Victor Announced My Workshop Clearance Between The Toast And Dessert

Victor tapped his glass with the handle of a spoon while I was cutting a slice of lemon cake for my wife.

"A little business news before we lose everyone," he said.

We were at his niece's engagement reception in Richmond. Through the rented hall's tall windows, the slopes of Church Hill fell toward the river. There were white flowers on every table and small cards telling us where we belonged.

My card had been placed beside the kitchen door.

I was twenty-seven, a Mexican American man with brown skin, close-cut black curls, and a thin scar across my left thumb.

The scar came from a slipping knife. I was a fine bookbinder, which meant I spent my days saving books people had stopped opening for fear they would fall apart. I repaired loose sections, sewed new supports, and made covers that could bend without breaking.

I also stitched tiny stars into the hidden linings of repaired covers. Most customers never saw them. They were my way of leaving care where nobody thought to look.

Victor lifted his glass toward me.

"We've carried our little craftsman long enough. The rear building is becoming a luxury showroom. Real stone, proper lighting. Something that brings people with money down that lane."

Ada put down her fork.

"Dad, what rear building?"

"Don't start. Dario knows."

I did not know.

Victor was a sixty-year-old white man with swept-back silver hair, a square red face, and a navy suit with sharp creases.

He owned several properties. He spoke about them as if bricks had chosen him for his sound judgment.

"My shop?" I asked.

"Your temporary shop. You'll have until the last Friday of June."

A few people looked at their plates. One uncle smiled, then stopped when nobody joined him.

"We have an agreement," I said.

Victor gave a soft laugh.

"You're a charity tenant, son. Twelve hundred a month wouldn't rent a decent storage room now. Be grateful you had five years."

The word son landed harder than charity.

Ada was twenty-eight, white, and usually quiet when her father filled a room. She photographed old walls and damaged paintings for conservation teams. She could spend an hour finding one faint change in a coat of paint, yet she often let whole changes in her father's story pass without a question.

That night she said, "You could have told us privately."

"There's nothing shameful about needing help."

He said it loudly enough for the next table.

I set the cake down before my hand could shake icing onto her dress.

"Who is buying it?"

"A company called Vale House Interiors. Four hundred ten thousand dollars. They understand the value of the location."

He looked at my hands when he said value.

I had washed twice before coming. A thin line of blue pigment still sat beside one nail.

"Have they checked the title?" I asked.

His smile thinned.

"They have professionals."

"Good."

That was all I gave him.

There was a red cloth box on my desk at home. Inside were sixty bank confirmations, an original agreement, and a delivery receipt. The box had no lock. It did not need to look important to hold something important.

Ada touched my wrist beneath the table.

"Let's go."

We took leave of her cousin, who hugged us both and whispered that she was sorry. I told her she had nothing to be sorry for. It was still her engagement party.

Outside, the evening smelled of warm brick and rain from somewhere farther west.

"Why didn't you say more?" Ada asked.

"Because I needed to hear exactly what he thought he could sell."

She studied me.

"You told me those payments went toward buying the shop."

"They did."

"Then why would he call it rent?"

"Let's look at the papers together."

Our bindery stood behind a row of shops near Shockoe Bottom. It was a small, separate parcel, once a boiler house, reached by a narrow lane. When I first saw it, rain came through the roof into an old coal bin.

Now there was a dry workroom, a sink, and shelves I had built with borrowed clamps.

Ada unlocked our apartment while I carried the red box upstairs from the shop. She cleared the supper dishes we had left soaking and spread a clean towel across the table.

"For the papers," she said.

I loved her for knowing that much about me.

She read the first page without speaking. Then she turned to the signature page.

"That's his signature."

"Yes."

"And yours."

"Yes."

Before she reached the next page, the downstairs buzzer sounded.

A courier stood in the lane with a stiff white envelope. Victor had paid for evening delivery. Across the front, beneath my name, someone had typed NOTICE TO VACATE.