Gavin Announced My Departure While My Hands Were Still Working

Gavin told six of our best clients I was leaving while I was stitching a dead woman's hairline.

The woman was a role in a play. Her wig needed to survive eight shows a week, two quick changes, and a fall into a stage grave.

"Rose wants a quieter life," he said. "We're making room for fresh talent."

My needle stopped halfway through the lace.

I was Rosalia Vitale, a forty-four-year-old Italian American woman, and theatrical wigmaking was how I paid my bills. I had a broad face, olive skin, and dark curls going silver at my temples, with a red pincushion strapped to my wrist like a watch.

Gavin Rusk stood beside the order rack with coffee in his hand. Gavin was a tall white man of forty-two, with sandy hair swept back from a high forehead and a smile that showed one crooked front tooth.

That smile had once made long fittings feel short.

"I haven't said I'm leaving," I told him.

"You haven't said much of anything lately."

He got a small laugh from a company manager. Then his eyes narrowed because I hadn't laughed with them.

Outside our Newark shop, a delivery truck shook the window. We were two blocks off Ferry Street, where the morning smelled of bread, bus smoke, and damp pavement. Inside, thirty-eight unfinished wigs sat on canvas blocks.

They were promises with hair on them.

Bernice Holloway stood by the sink, rolling up her sleeves. She was fifty-nine, Black, and the costume supervisor for a touring company that had trusted my work for eleven years.

"Since when?" she asked.

"We're keeping this friendly," Gavin said.

"Then answer friendly."

He set down his coffee.

"Rose can finish her current work. Three hundred twenty-five a week for the chair. Supplies extra."

I looked at the chair. My father had carried it down those stairs before his knees went bad. I had covered the torn seat with black vinyl and put new wheels on it.

"Chair rent," I said.

"Everybody pays their way."

He smiled toward the clients again.

"Some people confuse having a key with having a business."

I placed the needle in my wrist cushion. I had learned never to hold a sharp thing when a man wanted me to look wild.

"Please send that demand in writing."

His smile broke.

"Don't make this ugly over a little rent."

Bernice put her coat on the back of my chair.

"Her hands are on our order," she said. "We came for a fitting. Let's have one."

Nobody asked another question. They watched Gavin instead of me, which was new.

I measured an actor's head, marked the nape, and checked his ear tabs. Each wig had three yellow basting stitches inside its band. That was my sign that a piece still needed its final check.

"Why yellow?" the actor asked, trying to help.

"You can find it under bad light."

My voice sounded steady. That surprised me.

Gavin went upstairs to the office. A moment later, the printer started.

When the clients left, he brought down a page headed WORKSPACE LICENSE.

"Sign before tomorrow."

It named me as an independent chair renter. It said I had no claim to the shop's accounts, stock, or trade name.

"This is more than rent."

"You wanted writing."

I read the last line twice. My signature would settle all earlier claims between us.

"I'm taking a copy."

"You can take your personal things too."

I put the paper in my bag. I didn't take a single block from the rack.

At six, he left for a supplier meeting he would not name. I photographed every open order and locked my tools in their drawer. The workspace license stayed unsigned.

Bernice was waiting at the bus stop when I came out.

"He told me you were tired," she said.

"I am tired."

"That wasn't what I asked."

I sat beside her under the shelter.

"He thinks the money I put in never became anything official."

"The money from your road calls?"

I nodded. Emergency repairs after midnight. Split lace fixed in hotel bathrooms. Cash saved in envelopes while other people slept.

"You kept the paper?" she asked.

"You know I did."

"Good. I kept some too."

Her bus came before I could ask what she meant.

At home, I opened the bottom drawer beneath my spare lace. There were bank envelopes there, three canceled cashier's check copies, and a page Gavin had signed at our old cutting table.

He had used my pen. I remembered because he'd complained about the yellow thread tied around its cap.

I spread the papers beside his new license.

One said I owned nothing. The older one said something very different.

My phone lit up with a message from Gavin.

"Bring the signed license tomorrow, or your key stops working."