Ruthie Opened Her Contract On The Table Where I Mended Rivers

"May I put this down?" Ruthie asked, holding up the paper bag.

"On the chair. Food stays off the worktables."

She moved it at once.

"Good rule. I brought rolls because Malcolm said we were meeting for breakfast."

She looked at the river backdrop on its padded roller.

"Is that the one from the old workers' theater?"

I nodded.

"He called it a decorative curtain."

"It took eighteen months to save."

"Then I owe it a longer look than he gave it."

She stood without touching anything. Her coat dripped onto the bare floor. I offered a hook and a clean place to sit.

"You're really working here," she said.

"I've worked here for years."

"And you're staying?"

I gave her a copy of the lease's first page. She read slowly, with her glasses low on her nose.

Her phone rang twice. She turned it face down.

"People can wait while I read something that matters."

I liked her before I wanted to.

She had planned rehearsal rooms and a small production office across the third floor. Her company had outgrown its rented rooms in Lawrence. This studio, with its long clear wall, was meant to become the main rehearsal space.

"Not a public theater yet," she said. "That would need work and approvals. I told him that six times."

The lease she showed me was signed by Canal Mill Holdings and her company. Malcolm had signed as manager on October 15, two weeks before the purchase closed.

Possession was due December 1.

The marked plan included my room. A typed clause promised the entire floor free of other occupants on that date.

Ruthie had paid $25,200, six months of rent at $4,200 a month.

"I've also paid a designer," she said. "And reserved trucks."

"Did he tell you I had a lease?"

"He said a relative used a spare room. That she was grateful for help moving."

I read that sentence twice in the email she showed me.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"You didn't take my money."

She opened her bag, broke a roll in half over a napkin, and handed me the larger piece. We ate in the hall.

"My first show was a Purim play at our synagogue," she said. "I was twelve. The sea was a blue bed sheet."

"Did it part?"

"Only when my cousin stopped standing on it."

Her laugh warmed the empty hall. She had grown up in a Jewish family in Haverhill, she told me. The small stage behind the synagogue kitchen had been her first whole world.

"I'm fifty-seven now. Forty-five years of people telling me the room will be ready Tuesday. I've learned to ask which Tuesday."

She asked if she could photograph the date page of my lease. I called June before agreeing. June sent Ruthie a copy herself and advised us to use separate lawyers.

"Your interests may line up today," June told me. "That doesn't make them identical."

Ruthie nodded when I repeated that.

"Sensible woman."

Then she called Malcolm with me beside her. She asked him to put the discussion on speaker. He agreed.

"Small confusion," he said. "Eleni's clearing some materials."

"I'm sitting with her," Ruthie said. "I've read her lease."

A truck rattled over the canal bridge below. We waited through the sound.

"It's a family matter," he said.

"My company paid your company $25,200. Please explain the business matter."

He tried to hurry her. Another meeting. A contractor waiting. A chance to walk through next week.

"No," she said, as gently as if refusing more coffee. "First answer this. Can you deliver the space you signed for?"

"The agreement was preliminary."

"It says commercial lease at the top. We both signed it."

"You don't understand the pressure I'm under."

"Then send a written answer after you've had time to think."

She ended the call. She did not shout or smile.

"I'll keep my costs down," she said. "And keep every receipt."

She left with copies and gave me her direct number. I returned to the woodland drop. The gray in my cup had dried around the edge, leaving a thin ring like the waterline on a canal wall.

At four, Malcolm sent me a proposed surrender agreement.

He offered $5,000 if I signed within two days. In return, I would release every claim and leave all improvements behind.

I forwarded it to June.

"Would you ever consider leaving for a fair price?" she asked.

I looked at the north windows, my fixed work frame, the river resting safely on its roller.

"Not now."

"That's an answer. You don't need a grander one."

I sent no reply to Malcolm myself.

At closing time, an email arrived from the city's fire prevention office. Someone had reported flammable materials and a blocked exit in Studio 3B.

The inspector would come at nine the next morning.