The Morning My Partner Changed The Lock Before The Festival

My key went halfway into the lock and stopped.

I tried once more. Behind the glass, my canvas apron hung beside the cutting table. Someone had folded it so the name on its pocket faced the wall.

Three weeks remained before the Lantern Harbor Festival. Six boats needed new sails. Four more needed repairs. I had come early to finish a reef patch before the heat settled over St. Augustine.

Beckett opened the door on a short chain.

"You should have called," he said.

"I work here."

He looked past me at a customer coming up the lane.

"We need to discuss your role."

I was a thirty-two-year-old Black woman with deep brown skin, close-cut curls, and a pale rope scar across my left thumb. I made sails for a living, and the scar came from a line that had run through my hand before I learned to let go.

I had learned other things since then.

I knew a bill of sale belonged somewhere safer than a drawer at work.

Beckett stepped outside and shut the door behind him.

Beckett Rusk was a thirty-five-year-old white American man with sun-streaked blond hair, bright blue eyes, and the easy smile of someone who never carried the heavy end.

That smile appeared when Ruth Calder reached us with her sail bag.

"Morning, Ruth. Some changes here. Nia was our seamstress. We're moving toward a full-service operation."

Ruth glanced at me.

"You measured my mast."

"I designed your mainsail," I said.

Beckett gave a small laugh.

"And we're grateful. My family owns the machines, though. We have to protect the business."

The machines stood just inside the windows. Four of them, including the long-arm zigzag I had bought for $8,400. I had spent a whole Sunday getting that one through the door.

"Are you saying I'm fired?" I asked.

"I'm offering you $900 to finish the festival work from home. After that, we'll see."

He took a folded page from his shirt pocket.

RELEASE OF ALL CLAIMS.

I read the first three lines. The paper said I gave up any interest in equipment, stock, accounts, and the premises.

"Why would a seamstress need to release the premises?"

"Don't make this ugly."

Ruth lowered her sail bag to the ground.

"I can come back."

"Take it home today," I told her. "Please."

She did, but she wouldn't meet my eyes. That hurt more than the chain.

Beckett held out the page again.

"You need money. I need a clean transition."

I took a picture of the release without taking it from his hand.

"Email it."

"Nia."

"Email it."

I walked away before he could lower his voice into something kind.

Our loft sat near the San Sebastian River, in an old net shed with wide doors and a roof that popped in the afternoon sun. Tour boats moved beyond the docks. Somewhere, someone was washing fish boxes with a hose.

Normal sounds. I wanted them to stop.

At the marina office, Solange Baptiste looked up from a stack of berth forms.

She was sixty-one, Haitian American, and had managed that waterfront long enough to know which friendly men left other people holding the bill.

"Why are you here at seven?" she asked. "Your machine breaks again?"

"The lock changed."

She put down her pen.

I told her what he had said. Her chair scraped back.

"That boy called you what?"

"Sit down."

"Don't tell me to sit in my own office."

But she sat.

I showed her the release.

"Did you sign anything?"

"Just the documents I meant to sign. Years ago."

I opened the folder on my phone marked LOFT ORIGINALS. Each file had a date. Each date matched a page in the fire box under my bed.

Solange leaned closer.

"That's your name on the lease."

"On the assignment. The landlord approved it when Mr. Vale retired. Before Beckett and I formed the company."

"And the machines?"

"Mine, too. The company has written permission to use them."

"Then why are we sitting?"

"Because he has customers inside, and I don't want a fight beside their boats."

I wanted a clear record. I also wanted to go home and cry where nobody could offer me $900 for my life's work.

Solange slid a mug toward me.

"Drink. Then find someone who knows what to file."

On my way home, I stopped at the public dock. I opened the small repair bag I carried everywhere.

Inside lay a corner patch for Ruth's sail. Before I sewed any reinforcement in place, I stitched a tiny spiral on its inner face. It hid between layers, where only a repair would uncover it.

One turn inward. One turn back.

It helped me slow down and inspect my work.

My phone rang while I held the patch.

The landlord's name filled the screen.

"Nia," she said, "why has your partner booked a truck to remove equipment from my building tomorrow?"