Lena's Property

Chapter 2: The Number

I read the offer at my kitchen table at six the next morning, with coffee cooling beside my elbow and my mother's old receipt tin open in front of me.

The price was not ridiculous. It was worse than ridiculous. It was tempting.

If I sold, I could clear the mortgage, pay the back taxes, and keep enough to start over somewhere smaller. I could stop patching a building that needed a new roof and plumbing I couldn't afford. I could stop telling my part-time clerk, Jamie, that next month would be better.

I could also lose the upstairs apartments, the back room where my grandmother had held children's readings, and the place where I had learned that a person could build a life one paperback at a time.

I called my lender first. The woman who handled my account confirmed what I already knew: my rate reset in six months, and I needed to show a viable plan before then. I called a roofer second. The estimate he sent made the first number look gentle.

By eight, I had enough practical reasons to sell that I could have made the decision and slept badly forever.

At nine, the doorbell rang.

Theo stood outside with no portfolio and no coffee. I considered pretending I wasn't home. Then I remembered the years when he had let me disappear into my own moods without demanding an explanation. I opened the door.

"Can I come in?"

"Are you here as my friend or as the company's representative?"

"As your friend."

"Then you can sit in the chair. Don't talk about the offer."

He sat opposite me at the kitchen table. I left the letter face down.

For a minute, neither of us spoke. Rain shone on the shoulders of his coat. He looked tired, and I resented noticing.

"I meant what I said," he told me.

"You already said that."

"I know. I'm not asking you to answer today. I just don't want you to think I said it because the board approved a purchase."

"Then why did you wait nine years?"

He looked at his hands. "At first, I thought you'd say no. Then I was afraid I'd make things strange. After a while, waiting became easier than risking the friendship."

I could have told him I knew that feeling. Instead, I asked, "Did you know your company was going to make an offer on my building when you came here?"

"I knew we were preparing one. I didn't know the amount until yesterday."

"That's a narrow distinction."

"It is."

The honesty left me with less to argue against.

I turned the letter over. "Do you think I should sell?"

Theo didn't answer immediately. "I think you should know what the offer means before you decide."

"That sounds like a lawyer."

"I am a lawyer."

"Not my lawyer."

"No," he said. "I'm not."

I held his gaze. "You work for the company that wants this property."

"I do."

"And you've just told me you're in love with me."

"I know how that sounds."

"Do you?"

He looked toward the window. "I won't negotiate with you. I'll tell the board I have a conflict."

"Will that change the offer?"

"Probably not."

"Will it change the project?"

"Not by itself."

It was the first answer that sounded completely true.

He left without asking me to forgive him. I watched him cross the sidewalk and disappear around the corner. Then I put the letter into the receipt tin, on top of my grandmother's first shop lease.

At noon, Jamie came down from the apartment upstairs to help me open. He'd worked with me for a year and knew when not to ask why I was quiet.

"Did you hear about the development?" he asked, arranging the new releases.

"I got an offer."

"Are you taking it?"

"I don't know."

He studied the book in his hands. "I heard the apartments might get renovated."

"That's what the rendering says."

"The rent might go up."

I looked around the shop, at the shelves that needed dusting and the empty display table where last weekend's crowd had stood shoulder to shoulder. My building was mine on paper. It had never been mine alone in any way that mattered.

"I'll find out what they actually plan," I said.

That afternoon, I called a meeting at the harbor café. I invited the florist, the upstairs tenants, the owner of the repair shop, and the woman who ran the tiny print studio across the alley.

No one came to talk about romance.

Good, I thought. I didn't know what I'd say if they did.