Chapter Fifteen
Sam
Doug calls while I'm in the office working through invoices.
"I need to close the loop on Pilsen," he says. "You've got thirty days before I have to pull the file."
I put down the invoice in my hand. "That's it?"
"That's me stretching it. Your operating history is still thin for what you're asking, and you're carrying debt from the Vibes buildout. Neither of those kills the deal by itself. The judgment on an active company with your name attached to it does."
My eyes go through the open office door and land on the bar. The envelope is exactly where it has been.
Doug keeps talking. "Clear the old company and we can have another conversation. Leave it where it is and there isn't anything I can do."
"I understand."
"Then deal with the part you can deal with."
We hang up. I sit there for a minute before calling the leasing agent.
She answers with, "Please tell me you're ready."
"Not yet."
The pause tells me enough.
"How bad?"
"We've had another showing and one of the interested parties is talking to a lender. The owner still likes your deal, Sam, but I can't ask him to turn away somebody who walks in ready to close."
I push out of the chair and go as far as the office door. Tony is setting up behind the bar while Bex sits at one of the tables with tonight's run sheet open in front of her.
"How much time do I have?"
"If I knew, I'd give you a number."
Which means none. I thank her and hang up.
From the doorway I can see the edge of Autumn's envelope beside the register.
Thirty days from the bank doesn't matter if somebody buys Pilsen next week.
The stupid part is that the actual problem isn't complicated.
There is one old company, one judgment and one man whose signature gets me out of both. I haven't spoken to him in three years.
My phone is already in my hand. I could find his number before Tony finishes cutting the citrus in front of him.
Instead I go back to the desk and pick up the invoice.
Marisol comes in the next afternoon after finishing something with Bex.
I hear them arguing about a costume before she appears in my doorway with her bag over one shoulder.
"Please tell me whatever Bex wants isn't going to cost me money."
Marisol leans against the frame. "Everything Bex wants costs you money."
"Fair."
She smiles, but she doesn't leave.
I close the spreadsheet. "What's up?"
"Lucia keeps asking about Autumn."
That takes care of the smile.
"What did you tell her?"
"That I wasn't sure when she'd be back." Marisol comes farther into the office and sits on the arm of the couch. "She thinks that's a terrible answer."
"She's not wrong."
"No."
For a second she watches me, then adjusts the strap of her bag. "That's actually not why I'm here."
I wait.
"I got a job."
I push away from the computer. "What kind?"
"Costume design. A theatrical dance company is adding a production here."
I stand and come around the desk. "Marisol, that's huge."
Her smile starts slowly. "It's mostly remote, and I can set a lot of my own hours. I'll have to be there for fittings and some rehearsals, but I can work around Lucia. If my sitter cancels, I'm not suddenly unemployed."
She says it too exactly, and it makes me stop. Too exact. A job built around every problem I've heard her complain about for the last two years.
I look at her. "Autumn."
Marisol's smile changes. "Yeah."
I put a hand on the edge of the desk behind me. "What did she do?"
"She gave me a contact before she left. I thought that was all she did."
"Thought?"
"When I emailed the woman, she already knew who I was. Autumn had sent her pictures of some of the costumes I've made here and explained what I do with the dancers."
I picture Autumn doing that. Not mentioning it. Not taking credit. Just finding the right person and putting Marisol in front of her.
"When was this?"
"Before she left. She gave me the card when Lucia and I had lunch with her."
That week. I glance through the open door toward the bar. Autumn was packing for London. Finishing whatever she needed to finish at work. Saying goodbye to people. Somewhere inside all of that, she'd found Marisol a job that could survive a cancelled sitter. Marisol is watching me now.
"She never told me."
"No." Her voice is gentle without being careful. "She wouldn't."
I look down at the floor, the answer landing harder than I expect.
"Did you get it because of her?"
Marisol shakes her head. "She opened the door. I still had to walk through it."
"Good."
"I thought you'd say that."
"You should've gotten something like this years ago."
"You're aware you could make congratulations sound slightly more celebratory."
I look back at her. "I'm serious. You're good at this."
Her smile comes back, fuller this time. "I think I am."
"There you go."
She gets up, pulling her bag onto her shoulder.
"Marisol."
She turns.
"Congratulations."
"Thank you."
She leaves me standing there with the office door open. My eyes go to the envelope. Autumn had already done this for Marisol before she left. She looked at what Marisol needed and found what fit. She did the same thing with Pilsen. Then she put the answer in my hand and asked me to let her help.
I told her she was interfering.
"Fuck."
Nobody hears me over the music. I go back to the desk, but I don't reopen the spreadsheet.
Later, when I come out to work the bar, I pick up the envelope.
I've cleaned around it for weeks. Reached over it, moved bottles beside it, slid receipts underneath it and pulled them back out. Tonight I take it with me to the office. I shut the door and sit down. The paper is soft at one corner from being handled too many times. I turn it over.
Autumn probably wrote out the whole thing. Who to call first. What to say if he refuses. What to do if he hangs up. Every possible version of a conversation I haven't been willing to have. My thumb slips beneath the edge of the flap. I stop. For a while I just sit there.
Opening it means admitting she was right about the problem.
That's not the part bothering me. She usually is.
Opening it means seeing how much time she spent on a piece of my life after I made damn sure she understood I hadn't invited her into it.
I put the envelope on the desk and go back behind the bar.
A couple of days later, I look up the restaurant.
Not him. The restaurant. I've been using that distinction for two years, and it isn't any less stupid because I've been consistent about it.
The second location has an opening date now.
There are photographs of the new space, a menu preview and a piece about the expansion.
His name is halfway down the page. Then there he is.
He looks older. So do I. His hair is different, but the rest of him is familiar enough that my body reacts before anything else does.
My shoulders tighten. My jaw locks. Three years disappears fast when somebody's face is involved.
I close the photograph, but keep the website open. He built another restaurant.
Whatever is attached to the company we used to share didn't stop him from doing that. He found whatever path he needed and kept going. I've spent three years refusing to make one phone call. Across the room, Autumn's envelope is sitting on my desk.
I copy the restaurant's number into my phone and leave it open. Then I put Autumn's envelope in the drawer beside my knee before I go downstairs.