A Full Evening

Rafi agreed to take the shop on Monday, then spent twenty minutes telling me which parts of it she would not change.

I liked her better for the parts she wanted to change. She would move the press nearer the window and put the fitting-room mirror on the wall opposite. She had already drawn the new arrangement on the back of my rent figures.

“You don’t have to preserve me in here,” I said.

“I wasn’t planning to.” She put the pencil down. “The clients you’ve promised to finish before you leave are yours. The ones who come in after August will need to know whose hands are on their clothes.”

I had been so intent on keeping my lease that I had almost offered her a room without a name of her own. We amended the agreement before either of us signed it.

When Felix asked what I wanted…