By nine o’clock Friday morning, Iris had discovered that the conference-room camera made her look like a woman being interviewed about a flood.
“Higher,” Daniel said.
She lifted the laptop onto a sample book of curtain fabrics.
“Better?”
“Now you look as if you have curtains.”
She moved it again. On the screen, the small square of her own face tilted alarmingly before settling. The video call was not due to begin for twelve minutes. She already wanted it over enough to consider accepting the stock offer herself.
Daniel placed a glass of water beside her.
“You don’t have to fill every silence.”
“Are you offering advice or making an observation?”
“Both.”
“Then you should know that if nobody speaks, I begin to think they’ve died.”
He pulled his chair nearer, leaving a decent space between them. “I will try not to die during your presentation.”
She laughed. The tension in her shoulders shifted, just a little.
The first face to appear was Joan Hargreaves, Leonard’s eldest daughter, wearing reading glasses on a cord. Iris had last seen her at the memorial service, where Joan had stood beside a photograph of her father looking entirely unlike the man who used to sneak peppermints out of the Christmas hampers.
“Good morning, Iris.”
“Good morning.”
“You’ve cut your hair.”
“About four years ago.”
Joan smiled ruefully. “Then it’s been longer than I thought.”
Her brother Martin joined from a parked car, followed by the estate’s accountant and the lawyer. Daniel introduced Iris properly, explaining the work she had done. He did not call her their invaluable Iris, or say she knew where all the bodies were buried. She hadn’t realized how much she would appreciate an introduction containing her actual job.
She explained the customer commitments first. Not as a sentimental reason to ignore money, but because delivering what people had bought would require staff and time regardless of how the remaining stock was sold.
Then she showed the figures.
The bulk buyer had offered eighty-six thousand dollars for eligible retail goods, collection included. Her conservative projection for a six-week sale, after the additional operating costs and a reserve for returns, came to ninety-four thousand. The difference was smaller than she wished. It was also honest.
“Eight thousand dollars for five additional weeks of uncertainty,” the accountant said.
“Six,” Iris said. “Their collection timetable doesn’t begin until after the ten-day customer window. We’d still have the building to operate while they cleared it.”
He checked his papers. She waited. Daniel had gone very still beside her, which she discovered was how he paid attention.
“That’s true,” the accountant said.
Martin leaned toward his camera. “How firm is this projection?”
“Not firm. It’s a projection. I can tell you how it was calculated.”
She did. Sale history. Brand performance. Seasonal stock. The three hundred customers who had signed up for the mailing list in the first two days after the closure notice.
“They might come to say goodbye and buy nothing,” Martin said.
“They might. So we need an offer worth coming for, and we need staff who know what they’re selling.”
She heard her own defensiveness and stopped.
On the screen, Joan was looking at the figures without speaking.
Iris took a sip of water.
A delivery truck reversed in the alley, beeping steadily. There were five living people on the screen. None of them required rescuing from the silence.
Finally Joan said, “Would you stay for the whole period?”
“Yes.”
“Whatever happened?”
“Within the agreed job and the agreed six weeks. I couldn’t promise more than that.”
Daniel turned his head a fraction. Iris kept looking at Joan.
“We all understand the store can’t remain open,” Joan said.
“Yes.”
“I’m not sure everyone does. I’ve had letters suggesting my brother and I could keep it running on weekends. As a sort of civic obligation.”
Iris knew some of those letters had come from friends of hers. She had not written one. She had been tempted.
“Your father ran a business,” she said. “He didn’t leave you a municipal service. I’m asking you to consider a particular way of finishing it.”
Joan’s face softened so suddenly that Iris looked down, giving her a moment.
Daniel went through the risks. He did not downplay them to make their proposal easier to accept. Iris ought to have minded; instead she felt her case become more solid because he was willing to press it.
They agreed to call back after a private discussion.
When the screen went blank, Iris leaned backward until the chair creaked.
“Was that all right?”
“That was very good.”
“You sound surprised.”
“No. I sound pleased.”
She turned toward him. Up close, she could see a tiny nick in one lens of his glasses. He had shaved that morning. There was something intimate about the evidence that a person had prepared his face for the day, and she wished she hadn’t thought of it.
“I nearly talked over her.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Because you’d warned me.”
“Because you listened.”
Her phone lit up on the table. The catering firm. She stepped into the hallway to answer.
They needed the interview on Monday. There were two other candidates and a start date in three weeks. They liked her experience very much, but no, they couldn’t hold the position until the store closed.
She looked through the conference-room door at Daniel, now reading something on his tablet. Beyond him, past the windows, stood the roof of the church where Beth had once played the angel Gabriel in a borrowed pillowcase.
She had lived in Wrenford thirty-two years. Sometimes she wondered if she had mistaken staying for making a choice.
“Can I call you back this afternoon?” she asked.
“Certainly. Before three, please.”
She thanked the woman and hung up.
Daniel looked up as she returned. “Trouble?”
“Another decision.”
He nodded and waited. She liked that he waited; she disliked that liking it made her want to tell him things.
“A job. Office manager at a catering firm. They want somebody in three weeks.”
“Do you want it?”
“It has dental coverage.”
“That wasn’t quite the question.”
“No. It wasn’t.”
She sat down. “I’d be good at it.”
“I imagine you would.”
“That ought to matter.”
“It does.”
The call chimed before either of them could say more.
Six weeks. They had six weeks, on the original payroll arrangements, with a weekly report and a review after the first full fortnight. Joan announced it with the solemn expression of someone approving a medical procedure. Martin said he hoped Iris knew what she was taking on.
“I have a fairly good idea,” she said.
Afterward, Daniel offered his hand.
“Congratulations.”
She took it. Warm palm, firm fingers, a brief pressure that carried no more meaning than an ordinary professional handshake.
Her body disagreed with this assessment.
She let go first. “We’ll see if you still think so when the saucepans start moving.”
At three minutes to three she called the catering firm and withdrew her application.
She did not mention it to Daniel. It was her choice, and for once she wanted to hear it without someone else’s approval laid over the top.
The announcement to the staff took place at four, between shifts, on the women’s clothing floor. Iris had expected twelve people. Twenty-three turned up, including Hugh in his delivery fleece and Winnie in a shirt covered in enormous blue lemons.
She explained what had happened. The alternative offer. Their approved sale. The review point. Nobody cheered at first. They were doing their own sums: weeks of pay, days until unemployment, the number of shifts remaining with people they knew.
Then Priya said, “Can we do the window?”
Iris blinked. “What?”
“The big farewell window. You said we’d never get the time.”
“We don’t have the time.”
“Now we have six weeks.”
Hugh folded his arms. “She’s got you there.”
“I meant time to prepare it.”
“We could stay tonight,” someone said.
There was a chorus of practical objections, immediately followed by solutions. Someone had a child to collect. Someone else could take over after dinner. Winnie announced that the original opening-day photograph still existed in Leonard’s office and no, the promotional mannequin in the cupboard did not look frightening once you put a hat on it.
Iris looked around the group. Her people, she would once have called them. She had been about to organize a morale event for adults who were organizing one in front of her.
“Two hours,” she said. “Nobody works for free. We’ll put it on the sale preparation budget.”
Priya grinned.
Daniel, at the back, made a note. She hoped it was a very expensive note.
By six-thirty the main window contained three dressed mannequins, an enlarged opening-day photograph and a pile of objects that had become emotionally important because someone wanted them in the display. A hatbox. A chipped teapot. A brass measuring stick from the fabric counter. A pair of shoes so small that they were probably intended for a doll, although Winnie maintained they had been fashionable.
Iris stood inside the window beside Daniel, both of them holding an end of the fabric backdrop. Outside, people slowed on the sidewalk to watch.
“Left,” she said.
He moved left.
“My left.”
“That is your left.”
“Then the other left.”
He moved back. The fabric drooped.
“Would you like me to be taller?” he asked.
“It might help.”
“Should have mentioned it this morning. I could have prepared.”
She laughed before she could help it. Daniel looked at her, and the fabric slipped another inch.
A mannequin hand fell off.
It landed in the hatbox with a sharp little thud.
Outside the glass, a small boy stopped eating his ice cream.
“Oh, excellent,” Iris said. “We’ve added an accident.”
Daniel set his end of the fabric down and retrieved the hand. It was pale, elongated and missing its smallest finger. He examined the magnetic connection.
“This one might not stay.”
“Then put it in a pocket.”
He tried. The mannequin’s fitted jacket prevented it.
“Cross the arms,” she suggested.
He lifted the remaining arm. The other hand came off in his grasp.
Iris pressed her lips together.
Daniel stared at the two hands he was now holding.
“Don’t,” he said.
“I haven’t said anything.”
“Your expression is saying quite a lot.”
Outside, the boy pointed. His mother began to laugh. That finished Iris. She bent forward, laughing so helplessly that she had to put a hand on Daniel’s arm to stay upright.
He was laughing too, quietly at first, then with a sudden unguarded sound that made him look younger without making him look young. His arm was warm through the shirt. She held on for one moment longer than she needed to.
Priya appeared at the side opening.
“Everything okay?”
“We’re exploring a minimalist approach,” Daniel said, holding up the hands.
Priya considered the mannequin. “Scarf. Put a big scarf around the arms.”
“Give that woman the building,” Iris said.
They finished the window just after seven. In the photograph, Leonard Hargreaves stood in front of the same glass with his wife and two employees, all four wearing expressions of dazed hope. The fabric backdrop made the old picture glow. The mannequins, discreetly wrapped, looked as if they might be enjoying themselves.
One by one, the staff left. Iris stayed to clear the empty cartons. Daniel helped without asking where everything went; she pointed and he carried.
At the door, they paused beneath the striped awning. The air smelled of rain, though the sidewalk was dry. Across the street, the bakery had put chairs up on its tables.
“I liked what you said to Joan,” he said.
“About her father?”
“Yes.”
“It was true.”
“Truth isn’t always the first thing people give a person who’s grieving.”
Iris looked at him. He was watching the window rather than her.
“Someone you lost?”
“My mother. Five years ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.”
There was room for more. She felt it, the quiet beside his sentence. Then he turned toward her and smiled, a little tiredly.
“Have you eaten?”
“No.”
“Me neither.”
For one strange, light second she thought he might ask her to dinner. She could feel herself preparing to say yes.
“My sister’s waiting for a call,” he said. “I promised before eight.”
“Of course.”
He seemed to notice the small shift in her voice. Or perhaps she imagined it because she wanted him to.
“Monday?” he asked.
“For the stock check?”
“Yes.” A pause. “And I owe you lunch. You didn’t have any today.”
“That sounds dangerously like supervision.”
“An apology, then. I asked to work through it.”
She looked at the neatly repaired cuff of his jacket.
“Lunch would be nice.”
“Good.”
He walked toward the parking garage. She watched long enough to notice the unhurried way he moved, then deliberately turned in the other direction.
At home there would be a silent kitchen, a difficult Sunday, and a dress with one strap still unfinished.
On Monday there would be lunch.