It was not a yes, but it was the first thing he had said to her that wasn't a no. Nolan Ree drove home that evening to a two-bedroom apartment in Beacon Hill, up a stairwell that smelled faintly of the Thai restaurant on the ground floor. He pushed open the door to find Sadi at the kitchen table, surrounded by graph paper and three different colored pens, constructing what appeared to be a map of an imaginary island. She was 11 years old and had her mother's eyes and his stubbornness, a combination that had not gotten easier to manage as she'd gotten older. "How was the fancy hotel?" she asked without looking up.
"Elect electrical panel needed rewiring," he said. "Fixed it." "Did they give you the check?" "They tried to give me extra." She looked up then. "Did you take it?" "No." She considered this, then returned to her map. Derek's dad says you're bad at business. Derek's dad filed for bankruptcy twice, Nolan said, opening the refrigerator.
Leftovers top shelf. I made rice. He heated the food sat across from her and watched her work. She had her mother's precision with the pen, clean lines, no second guessing. He had always found something steady about watching Sadi do anything that required concentration.
It reminded him that some things were still simple. He had not told her how close the numbers were. She was 11 and some arithmetic was not hers to carry, but she was also her mother's daughter, which meant she noticed more than she let on. And he suspected she knew more than he'd said. He owed $64,000 on equipment.
He had lost two commercial accounts in the past 4 months, one to a larger firm that had underbid him, one to a client who had simply closed their business without warning. What remained in the operating account would cover payroll and rent for six more weeks, maybe eight if he was careful. He had spent the better part of the last year being careful. He was tired of being careful. But he was more tired of the alternative of owing something to someone, of waking up in the morning and knowing that his ability to keep the lights on for the people who worked for him depended on a relationship he hadn't chosen and couldn't fully control.
He thought about the woman from Oralene. He thought about her for a few seconds, then he stopped. She found him at the sandwich shop on Second Avenue on a Tuesday. She had asked the week before where he usually ate lunch when he was working near the waterfront. He had told her a corner place, nothing special, good pastrami, with the air of someone answering a question that didn't seem worth examining too closely.
He was in a window booth when she walked in, still in his work clothes halfway through a sandwich, reading something on his phone. He looked up when the door opened. His expression shifted very slightly. Not surprise exactly, but a kind of recalibration. She was wearing a charcoal blazer over a cream blouse and heels that belonged in a different building entirely.
He watched her scan the room, locate him, and walk over with the composure of someone who did not intend to be the person who seemed uncomfortable here. She sat down across from him without asking. "Are you inspecting the contractor?" he said. "No," she said. "I'm trying to have lunch with a man who's turned me down twice." Something shifted at the corner of his mouth.