Paloma Opened Her Duplicate Book Beside The Partnership Papers

Paloma arrived with a green shopping bag and a face that promised no comfort.

“Coffee?” I asked.

“After we count.”

She laid her duplicate book beside mine. Her pages held the carbon copies. Mine held the signed payment slips she had torn from the top of each set.

Twenty-four payments. Same dates. Same amounts. Same furnace number.

“Fourteen thousand four hundred dollars,” she said. “Every dollar from you.”

“Kent says the books show something else.”

“Then his books need glasses.”

I laughed once, and it hurt my throat.

She pushed the tissue box closer without looking at me.

The first payment had come from money I saved repairing chipped church windows and making small cast tiles. After that, I worked evenings at a frame shop and sent Paloma $600 each month.

I had missed dinners. I had sold my second car. Kent had not been in my life yet.

Paloma turned to the final page.

“You asked me to write the serial number again here,” she said. “Smart.”

“You told me to.”

“Also smart.”

We took both books to a lawyer named Ruth Ames. Her office occupied two rooms above a tax service near downtown Fort Wayne. A box of paper clips held down a crooked corner of her desk calendar.

She charged $180 for the first meeting. I wrote the check from my personal account.

“Start with what you want,” Ruth said.

“My furnace. My tools. Safe cooling for the work inside. And my name taken off classes I didn't agree to teach.”

“Do you want the business back?”

I looked at the company agreement.

“I want to know what he did to it first.”

Ruth read the equipment-use schedule twice. It listed the furnace as my personal property, lent to the company for use at its leased studio. It said ownership would stay with me unless I signed a separate sale.

I had signed no sale.

Kent's signature sat beneath the words Acknowledged And Accepted.

I remembered sliding that sheet across a folding table before our first open house. Kent had signed without taking off his coat. I had put my copy in a folder before we poured the coffee. For six years, that small act had seemed fussy. Sitting in Ruth's office, I was glad I had let him call it that.

“This helps,” Ruth said. “So do the payment books. We'll need bank records and anything showing where his investment went.”

I had the old bank statements in a folder. Kent's $18,000 deposit arrived in July 2019. The next checks paid $9,800 for ventilation and $5,200 for electrical work. His launch campaign cost the last $3,000.

“Nothing left for a furnace,” Paloma said.

“Let's let the records say that,” Ruth answered.

She copied each document and returned the originals to me. Then she sent Kent a demand for access and a notice to preserve company records.

The letter told him to keep power connected until the annealer finished cooling. It also told him not to move, sell, or alter the furnace.

“A letter isn't an order,” Ruth warned me. “If he refuses, we ask a judge.”

Kent called nineteen minutes after the email went out.

“You hired a lawyer over a misunderstanding?”

I put him on speaker with Ruth's permission.

“You changed the locks,” I said.

“To protect our investment.”

“Let Ezra finish the cooling cycle.”

“Fine. But don't come here waving old receipts. The furnace is a company asset. My accountant listed it.”

Ruth leaned toward the phone.

“Mr. Barlow, please send the purchase document that supports that entry.”

“Who is this?”

She gave her name.

His voice changed. It grew warm and careful, the voice he used when a student brought a friend with a credit card.

“I'm sure we can work this out.”

“Then send the document,” she said.

He hung up.

By evening, Ezra confirmed that my bowl had reached room temperature. He sent a photograph of it on a shelf with my name taped underneath.

He also sent the summer class sheet Kent had handed him to update.

There were twenty-six prepaid seats at $240 each and eight private workshop packages at $520 each. The total was $10,400.

The dates ran from June 7 through July 26.

My name appeared in the teacher column on every row.

I forwarded the sheet to Ruth and wrote to the building owner, Diane Cole. I asked whether Kent had arranged a lease renewal.

I expected a rent increase. Maybe a demand for another deposit.

Diane called before I finished washing my coffee cup.

“Selam, there is no renewal,” she said. “Kent signed the surrender in February.”

I set the cup down.

“What surrender?”

“The building goes to a print cooperative on June first. I'm holding their signed lease right now.”