The Manager Walked Me Outside With My Own Cloth Under Her Arm

Denise asked me to step outside in the voice people used for a child holding a dead bird.

"Just a little fresh air, honey."

She held my bolt of cloth against her chest. I followed because the loose end was dragging, and I had spent fourteen hours making those colors stay.

At twenty-four, I was a short Jewish American woman with dark curls, brown eyes, and fingertips that stayed blue even on my days off.

I dyed textiles for a living. That Saturday, I had come to pick up unsold work from the Spindle Court market arcade in downtown Paducah.

Outside, a wind off the Ohio River lifted the edge of the cloth.

Denise Crowell was a white woman of forty-eight, with a smooth blond bob, pale pink nails, and a cream jacket that never seemed to wrinkle.

She set the bolt on a bench beside the arcade door.

"We don't take things from shops, Rivka. Even when we wish they were ours."

A woman holding a paper cup stopped walking.

"That is mine," I said.

Denise smiled at the woman, then back at me.

"Then where's your label?"

I had marbled that cotton in a long tray of thickened water. I had floated blue and rust dye on top, drawn a comb through it, and lowered the cloth without trapping air.

A label would have told less than the marks did.

Near the selvage, the tight woven edge, three white spaces sat inside a blue bloom. I called them my three little windows. A drip from my sleeve had made them.

"Look at that edge," I said.

"Plain fabric doesn't have an owner written on it."

"My name is on your intake sheet."

Her smile thinned.

"We have many young people bringing things through here."

She said young people as if we were weather that damaged her roof.

Behind the glass, I could see the shelf where my bolt had stood. Its card had said HOUSE MARBLE, $80 PER YARD.

My card had said RIVKA LEVIN, RL-17.

"You changed the card."

"You reached behind our counter."

"You told me to collect my remaining stock by noon."

That part was still on my phone. At 9:12 that morning, she had sent it in writing.

Denise picked a speck from her sleeve.

"We can end this quietly. Leave now, and I won't call anyone."

Inside the arcade, someone let a hammer fall twice. Tap. Tap.

Abel Mercer stood in the doorway of his frame shop. He was sixty-six, a Black American man with gray hair cropped close and a canvas apron dusted with pale wood.

He glanced at the bolt, then at me.

"You need that off the concrete, Denise."

"Thank you, Abel. We're handling a shop matter."

He laid a clean sheet of packing paper on the bench. He did not touch my cloth.

That small care almost broke me.

I wanted to shout that I had bought the cotton, washed out the sizing, mixed the colors, and paid $38 for the roll of paper that kept wet lengths from touching.

Instead, I took my phone out.

"I need the inventory you signed on March third."

"Our records aren't open for browsing."

"My copy is."

For the first time, she looked at my canvas bag.

It held a flat folder between two scraps of mat board. Abel had given me the scraps last winter so papers would not bend when I rode my bike.

Inside were my signed consignment inventory, my pickup notice, and photographs printed wide enough to show both selvages. I had brought everything because Denise's monthly totals had stopped adding up.

She had mistaken a bag of scraps for a bag with nothing in it.

"Nine yards," I said. "RL-17. Retail value, $720. Ten dyed panels at $90 each. Your signature under all eleven entries."

The woman with the cup looked toward the shop.

Denise lowered her voice.

"An honest misunderstanding doesn't need an audience."

"You brought me out here."

Her hand closed around the bolt.

"You'll have to make an appointment for any collection."

"Then put that in writing too."

She carried my cloth inside and locked the shop door, though the arcade stayed open until five.

I stood beside the empty packing paper. My hands shook so much I could not slide the folder back into my bag.

Abel came over.

"Did you get a picture of that new price card?" he asked.

I shook my head.

He held out his phone. The whole shelf filled the screen, including the three white windows.

"Took it yesterday. Thought you ought to see it."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Was waiting for you to come in. I wanted to be sure."

Then he turned the phone toward himself and opened another picture.

It showed a little red clay bowl under a card marked HOUSE POTTERY.

"I think," he said, "we need to find who made this."

My phone lit up before I could answer. Denise had sent a new stock list. Beside RL-17, she had written a single word: FORFEITED.