Beaulieu Antiquités

La Heure de Fermeture

Sarah sighed and leaned against the counter, blowing a stray strand of blond hair off her face. The afternoon had been pretty slow, like most days.

She was working part time at Beaulieu Antiquités, and was starting to regret her job choice. It had been six months since she had started working here, and she had to admit it was fairly boring.

Her job consisted of working the cash register, making sure no one stole anything, and taking donations. Her boss had put a sign years ago in the window saying you can donate old stuff to the store to sell if you just didn't want it anymore. Not a lot of people actually did that, though. A surprising amount of people came in however, considering it was a small store. And she guessed a good amount of people came in and actually bought stuff , so the business was doing fairly well.

The boring thing was, they only had about twenty customers total each shift, which was six hours long. In all honesty, it was very very boring. Nothing exciting happened. Plus it smelt like wood and old people. With just a touch of metal and death.

That's how boring her job was. She had time to figure out the exact smell.

She'd only took this job because the store was right across from her apartment, and only a few blocks from La Université de Bordeaux where she attended, so less traveling. She hated public transportation so that was a huge bonus.

And it payed well. And she would have to admit she liked her bosses, who were very nice. Madame and Monsieur Beaulieu were the owners of the antique store. They were a sweet old married couple. Sarah couldn't understand for the life of her why anyone would want to open up a antique store.

Apparently it had been their life long dream or something so when they got married back in their twenty's they immediately opened up the shop.

She really couldn't understand why. The job was boring, but she guessed the owners must enjoy it for some reason. She had to admit the shop did have a certain quality, it was definitely special for some reason.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the bell on the door ringing.

A old man walked in, looking around. Sarah briefly wondered if he would break, he looked older then Monsieur Beaulieu, and her boss was at least 70. "Bonjour! How may I help you?" Sarah asked cheerfully. "Salut. Do you take donations?" His quiet voice asked. "Oui. What would you like to donate?" Sarah asked.

Unfortunately you can't donate yourself, sir. Sarah said in her head. She quickly shushed her rude thought, even though the man certainly looked like he did belong in a antique store.

The man pulled something out of his coat pocket and placed it on the counter.

It was a teddy bear. It looked fairly new, if not a little used. "When did you get this bear?" Sarah asked. One of the rules for the shop that her boss had given her was when taking donations was don't accept anything after the 2000's. They were a antique shop after all. So everything in the shop was from around 1890s-1998. They had some really old ancient stuff in the back too.

"About, I'd say 60 years ago." The man said. Sarah nodded and took it, then placed it to the side to put away later.

The man stared at the bear sadly, a tear forming in his eye.

Sarah felt like maybe she should give it back to him, it obviously had some meaning to the man. But she didn't want to make it awkward.

The man left after a moment, thanking her quickly.

Finally the day ended. Two hours later. The man had been her last costumer, and she nearly died of boredom after he left. Sarah placed the bear on the couch next to the window, tying a price tag on the wrist. Then she flipped the closed sign on the door.

She counted the money, and wrote a note for the Beaulieu's who would open the store the next day. She paused at the doorway, looking around the shop before setting the alarm and walking out, locking the door behind her just as the street lights turned on outside.

Sarah did find the shop boring, but she had mentioned it had a special something to it, a je ne sais quoi. Little did she know how special it was, or the magic after midnight.