluffy asked eagerly.
    “No.”
    ““Kay, like, what do you call these little, you know, these little buttons that you can't get off?” Buffy took over the interview again, indicating the security tag attached to the label inside the gown.
    Leslie fought to keep her face straight. “That would be a Detonating Untheft Monitoring Instrument, or a D. U. M. I,” she spelled, “as it is known in the business.”
    “How do you spell that?”
    Leslie slowly repeated, “D. U. M. I.”
    Paula and Mona were nowhere to be seen.
    “Like, where do you get all this neat stuff?”
    “We have wholesalers in San Francisco, and contacts in New York and Paris.”
    Buffy wrote that under her D. U. M. I. and wondered if this place ever had