Three Paid Stubs Brought A Missing Vendor Back To My Kitchen

"Her name was Nora Bell," Yvette said. "She sold pressed flowers in glass. He told everyone she couldn't keep up with fees."

I looked at my own notice.

"Did she owe them?"

"That's what I mean to ask her."

I slept badly. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the customer's hand leave my shade. By morning, I had decided to pay another $555. I could sell my spare sewing machine. I could get through the last two markets.

Then I opened the cash tin.

A little amber bead had rolled against the money-order stubs. It came from a shade whose fringe had looked whole until I lifted it. All the threads had broken under the trim.

Paying twice would cover the break. It would not mend it.

I called the number printed on my receipt and asked how to request paid money-order records. I followed the steps, paid the search fees, and wrote down the request numbers. The stubs showed what I had bought. I needed the records showing what had happened afterward.

At eleven, Yvette arrived with Nora.

Nora stayed in her coat.

"I can't do another argument," she said.

"Tea doesn't require one," I told her.

She sat at the end of my worktable, beside a shade with its lining peeled back. Yvette put a bag of rolls between us as if we were three friends having lunch.

"Show her the notice," she said.

Nora read the first line. Her mouth tightened.

"He used that word about me. Dishonest."

She had paid $555 for three Saturdays the previous winter. Brent had removed her on the first morning. When she complained, he said she had probably confused a supply payment with rent.

"My husband was sick then," she said. "I thought maybe I had."

"Did you keep anything?"

She pulled a bent envelope from her purse.

Inside were three check copies and an invoice from Haskell Market Services. That was the payee Brent had told me to put on my money orders, too.

"He said it was the exchange's collection office," Nora said.

"He told me the same thing."

Her invoice listed table eighteen. The billing code was forty-two.

I laid mine beside it.

"Why different numbers?" Yvette asked.

I found Brent's email explaining mine. He had written that older billing codes stayed attached to new table assignments. He called it a legacy system.

Nora read it twice.

"I got that answer on the phone."

We could not call two strange numbers proof of theft. I wrote that on a clean sheet because I needed to remind myself.

Under it I wrote what we could prove: amounts, dates, payee, notices, and what Brent had said.

"I remember three more people," Yvette said.

"Three?" Nora asked.

"Luis with the wooden spoons. Dana with the mended coats. Ruth with the paper houses. All gone after Brent spoke to them."

"You remember everyone," I said.

"Someone should."

We made calls from my kitchen. Yvette introduced me, then gave each person room to say no. Luis agreed to look for his checks. Dana said she had work. Ruth hung up before I finished.

Nora watched me put her envelope in a clear sleeve.

"That's my only copy."

I took it out at once.

"Then it goes home with you. We'll make copies while you're here."

She unbuttoned her coat.

While the copier warmed up, she told me which flowers kept their color under glass. Blue ones faded first, she said. I asked about drying leaves. For a few minutes, we talked about work we knew how to do, and her shoulders eased down.

That afternoon, I sent the exchange's board secretary a short email. I attached Brent's signed notice and my invoices. I asked the board to preserve rent records, meeting minutes, and table lists while the payment searches were pending.

I copied Brent. It was his account I was disputing. I did not want him claiming he had been kept out of the conversation.

His reply came in seven minutes.

Akiko, I worry that friends are encouraging you to spend money chasing an administrative misunderstanding. Bring $555 by Wednesday, and I can review your standing privately.

Nora read it over my shoulder.

"That's almost exactly what he sent me."

"Did you pay again?"

"No. I left."

I wrote back that I would provide the paid instrument records when they arrived. I asked him to explain billing code forty-one.

He did not answer that question.

Yvette was putting on her boots when my phone rang. Ruth's name appeared on the screen.

"I still have the old floor plan," she said. "Forty-one isn't a billing code. It's a table they took out."