Page 6 of Lease to Love

I gave her my usual non-answer before I made my way back to the display I'd been arranging.

“Lord willing!”

I watched her leave, waving her off, and finally relaxed my ear-to-ear grin to something that didn't make my cheeks hurt as I heard her feet carry her back onto H street.

The rhythm of footsteps crossing the threshold was a language I'd memorized in the six years since I first turned the deadbolt on this place — tourists always stepped light and unsure, local women stepped purposeful with their keys still jangling in their hands, and men who’d been sent by their wives stepped like they were walking into a trap.

When the bell above the door chimed at 11:47 AM, I didn’t look up from the maple leaf garland and baby pumpkins I was fussing with, because I didn’t need to. Those were my mama's footsteps.

“I know you hear me coming, lil girl.”

I smiled and laid the garland just so before I looked over my shoulder, and there she was, exactly as expected. Scarlett Proctor, fifty-three years old in a House of Autumn original, a cobalt wrap dress that hugged her sturdy frame, gold hoops the size of bracelets, a Coach bag hanging from the crook of her elbow like an accessory she’d been born with.

“I was hoping if I stayed real still you'd think I was a mannequin,” I said as I climbed down the step ladder.

Mama smirked back, “Baby, I’ve been looking at you since before you were born. You ain't never been still a day in your life.”

That got a chuckle out of me before I closed the distance between us and let her pull me into a hug. I gave her a squeeze, breathing in her comforting scent—a mix of vanilla, and the mystery body oil from the beauty supply store she always wore. I let it wash over me and felt myself relax a little for the first time in weeks. “Hey Mama.”

“Hey, Sunny girl,” Mama murmured into my hair, squeezing me back before stepping away to look me up and down.

It always warmed me inside when Mama came to visit me at work… Because she was the reason House of Autumn existed in the first place.

Six years ago—when I was twenty and full of more ambition than sense—I had a sketchbook full of designs, a head full of dreams, and absolutely no idea how I was supposed to turn either of those things into a business.

I knew I wanted more than a little online shop. Not a booth at somebody's market. I wanted a storefront. A place with windows and racks and dressing rooms and women walking through the door because they wanted to see what I had made.

The problem was that storefronts cost money… Money I did not have.

Mama had a friend—an old friend she'd known for years, long before I was born—who owned this building. When Mama told him what I wanted to do, he asked to meet me. I remember showing up with my portfolio tucked under my arm and trying so hard to look like a serious businesswoman instead of a twenty-year-old girl who was one bad question away from sweating through her blouse.

He took one look at me, then looked at Mama, and apparently decided that Scarlett Proctor's little girl was enough of a credit check.

The lease he gave me made absolutely no financial sense for him, but it made every bit of sense for me.

I spent the first three years building, learning… And yes, failing.

And somehow, despite everything, it worked.

By the time my original landlord passed away, House of Autumn wasn't some little dream I was trying to convince people to believe in anymore.

It was a business.

And even now, three years after he was gone, I was still standing in the store he had helped me open.

And I had my Mama to thank for that.

Mama settled onto the velvet chaise near the window like a queen holding court.

“I came to see you because I leave for Florida tonight,” she announced, and I immediately knew this visit was about to involve at least three separate conversations I hadn't asked for. “And because I heard about what happened with that Iowa boy.”

I laughed before I could stop myself.

Not the fake laugh I used when someone tried to haggle over a marked-down blazer, but a real one that came from somewhere in my gut.

She never got his name right.

“Mama,” I started, strolling over to the counter, where a glass dispenser of spa water sat sweating a ring onto the reclaimed wood. I always had a pitcher of something out for my customers. Gave the place a luxurious vibe for the cheap. “It’s been three weeks. I know you heard about it three weeks ago. And his name is Ayo. Eye-oh.”