Jun Opened His Tour Folder Across a Library Table

I met Jun at the library because I could not invite him into my own shop.

Rain tapped the windows. He set two paper cups on the table and asked which one I wanted.

"Plain tea," I said.

"I guessed."

His kindness nearly undid me. Wade's words had stayed dry in my chest all night. One kind act let them swell.

Jun waited while I took a breath.

"Tell me what you were promised," I said.

He laid out an invoice, a bank receipt, and a schedule.

Twelve hand-tied wigs. First fitting in nine days. Delivery three weeks after that. The price was $24,000, with $9,600 paid.

The invoice named me as lead maker.

"I never saw this," I said.

"Wade said you had cleared it."

"I can finish twelve wigs in six weeks with help. I cannot finish them while I make the other work already on my bench."

Jun turned the schedule toward me.

"Then we need the truth today. My crew can solve a shortage. We can't solve a lie that keeps changing."

I showed him the trunk papers.

He read them without rushing.

"Those molds are your fitting records," he said.

"Some are all I have left from performers who live too far away to come back."

"Then he wasn't selling spare wood."

"No."

Jun's company was called Lantern Road Players. He called its producer while I sat beside him. He asked her to pause any further payment and send all messages about our order to Mara.

He did not raise his voice once.

Then he asked, "Can you still access the company records?"

I could. My accounting login was my own. Wade had locked the door, but he had not erased my member access to the books.

I used the library computer and downloaded the deposit ledger to my drive. I logged out before we left the table.

There were six production deposits in five weeks.

I read each line twice.

Lantern Road had paid $9,600. Cypress Stage had paid $8,400. Pelican Hall had paid $6,200. Redbank Players had paid $5,400. Parish Light had paid $4,800. Willow Tent had paid $4,000.

Together, they had paid $38,400.

Lena's $4,600 made $43,000.

"How much work?" Jun asked.

I opened the linked quotes.

Seventy-two custom wigs. All due within the same six weeks.

I had one part-time knotter, who came on Thursdays, and my own two hands.

"Could he have ordered help?" Jun asked.

"Let's find out."

The purchase folder held no lace orders, no hair orders, and no outside labor contracts for these jobs. Even a full crew would have needed fittings he had never booked.

But I knew a blank folder alone proved little.

I called our knotter, Ruth.

"Did Wade ask you to take extra days?"

"No. He told me you were slowing down and he'd call when he needed me."

I thanked her and wrote down the time.

In my sent mail, I found the note I had sent Wade five weeks earlier.

Our current queue is full through the end of next month. Do not accept custom work without my written dates.

His reply was three words.

Understood. Will wait.

Jun stared at the reply.

"He took ours two days later."

We printed it.

At Mara's office, I put the stack on her desk. She did not call Wade a thief. She asked which facts I could swear to and which I had only heard.

That helped me stand straight again.

She sent each customer a request for their own papers and gave them my true capacity. No one was asked to trust my anger.

By evening, four had answered. One had been promised eighteen wigs in ten working days. Another had paid for pale gray hair we had not stocked in a year.

Mara prepared a civil filing seeking the return of my property, access to the business, and protection for the remaining money. She attached Wade's threat to sell assets by Friday.

"There is a deadline here," she said. "He supplied it."

I signed my sworn statement. My hand shook on the first letter. It steadied by the last.

Mara slid a small ruler across the desk to keep my pages straight. I used one just like it to measure a center part. The task felt familiar then. Find the true line, mark it, and stop the work from drifting.

Outside, Wade called.

"You have no idea what running a company costs."

"I know what seventy-two heads require."

"I have approval sheets."

"Then send them."

He sent one while we were still on the call.

At the bottom was my name, written in a neat slant I had never used.