We Counted The Heads Beneath Petra's New Brass Nameplate

By Friday, Petra had put a brass plate beside the workshop door.

PETRA NOVAK, DIRECTOR.

It was crooked.

I noticed because I had spent thirty years making crooked things sit straight on human heads.

Vanessa stood beside me with a folder. Franklin carried his camera. A man from Alder Quay waited on the step, holding a clipboard against the wind.

“Martin Vale,” he said. “Asset review.”

“Simone Ellis. Owner of the blocks.”

“Claimed owner,” Petra said, opening the door.

Vanessa held up the written access agreement signed the evening before.

“We are here to count and photograph. Nobody removes property today.”

Petra stepped back.

Inside, the shop smelled of wet hair and hot metal. My kettle was gone. So was the photograph of June unloading the van with me.

The apprentices had lined the blocks along three tables. Every blue tag remained in place.

Ben did not look down this time.

“I thought you'd want the numbers facing out,” he said.

“Thank you.”

Martin checked the shelves against the lender's list while Franklin photographed each tag beside a ruler. Vanessa marked my schedule. I checked the shapes.

“BX-012,” I said. “Built up above the left ear. Don't press that padding.”

Lara turned it gently.

“BX-019. That's the narrow temple.”

Martin looked at me.

“You know them all?”

“I know where the lace needs to land.”

Petra laughed from her desk.

“Simone gets attached to objects.”

Franklin lifted his camera.

“Objects reward close attention. People could learn from them.”

We counted eighty-three.

Then we counted again.

BX-044 was missing.

It supported one of the wigs required for Franklin's rental. Its right side had a small flat place, made for a retired actor whose replacement had almost the same head shape. I had adjusted the fitting two months earlier.

“Where is forty-four?” I asked.

Petra kept typing.

“Probably being repaired.”

“By whom?”

“I don't keep every shipping detail in my head.”

Martin put down his clipboard.

“Our collateral schedule lists eighty-four items at this address.”

“It's routine workshop movement.”

“Then there should be a work order,” Vanessa said.

We waited.

Somewhere behind the wall, a pipe clicked.

Petra opened a drawer, closed it, and said she would have her records brought up to date.

Vanessa wrote down the answer.

At the rinse sink, Ben approached me with his hands pushed into his apron pockets.

“I should have said something when she called you the washer.”

“You needed your job.”

“I still knew it was wrong.”

“Then next time you know, say so.”

He nodded.

“I will.”

I checked the drain basket out of habit. Someone had left a clump of hair in it.

Lara reached for it.

“Leave that until after the count,” I said. “Cleaning is work. It can wait its turn.”

Across the room, Martin asked Petra about a box on his form.

“You marked sole authority over the company's equipment.”

“I manage the company.”

“That wasn't my question.”

Martin drew a line beneath her answer. He asked Vanessa for a copy of the operating agreement, then gave me his card. His manner had changed. He was still polite, but he had stopped accepting Petra's summaries.

Her red glasses swung against the desk.

“I brought in the customers. Simone supplied labor.”

Vanessa laid our operating agreement beside his clipboard.

“Two equal members. Certain decisions require both signatures. Borrowing against company property is one of them.”

“I didn't borrow for the company,” Petra snapped.

Martin looked up.

No one filled the silence for her.

At noon, we signed an inventory recording eighty-three present, one missing, and the condition of every tag. Petra signed after adding that she disputed my ownership.

I was glad she signed. A disagreement could be written down. A missing head could not be made present by speaking louder.

Before we left, Vanessa asked for read access to the bank statements and payroll system.

Petra said the bookkeeper would send them.

“Today,” Vanessa said.

“You're making this expensive.”

“Your client changed the locks,” Vanessa replied.

Outside, Franklin took off his gloves.

Through the window, I saw Petra turn the brass plate with one finger, trying to make it level. She gave up and went back to her desk. I stood on the sidewalk until my breathing slowed.

“Six days left on the rental decision,” he said.

“I know.”

“The board will accept a secure temporary workroom if the ownership and staffing are clear.”

“I haven't got a workroom.”

“There is an empty fitting room at the archive. It has a sink.”

He said it casually, as if sinks grew on trees along Bank Street.

That evening, Lara sent Vanessa a delivery ticket she had been asked to file under general supplies.

It showed one fitted block collected three days before my lockout.

The destination line said PRIVATE APPRAISAL HOLD.

The instruction beneath it read: Contact Petra Only. Do Not Notify Other Member.