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I push. “Three, and my client, the current occupant, won’t sue you for allowing the building to fall apart. Did you know that a protruding nail caused her to fall and injure her coccyx?”
“Her what?”
“Think of the damages, Harvey.”
The man grumbles. “Fine. Three it is. I can’t keep up with repairs to that place, anyway.”
I hand the phone back to Joyce. “I’ll let you hammer out the details with Harvey. Run along with your sign and get back to me with whatever your commission is.”
“What’s happening?” Mariam asks.
I explain everything that happened. Joyce manipulated the owner into selling to mess with Mariam’s livelihood. And I confess that although it’s shady, nothing about it is illegal, including the part where I bought the building.
“You can stay in the building for as long as you want,” I tell her, feeling my body flood with relief that this scene is over.
Mariam explodes.
“I can’t have my boyfriend as a landlord! And Joyce gets a commission for being a snake? How is that fair?”
“You get to keep your business, so essentially, nothing has changed,” I tell her.
And that was the wrong thing to say.
Mariam stares up at me with something I haven’t seen before with regard to me. Confusion. Disgust. Whatever is going on in her mind, she’s got it all wrong.
“I have to go back to work,” she says flatly.
“Babe.”
Mariam pivots away when I reach for her. “We’ll talk later. People are waiting on their donuts.”
The townspeople who came out to watch this spectacle have wandered away, leaving me staring forlornly at Sweetie Pie’s, wondering what I did wrong.
The last person I want advice from at the moment strolls up next to me. I glance over, and Nate stands with the same posture as me as we stare at my new building, side by side.
“I didn’t know you were interested in building apartments,” he said.
“What? No. I bought it because I didn’t want my girlfriend to lose her business. You did the right thing by calling me, by the way. Thanks for looking out for her.”
We’re both silent for a moment.
“Did I, though? I thought you were gonna break up a fight. I didn’t realize you were gonna swoop in and be a hero. Isn’t that like how you always bail me out of trouble, then kick yourself later?”
I glance over at the 24-year-old kid with my chin, my hair, and his mom’s eyes and fashion sense.
“I don’t follow you, son.”
Nate makes a noise of derision that comes from his throat. “It means you keep saying you’re tired of bailing me out and that I need to stand on my own two feet. But look what you just did for her. The difference is she didn’t ask for help. Ask yourself why that is.”
I have to take a minute to mull that over. My kid, dropping truth bombs.
I can see what he means now. “She likes to figure things out on her own,” I mutter.
“Yep,” Nate agrees.
I laugh. “With a little street justice thrown in.”
“That was kinda funny, but bad for business. For both of us,” Nate says.
