The Other Work

On Tuesday Felix was offered the library tables, and the first thing I did was count the evenings I would lose to them.

It was a mean way to greet good news. I did not say it aloud. I said, “They chose your drawings?”

“They chose the price as well.” He was standing in my shop with a paper folder under his arm, trying not to look pleased until I had finished asking sensible questions. “Four tables. They want one of them low enough for the children who use the room after school. I need to make another drawing before they sign off on it.”

“You’ll make it beautiful.”

“They’ll use it. That’s the part I want.”

He had already marked where the chairs would fit around the lower table. I wanted to take the folder from him and spread the drawings over my cutting table. I wanted him to tell me every detail. Instead I saw the corner of my own order book: three clients who needed to try on their garments that evening, and Rafi’s notes for the summer handover.

“Can I come by after closing?” I asked.

“I won’t be at the workshop. I promised the librarian I’d have the new drawing by Thursday morning. I’m taking it home.”

He could have made room for me at his table. A week ago he might have stayed up afterward to recover the hours. I looked at the folder and asked the question I had been avoiding.

“Would you rather work alone?”

“Tonight, yes.”

“All right.”

It was all right. I was annoyed anyway. The annoyance made no sense until I saw that I had expected to be invited wherever he would be. I had known how to find Felix for years. I did not yet know how to be a person he chose to see at a particular hour.

Before I could make my face behave, the florist came in carrying a loose wooden bracket from the sign outside her shop. She set it on my counter.

“You made the last one,” she said to Felix. “Would you have a look? It came down in the wind.”

He examined the split in the wood. “I can give you a price on Thursday. I can’t make a new one this week.”

“Thursday’s fine. I wasn’t asking you to do it for nothing.”

“You did once,” he said, smiling. “I said yes. This time I have the library work.”

“Then I wish the library well.” She reclaimed the bracket. “Don’t let them put a plant on the children’s table. The children will water the book and read the plant.”

After she left, I said, “I didn’t know she paid you for the old sign.”

“She didn’t. She offered. I told her I could do it on my way home. I wanted to.”

“And today you don’t.”

“Today I’d charge. I’m not angry with her for asking.”

I thought of the shelf he had made for his father, the rail I had insisted on paying for and the pears the florist sometimes left in my shop. His time had never been a tidy set of accounts. He could give it away and still decide he needed to sell it next time. I had understood that in theory and been troubled when the decision reached me.

“I wanted to hear about the tables tonight,” I said.

“You can hear about them now. Or tomorrow.”

“I wanted your evening.”

He closed the folder and looked at me. “I know. That’s not a foolish thing to want.”

“It is when you said you’re working.”

“Wanting isn’t the problem. I would like you there. I would also spend half the night looking at you instead of the drawing.”

“You make me sound terribly distracting.”

“You came to my flat with an overnight bag on Friday. I haven’t quite recovered.”

I had not expected him to say that over my counter, with the bell on the door liable to ring at any moment. Heat rose under the neckline of my dress. Felix saw it and grew still, pleased but unwilling to press an advantage.

“Tell me about the low table,” I said. “For five minutes. Then let me do my fittings.”

He opened the folder. He had made the corners round, with a narrow groove at the end of each edge so a child’s finger could follow the grain without catching a splinter. It was not the solution I would have drawn; I had only ever imagined a table by its height and the space for knees. He showed me the place where he had changed his mind.

“You saw someone using it,” I said.

“Two children, arguing over the same book. There’s no sense making them take turns leaning across one corner.”

His delight in the work made my earlier smallness harder to hold. I put a fingertip on the pencilled curve. Our hands nearly touched. Felix did not turn the drawing into a reason to take mine.

“I want to see the finished tables,” I said.

“You will.”

“And tomorrow? Have you promised it to anybody?”

“My father for supper. Thursday is mine for the drawing, if the librarian wants changes. Friday I can come to you.”

“You don’t have to keep Fridays like an appointment.”

“I don’t have to. I want this one.”

I had asked for time and heard what he could freely give. It was more intimate than finding him available because he had never learned to say otherwise.

· · ·Scene break

On Friday a client collected a coat I had been afraid to return. She had asked me to retain the worn lining because it still smelled faintly of her mother. I had sewn the torn parts to a new supporting layer, then made myself stop. If I did too much, it would be a different coat with old cloth trapped inside it.

She put it on and stood before the mirror for a long time. “It feels like mine,” she said.

After she left I locked the front door, sat at the cutting table and let my hands rest. Felix had said he would come after he finished his drawing. It was already seven. I picked up my phone, put it down and picked it up again.

I’m done for the day. If your drawing takes longer, tell me. I’ll go upstairs and make supper.

The answer arrived before I had taken off my apron.

Leaving now. I was helping my father carry his radio home from repair. I should have sent a message sooner.

I was irritated by the delay and relieved he had said why. Both feelings had room to exist. When he came through the door, I did not make him work out which one I was hiding.

“I thought you had lost the evening,” I said.

“I nearly did. He rang when I was closing. I could have sent you a message before I went. I’m sorry.”

“Thank you.”

“The radio works. He insists the shelf makes the sound better.”

“Of course it does. You measured the wall twice.”

Felix laughed. I took off my apron and hung it by the press. He was wearing the coat with the seam I had mended; there was a narrow fray beginning at the cuff. I reached for it, then stopped. He had not come here to be a job. He saw where I was looking and held out his arm.

“You can tell me,” he said.

“The cuff will need doing soon.”

“I know. I thought I could try it myself.”

“You’ve watched me often enough.”

“Watching you hasn’t taught me how you hold the needle.”

I put my hand around his wrist. “I can show you on Sunday. If you want to learn.”

“I do.” His gaze dropped to where my thumb lay over his pulse. “I miss you when I’m working, Nina. I still want the work.”

“I know.”

I let his wrist go only when he reached for my hand in return. We went upstairs together. The week had given us separate rooms and separate hours; it had not made us strangers in the ones we chose to share.