The barber downstairs had three questions for Iris.
“Will there be noise, will there be smells, and will people keep ringing my bell?”
He sat in the empty upstairs room wearing a white shirt and a dark waistcoat, with one ankle crossed over the other knee. His name was Saul Adler. The building belonged to him and his sister; the barber’s chair downstairs had belonged to their father.
“A sewing machine, no more than that,” Iris said. “Steam occasionally, not chemicals. And I’ll put the right number on the door.”
He nodded. “My last tenant sold insurance. People came down here trying to cancel policies.”
“I won’t be selling those.”
“Good. I don’t know anything about insurance.”
Tess sat beside the window with a folder. Iris had brought her own list, longer than the barber’s. Hours. The right to put a small sign on the street door. Who paid for electrical faults. Whether she could paint. What happened if the roof leaked. Whether the room was approved for the customer appointments she intended to hold.
Saul answered what he knew and agreed that Tess would confirm the rest in writing. The room had previously been used for client meetings, but Iris was not willing to treat that as the same as permission for any business she might imagine.
He watched her make notes.
“You’ve done this before.”
“No. I’ve done lots of other things. I’m trying not to assume they’re the same.”
He smiled. “Sensible.”
She looked around the room. The tree outside had more leaves than last week. By summer the light would be green. In winter it would be bare, direct and good for seeing a seam.
The stairs remained a problem. She asked about them directly. There was no lift and no prospect of one. She would lose customers who could not manage the flight, and there was no honest way to make that disappear by saying she would be helpful.
“I’ll need to state it clearly when people book,” she said.
Saul nodded. “Best to know what you’re taking.”
They agreed that she would receive the draft lease and written answers before deciding. Six months, six hundred and fifty a month including heat, electricity metered separately. Deposit equal to a month’s rent. No requirement to begin before the store closed; the room would be hers from the following Monday if she signed.
She walked back to Hargreaves carrying the folder against her ribs, trying not to look like someone who had just acquired a future on approval.
Daniel stood by the returns counter, talking to a man in a brown coat. When he saw her, his expression changed before he had finished the sentence. She liked that she could recognize the change now.
The man left. Daniel came toward her.
“Well?”
“Draft lease. Questions being answered. Possible start date.”
His smile widened. “That’s considerably more than exploring.”
“Yes.”
“Can I see?”
“The room?”
“Yes.”
She took him there at lunch. Saul was downstairs giving a customer the sort of haircut that had to be interrupted whenever either man wished to emphasize a point. He handed Iris the key without stopping the discussion.
Upstairs, she stood back and let Daniel look.
He went first to the window, as she had. Then he walked the perimeter, not measuring, simply understanding the shape.
“Machine there?” he asked, pointing beside the light.
“Yes. Cutting surface against that wall, folded when I don’t need it.”
“Mirror?”
“Here.”
“Good.”
She waited for the practical objections. He leaned against the sill.
“I can see you in this one.”
The words reached her more cleanly than praise for the business plan would have.
“So can I.”
He held out a hand. She went to him, laughing softly because the room was empty and the future was not.
He kissed her beside the window, one arm around her, the other hand warm against her cheek. Outside, the tree moved in a small breeze. Downstairs, the barber’s radio changed stations with a burst of static.
When he drew back, he stayed close.
“I want to be here after the store closes,” he said.
She looked at him.
“Not in the room,” he added, smiling a little. “Though I might visit if you permit it.”
“Daniel.”
“I don’t want this to be something we had because we happened to work in the same building.”
Her throat tightened. She had wanted the words enough to be afraid of finding them too early, before either knew what they meant.
“Neither do I.”
He rested his forehead lightly against hers.
For a moment she let herself have the whole pleasure of it. Not a prediction. Not a contract. The man she wanted, wanting a place in the part of her life she hadn’t lived yet.
“Good,” he said.
She laughed. “You say that when something matters.”
“I say it when I mean it.”
She kissed him again.
That evening, she read the lease draft at the dining table, marking questions rather than guessing. The address appeared several times. Her own name appeared beside a blank line for a signature.
She did not sign it. She sent it to the lawyer she had consulted about the house, asking whether a brief review was something the practice could handle and what it would cost.
Then she called Winnie.
“I’ve found a room.”
“The one with the tree?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me.”
Iris described it. The rent, the steps, the start date, the machine beside the light. Winnie asked about storage, and Iris admitted there wasn’t much.
“Then don’t fill it before you need to.”
“I thought you’d tell me I needed more.”
“Love, you’ve had four floors to keep everybody else’s things in. Try a cupboard.”
Iris laughed.
“Will you come and look?”
“Yes.”
“And tell me if you think I’m making a mistake.”
“I expect you’ll know before I do.”
After the call, Iris opened a separate page in her notebook and wrote down the equipment she already owned. Her machine. The steam iron. A good pair of shears her grandmother had given her at twenty-one. She had sharpened them faithfully for thirty-one years, even in the seasons when she hardly used them.
She went upstairs and brought the shears down.
They lay heavy and familiar in her hand, the handles worn smooth where her fingers belonged. Not a symbol, not a promise. A tool she knew how to use.
She set them beside the unsigned lease and began making a list of work she could actually accept in her first week.