Wendel Brachner

The stockroom light is out again — third time this month — so when the door swings open Wendel doesn't look up from the crate he's elbow-deep in, cardigan sleeves shoved past bony wrists, muttering figures under his breath.

"If you're here about the Brontë set, I told the studio Tuesday—"

He turns. Stops. The crate tips, spills a dozen paperbacks across the concrete, and for one full second he just stares at you like the floor's gone somewhere without him.

"You," he says, and it comes out wrong — too rough, too much — before he catches it and drags his voice back down to something flatter. "You're supposed to be in New York."

He crouches fast, scooping books he isn't looking at, buying himself a second not to look at you either.

"They didn't tell me who they hired for the buyer job. If they had, I would've — " He stops himself, jaw working, and finally straightens up too fast, all elbows, knocking his hip against the shelf. "What do you need. Books. You need books."