The Chairman Cleared My Table While The Snow Covered Portsmouth

Brent Haskell waited until a customer had her hand on my blue silk shade.

Then he lifted my price card and turned it facedown.

"We need this table cleared, Akiko. Your rent hasn't been paid."

Outside the hall, snow blew sideways. A winter wind had come up the Piscataqua and through the narrow streets of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Inside, wet boots squeaked between tables of candles, wool hats, and carved birds. Someone had hung paper stars over the coat rack.

I had spent six weeks getting ready for the Lantern Yard Winter Exchange.

"I paid for all three alternate Saturdays," I said. "Three payments of $185."

Brent gave the customer a small, sad smile.

"I'm sorry you've been put in this position. We try to keep dishonest sellers out."

Her hand left the shade.

I was forty-seven, a Japanese American woman with a blunt black bob, silver at my temples, and small brown hands marked by needle pricks.

My work was restoring antique lampshades. I replaced torn silk, wrapped old wire ribs, and stitched fringe back onto shades people had nearly thrown away. When fringe was too far gone, I saved one bead from it.

One bead could tell me what had once been there.

"Please don't call me dishonest," I said.

At fifty-five, Brent was a broad white man with a pink scalp, pale eyes, and a gray mustache trimmed straight across his upper lip.

He wore a fleece vest with CHAIRMAN sewn above the pocket. His voice stayed gentle. That made what he said carry farther.

"Let's protect your dignity. Pack quietly, and we won't need to discuss why your account is empty."

Yvette Mensah stepped around her rack of woven runners at the next table.

"I watched her set up," she said. "You checked her name off your list."

"Setup approval isn't payment approval."

Yvette was forty-nine, Ghanaian American, and knew more people in that room than the man selling coffee. She could greet a customer, wrap a scarf, and ask after someone's bad knee without losing her place.

Now she stopped smiling.

"Show her the account."

Brent touched his vest pocket.

"Private business. Akiko, you don't want me calling the building manager."

My customer backed into the aisle.

"I'll think about it," she said.

The shade was $240. Its silk had taken me nine hours to stretch without a crease.

I wanted to explain that. Instead, I put both palms on the table so he would not see them shake.

"My rent went by postal money order. You told me that was fine."

"Those little slips can get confusing," Brent said. "You should consider letting someone help with your business."

He looked at my apron, my reading glasses, the old cash tin beside my thread scissors.

He had never asked what else I kept in that tin.

Under the change tray lay a narrow packet of numbered stubs. The matching delivery records were at home, in a ledger with a blue cloth spine. I had learned to keep the part that seemed too small to matter.

"May I have the reason in writing?" I asked.

His smile slipped.

"I'm trying to spare you a formal notice."

"I'd like one."

He tore a sheet from his clipboard. Across the top he wrote NONPAYMENT. Below it went my name, table eighteen, and $555 due.

I asked him to sign it.

"This won't change anything."

"Please sign."

He pressed hard enough to dent the next sheet.

Yvette took a photograph before he handed it over.

I packed the shades in their separate boxes. No one offered to buy. A woman who had asked me about replacing her grandmother's lining turned her name card over and walked away.

Brent stood close while I folded my cloth.

"I can still put in a good word elsewhere," he said. "If this doesn't turn into an unpleasant scene."

"You've already made the scene," Yvette said.

He looked at her table number.

She saw him do it.

Outside, I loaded the boxes into my wagon. Snow caught on the bare wire frame sticking out of my tool bag. Yvette held the last box while I opened the hatch.

"Call me tonight," she said.

"I need to find the papers first."

"Find them. Then call."

At home, I put the kettle on and opened my ledger before taking off my coat. There were three stubs, three mailing receipts, and three delivery confirmations. Each delivery record showed the same name beside the signature image.

B. Haskell.

I lined them up under his notice.

His signature had a long tail beneath the last letter. I knew it from the note approving my table, tucked in the same book.

Then I noticed the number on each rent invoice. My table was eighteen. The billing box said forty-one.

Yvette called before the kettle boiled.

"I remembered who had your table last winter," she said. "And I found her number."