The Woman Who Bought My Trunk Read Its Tags Aloud

"Please don't remove those tags," I said.

The woman stopped speaking for a moment.

"I'm not touching anything. I thought this was a studio clearance."

Her name was Lena Voss. She ran a small costume store near Alexandria. Wade had offered her a trunk of fitting forms for $18,400. She had sent $4,600 to hold it.

"He said the old maker had retired," she told me.

I sat on the edge of my bed.

"The old maker is speaking."

Lena let out a short breath.

"Then I believe we have a problem."

She had found my number on a repair card beneath the tray. She read the names on three tags. I knew each one. I could picture the ears beneath each plaster shell.

"Is there blue thread through the handles?" I asked.

"Little loops. Like commas."

"Those heads are mine. May I come see them?"

"Come in the morning. Bring whatever proves it."

I called Wade next.

"Where is my cream trunk?"

"In storage. I told you."

"With Lena Voss?"

He stopped breathing into the phone.

Then he said, "You went behind my back."

"My number was in my trunk."

"It's dead stock, Almaz. Those shows closed."

"The shows closed. The people still have heads."

"We need cash."

"For what?"

He hung up.

I put the phone down and made tea. The kettle clicked off while I was still holding an empty cup.

At dawn, mist lay over Cane River Lake. A truck rolled down Front Street with its lights on. I took the road south with my metal box on the passenger seat.

Lena met me beside her loading door. The trunk sat on a pallet. One brass corner was bent. I had bent it myself in 2009, loading a van in the rain.

"I paid for delivery," she said. "His helper dropped it off yesterday."

She showed me the receipt.

Under description, Wade had written: Business-owned obsolete shaping materials.

He had signed as sole authorized seller.

I opened my folder on her counter.

There was the original trunk receipt. There were twelve numbered mold cards and the schedule attached to our buy-in agreement.

Each item had its own line. The trunk was T-04. Its molds ran from M-061 through M-072.

Lena checked all twelve.

"These match."

"There's another page."

She read it aloud.

"Equipment listed in Schedule A remains the personal property of Almaz Getachew. Use by the company does not transfer title."

Below that, both members had to approve any sale of company inventory in writing.

Wade had given himself two reasons he could not sell my trunk.

"Can you take it home?" Lena asked.

I wanted to close the lid and lift it straight into my car.

Instead, I called the lawyer who had made Wade wait through all those pages.

Mara Bell asked for photographs and copies first.

"Keep a clean record," she said. "No argument in a loading yard. Ask Lena to hold it while I send a written demand."

Lena agreed. We signed a simple note stating that she would keep the trunk safe and make no further payment while ownership was checked.

I photographed every tag, every blue loop, and the bent corner.

Then Lena opened Wade's offer on her laptop.

"There's more you should see."

He had offered thirty-one wooden fitting blocks as a second lot. Those were in my schedule too. One was carved to fit a singer with a flat spot from childhood surgery.

He had called that block interchangeable.

I had to put my hands beneath my arms to keep them still.

"I haven't agreed to that lot," Lena said. "I won't."

Mara's demand went out before noon. It included the receipts, the signed schedule, and a notice that no sale had my consent.

Lena sent her own demand for the $4,600 back.

"I don't want a bargain this badly," she told me.

Back in Natchitoches, I tried my workroom key.

It would not turn.

Through the glass, I saw my fitting chair behind Wade's desk. A paper sign said visits were now by appointment.

Wade came from the back carrying a sandwich.

He did not open the door.

My phone buzzed in my coat.

His text read: Buy me out for $65,000 by Friday, or I sell enough assets to cover what you owe me.

Behind him, my blue thread box sat open on his desk.

I saved the message.

Then another message arrived, this one from Jun.

It held a bank receipt for $9,600 and one question: Who approved our dates?