Celeste Cleared My Worktable To Make Room For Her Farewell Cake

I could stitch a straight seam during an argument. That was useful in my marriage, though it was a poor reason to stay married.

That Saturday, I stitched while my mother-in-law argued with a cake stand.

“This table needs to move,” Celeste said.

“It weighs four hundred pounds.”

“Then cover it.”

I stopped the machine before the next stitch. Balloon cloth could bear heat and strain. It did poorly under buttercream.

I was forty-five, an Irish American woman with pale, freckled skin, green eyes, and auburn hair twisted into a knot above my work shirt.

My name was Siobhan Kelleher. I mended hot-air-balloon envelopes for a living, and that steel table belonged to my business.

So did the machine, the thread, and the hours Celeste called my little hobby.

She had chosen my hangar in Las Cruces for her retirement party because it had room for sixty relatives and a view of the Organ Mountains. She was retiring from keeping the books at my husband’s balloon-event company.

Apparently, retirement required taking over my floor first.

Celeste Bell was seventy-two, a white American woman with a silver helmet of hair, a peach pantsuit, and gold bracelets that rang when she pointed.

That morning she pointed often.

“Where’s that lovely old balloon? It would make a backdrop.”

“The Copper Wren? Being repaired. It isn’t a decoration.”

Its faded red envelope had been on rack four when I arrived at six. By ten, I had worked through two smaller jobs and moved into the cutting room. I assumed my assistant had rolled the Wren into the clean bay before leaving for class.

I should have checked.

Instead, I tied a scrap of blue cotton tape around a finished panel. I put blue tape on anything waiting for a decision. It meant stop and ask.

Celeste hated those little flags.

“Your clutter is everywhere,” she said.

“Those flags keep people from guessing.”

My husband, Graham, brought in a folding chair and kissed his mother’s cheek.

“Give her one day, Shiv.”

“I gave her the west bay. Until five.”

“You make everything sound like a contract.”

That was because a contract had kept me here.

Nine years earlier, Graham’s father had leased this whole eight-tenths-acre site to Needle and Sky, my separate repair company. Celeste’s land company owned the ground. Graham’s company owned its vans and baskets. The names sounded related. The deeds were not.

I paid $950 each month. I had paid another $18,000 to stop the roof from leaking onto other people’s aircraft.

My lease lay in a gray folder beneath the cutting table. Blue tape marked one page I hoped never to need.

By noon, cousins filled the hangar. Chile smoke drifted in from the caterer’s grill. Children chased napkins toward the gate until Omar caught them against his chest.

“Terrible flying weather for napkins,” he said.

Omar Haddad was thirty-nine, an Arab American balloon pilot who rented my east bay under a written sublease. He joked when he was nervous and showed up when other people left.

He looked at my crowded work area.

“Want me to charge them landing fees?”

“Only if they touch the fabric.”

Celeste tapped a glass. Graham stood beside her while she thanked family, friends, and “everyone who helped build our future.”

Then she saw me reach beneath the table for my folder.

“Siobhan, please.” Her microphone made my name fill the building. “Go on out. The family needs this space.”

People turned.

“My customer files are under the cake.”

“You can collect your sewing later.”

A cousin asked whether I worked there.

Celeste smiled at him.

“Our seamstress. We’ve been supporting her for years.”

Graham studied his shoes.

I felt the heat rise into my face. I had paid the electric bill on Thursday. I had covered Graham’s missed truck payment in February. Still, I was the woman they supported.

I lifted the gray folder without touching her cake.

“Your party ends at five,” I said.

She laughed into the microphone.

“My son owns the ground under your feet, dear.”

“Does he?”

That quiet question spoiled her smile.

She recovered fast. “We’re selling. Grant will put this place to proper use.”

A tall man near the punch bowl lowered his cup. He wore a visitor badge from Arroyo Vista Experiences.

I looked at Graham. He finally looked back.

“We were going to tell you Monday.”

Omar opened the side door for me. I stepped into the dry afternoon carrying nine years of rent receipts and the lease they had never bothered to read.

Behind me, Celeste called for a toast.

Outside, the tall man followed us with a cream envelope in his hand.

“Mrs. Bell? I’m Grant Vale. Before I leave, I need to confirm where you’re keeping the balloon included in my purchase.”