James was so engrossed in his book that he didn't hear the door open or the customer come in.  When she spoke it startled him, if only for a moment, and he looked up with an aggravated expression; it softened when he saw the pretty young redhead on the other side of the counter.  He'd seen her several times before, sometimes with a friend whom he assumed was 'Izzie'.  A little fidgety for his tastes, perhaps, but she seemed to have something on her mind.  Wasn't as 'put together', as his father would have called it, as he'd seen her in the past.<br/><br/>Of course, she'd committed one of the darker sins in the bookstore world: not having any idea of what she was looking for.  Well, that in and of itself wasn't bad; it was when someone who asked for help and then didn't know what they wanted that booksellers got frustrated.  It was almost like people expected them to have some kind of magical power to summon the perfect tome out of thin air, just rub the spine three times and your own personal literary-genie would appear...<br/><br/>James didn't give any hint of what he was thinking though, smiling back at her and saying "Hi there... Cassie, is it?  I'm sure I can help, but I think we'll need a bit more to go on than 'first edition'."  He gestured around the room.  "Otherwise we're going to need about a week."<br/><br/>He slipped a bookmark between the pages and set his book down next to Creeper, who had sprawled across the counter again.  For a moment James fought the urge to nudge the cat over the edge, after almost being tripped earlier, but it passed.  Besides, he'd swear that the animal had a vindictive streak.<br/><br/>