Page 7
“Fairwind Supply,” she says, holding up a red-stamped envelope. “Collection notice. Second one.”
“Fairwind can wait. They shorted us on a shipment in-”
“March. I know. The refund they already gave you is stapled to the back of the wrong invoice, which is why their computer says you owe four hundred you don’t. I called them earlier, someone named Rita answered, we fixed it. You owe them nothing and Rita thinks you’re rude, which I didn’t argue with.”
“It’s not even eight yet.”
“I know. Their billing office opens at seven.” She slots the envelope into the dead pile.
Marcus picks that exact moment to lean in through the door with a delivery slip, take one look at the floor, and start grinning like a jack-o’-lantern.
“Morning,” he says to her. “Sleep okay over the store?”
“Great, thanks. The gulls start at four but they’re better than my old neighbors.”
She reads the slip before signing it, then shakes her head and crosses something out. “They’ve billed you twice for the same part. You ordered one.”
Marcus looks at the slip. Looks at me. Radiates triumph.
“Get out,” I tell him.
He gets out. Whistling.
Here’s the problem. Watching her work is like watching Marcus diagnose a transmission. Fast, sure hands, no wasted motion, and every couple of minutes some small mess that’s been bugging me for years just quietly stops existing.
Except nothing about watching Marcus ever made me want to clear that desk with one arm just to see what she’d do about it. This does. It has, on a loop, as long as I’ve been standing here, and I’m starting to sweat with the effort of keeping it off my face.
It’s satisfying in a way that makes my skin itch, because I’ve seen this before.
This is the audit.
They did this to us too, after the storm. A guy named Bill in a fleece vest, sat right where she’s sitting, went through our paper with that same efficiency. He was less direct than she is. He even complimented my coffee and laughed at Marcus’s jokes. I should have known right then he was full of shit.
He documented everything and three months later a letter showed up explaining that the dock I rebuilt with my own hands hadn’t actually been covered the way we’d paid thirteen years of premiums believing it was. So the storm damage wouldn’t be reimbursed.
Bill was nice and polite too. Just like her. That’s the tell. The nice ones cost you the most.
She stands, stretches her back, and starts feeding a trash bag with the dead pile. The stretch pulls her sweater tight, showing me a sliver of skin above her waistband, and the want slams up through me so fast, so graphic, my hands on that exact strip of skin, my thumbs hooking that waistband, that it makes me mean.
I hear myself say it before I’ve really given it much thought.
“I know your type.”
Her hands don’t stop. “You mentioned. Image consultant.”
“Not that.” I set the mug down on the windowsill. “You’ve been here one day and you already know my vendors, my deadbeats, and what’s in my drawers. That’s not initiative. That’s inventory. People don’t map a business that fast unless they’re planning to do something with the map.”
“Like what? File your taxes for you?”
“Like report to whoever actually sent you.”
Her eyebrows go up, and I keep going anyway. “I’ve had strangers get to know this yard better than I do before. Consultants. Adjusters. Insurance people.”
The words come out with more acid than I planned, they always do, three years and the taste hasn’t faded. “They all have that same trick. Smile, take notes, and by the time you figure out which side they’re on, they own the ground you’re standing on.”
The trash bag slips. Just for a second her grip loosens and the bag sags and a handful of dead envelopes slide off the top onto the floor. She’s crouched down gathering them up before I can finish the sentence, hair swinging forward so I can’t see her face.
“Butterfingers,” she says a little too bright. “Sorry. You were monologuing. Carry on.”
