Foster Changed The Hangar Lock While Our Visiting Pilots Watched

My key stopped halfway into the lock. Behind the hangar door, one of my sewing machines ran three rough inches, then stopped.

I knew that sound. Someone had pulled the fabric instead of letting the feed dogs move it.

Foster Ames came around the side door with two visiting pilots behind him.

"We changed the locks," he said.

"I noticed. Give me the new key."

He smiled at the pilots.

"Camila used to do our sewing. We're changing how we handle that."

I had spent seven years fixing hot-air-balloon envelopes in Grand Junction. At thirty-two, I could find a bad strip of coated fabric by rubbing it between my finger and thumb. I held a mechanic certificate with an airframe rating. People had brought me balloons from three states.

Now my partner was describing me like an old desk chair.

I was a brown-skinned Dominican American woman with dark curls pinned above my collar and a pale burn mark on my left wrist.

That morning, the wrist held a roll of orange thread. I tied short orange loops through the handles of work bags that still needed my inspection. The loops came off when I finished. It was a shop habit, not an official record, but everyone knew what they meant.

"There's an orange loop on the blue bag," I said. "Leave it there."

"We'll manage."

Foster Ames was a broad, white American man with pale hair, a red neck, and a watch that flashed whenever he pointed.

He was forty-one. He had put money into our company and acted as if money had taught him everything my hands knew.

One visiting pilot shifted his weight.

"I thought you two owned this place together."

"She was a seamstress," Foster said. "Never owned any of the operation. I let her use the title because customers liked it."

The orange thread cut into my palm.

Past his shoulder, I saw my paper cutting templates stacked beside the open loading door. Wind from the valley lifted one corner. He had put a coffee cup on top to hold them down.

"Take the cup off those," I said.

"Go home, Camila. We'll discuss your last check."

A pickup rolled across the gravel before I answered. Imogen Price climbed out with a balloon bag in the bed.

She was a white woman of fifty-four, with a sunlined face and gray hair mashed flat by a flying cap. She usually had a joke ready before her boots hit the ground.

"Lovely," she said. "An outdoor meeting. Saves a fortune on chairs."

Nobody laughed.

"Camila doesn't work here anymore," Foster told her.

Imogen looked at my key. Then she looked at him.

"Who inspected my repair?"

"Your paperwork's ready."

"That wasn't my question."

His smile thinned.

I had worked on her lower panel before leaving for a three-day fabric course in Denver. The stitching was done. My final inspection wasn't. Her bag was blue.

"I haven't approved it," I said.

Imogen's face went still.

"Then it stays in the bag."

Foster spread his hands.

"We're having a business disagreement. Let's keep customers out of it."

"You brought us in," the visiting pilot said.

I wanted to push past Foster. I wanted to show them the small brass plates on my machines, the drawer with my gauges, the patterns I had drawn before his company had a name.

Instead, I put my key in my pocket.

"Don't move equipment. Don't discard records. I'll put that in writing."

"Threatening me?"

"Giving you notice."

On the drive home, the Colorado National Monument stood red and flat against the bright sky. I pulled over where I could see the cliffs and let my hands shake.

Then I called our landlord, Celia Voss.

"Did you approve a lock change?"

"No. Why?"

"I'll send you photographs and my lease."

There was a pause.

"Your lease is right here," she said.

At home, I set my orange thread beside a metal file box. Foster had teased me about that box when we started.

"You know we have cloud storage," he'd said.

I did. I also knew who controlled the company password.

Inside were my prepaid rent receipt, the equipment-hire agreement, and our signed operating agreement. Behind those sat weekly maintenance copies. Each Friday, I took home duplicates of the work orders, including open jobs.

Foster called it my homework.

I opened the first folder. A bank receipt showed $14,400 paid from my own savings for the year's hangar rent.

I had not been foolish enough to assume a name on a door meant ownership.

My phone buzzed.

Foster had sent one line: Everything you brought became company property. Read what you signed.

I laid his message beside the agreement and turned to the page he had initialed.