On Monday the elevator stopped between floors with six cartons of towels inside and nobody to appreciate the symbolism.
Hugh came into the office, put the maintenance number on Iris’s desk and said, “Before you ask, no person. Only linen.”
She let out the breath she’d taken.
“Thank you.”
“The towels seem calm.”
She laughed. It surprised them both.
The engineer could come at eleven. Until then they used the stairs, moved smaller loads and made a note on the entrance door for customers who needed the lift. It was ordinary work. Iris was grateful for the exact, limited shape of the problem.
Daniel arrived at ten.
She knew he was coming. The final fixtures inventory required him on site most of the week, and both of them had agreed to their work long before there had been anything else to agree about.
Knowing did not prepare her for seeing him in the doorway.
He wore the navy jacket. The repaired cuff caught against the handle of his case, and for a moment she remembered him holding it for her at Leo’s. Her body was annoyingly faithful to things her mind had not finished sorting.
“Good morning,” he said.
“Morning.”
“Hugh told me about the lift.”
“Eleven. Nobody was in it.”
“Good.”
The word hung there, familiar and difficult. He looked down at the folder he carried.
“I’ll start upstairs. Is there anything you need from me first?”
“The fixture list. We have requests from staff for a few things.”
“I’ve brought the agreed process. I’ll leave it here.”
He put it on the desk, not close enough to touch her, then went upstairs.
She sat for a moment after he’d gone. The conversation had been entirely reasonable. She hated how much she had wanted him to make it less so.
At eleven the engineer arrived. At noon the towels emerged from their unplanned confinement. By two the store had acquired the thin, hollow sound of shelves emptying faster than they could be rearranged.
Priya came into the office with a letter on her phone.
“I got it.”
Iris looked up. “The assistant manager job?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, Priya.”
The girl grinned, then looked suddenly uncertain.
“Is it awful to be pleased this week?”
“No.” Iris stood and hugged her. “It’s exactly the week to be pleased.”
The new job was at a homewares chain twenty minutes away. More pay, training, a schedule that would sometimes be less convenient. Priya had accepted anyway. She wanted to learn how to run a shop, she said, not simply keep working in one.
Iris heard the distinction and felt a complicated pride.
“You’ll be very good.”
“I might be terrible for the first month.”
“Then you’ll have company with everybody else who’s ever done anything.”
Priya laughed. They went downstairs to tell Hugh, who said he expected a discount on curtains and was immediately told to read the employee policy first.
For a little while, the staff gathered near the counter, celebrating someone else’s next place. Daniel stood farther down the aisle, checking labels on display units. When he heard the news, he congratulated Priya with a warmth that did not ask Iris to look at him.
She looked anyway.
At three, Mrs. Morrow came in to ask about the replacement milk frother she had bought elsewhere.
“I know,” she said when Iris raised an eyebrow. “But I trust you to tell me whether I’m using it wrong.”
“Have you brought it?”
“In the car.”
They discovered the whisk attachment had not been fitted. It took less than a minute to correct. Mrs. Morrow looked at the part, then at Iris.
“I’ve been beating milk with hope.”
“An unreliable attachment.”
The older woman laughed, put everything carefully back in its bag and asked where Iris would be after Friday.
“Mason Street. Upstairs over the barber. Alterations, by appointment.”
“I don’t sew.”
“That seems promising for me.”
Mrs. Morrow smiled. “I have trousers. A number of them have misunderstood my height.”
Iris gave her a card, explaining the stairs before the woman could tuck it away. Mrs. Morrow considered this, then said she managed stairs, slowly, and would allow time.
A possible customer with ordinary knees and a small practical need. Iris put her name on the inquiry sheet after she had gone.
At four, Hugh brought the approved staff purchase requests. The old steam brush would go to Winnie at the agreed value. Priya wanted a display mirror. Hugh wanted a brass coat hook from the loading office because he had hung his jacket on it for eighteen years and did not intend to start looking for a new place at his age.
Iris had requested the service bell.
Daniel had written the valuation beside it. A modest price. Joan had approved it with the others.
Iris touched the paper. She hadn’t told him why she wanted it. She wasn’t entirely certain herself. The sound of it had summoned her so often that owning the thing might be a joke she could eventually enjoy.
At closing, Daniel returned to the office with the final list.
“They’re removing the sold fixtures next Monday,” he said. “Customer property and estate records have separate labels. I’ve asked them not to touch the hold cupboard until you sign it clear.”
“Thank you.”
He hesitated. She could see the effort it took him to remain where he was.
“Iris, I’d like to talk. When you’re ready.”
She looked at him. The wish to say now was so strong it felt nearly like pain.
“I can’t do it here.”
“No.”
“Not this week. Not while we’re finishing this.”
He nodded, accepting the shape of it without looking relieved.
“All right.”
“And not just because we’re lonely.”
His gaze stayed on hers. “I understand.”
She wanted to ask whether he did. Instead she closed the folder.
“Thank you for keeping the customer things separate.”
“It needed doing.”
“Yes.”
He left before she could offer a kindness she wasn’t ready to make uncomplicated.
At home she took a bowl from the cupboard, then put it back and chose the blue plate she liked. She ate the leftover soup with toast and read the first chapter of a paperback she’d bought two years ago and never opened.
It was an adventure story. The woman in it had already stolen a horse by page fourteen.
Iris turned the page, grateful that somebody else’s difficulties required a different set of decisions.