He left.
The sedan pulled away. The bell jingled again as the door shut. The rain kept hammering.
I stood on the fitting platform with the measuring tape still dangling from my fingers, my thumb still bleeding, my heart hammering so loud I was sure my father could hear it.
He set the groceries down with a trembling hand and locked the door, flipping the sign to CLOSED even though it was only four in the afternoon.
“Elena,” he whispered. “Do you know what you’ve done?”
“I didn’t do anything,” I said, but my voice cracked. “He asked me a question. I answered.”
My father came closer and took my hands in his. His were cold from the rain, spotted, shaking. He looked older than he had that morning.
“That man doesn’t ask questions he doesn’t already know the answer to,” he said. “He doesn’t come to shops like ours for suits. He has tailors on Fifth Avenue who would kill for his business.”
“Then why did he come here?”
My father didn’t answer right away. He walked to the cutting table and stared at the envelope. He didn’t touch it.
“Six months ago,” he said quietly, “a man came to collect for the building owner. Not the bank. A private owner. He said we had thirty days. I told him we needed more time. He said time costs interest. That interest got sold. Do you understand? Our debt was sold.”
A cold feeling spread through my stomach.
“Sold to who?”
My father finally looked at me, his eyes wet.
“To him. To Moretti. He owns this building now, Elena. He owns our lease. He has owned it since February.”
The envelope on the table suddenly looked different. It didn’t look like payment. It looked like a leash.
“He could have evicted us months ago,” I said.
“He didn’t,” my father said. “He paid the taxes when we couldn’t. He told the collector to leave us alone. I thought — I thought it was because your mother once made a suit for his father, years ago, before you were born. I thought it was a kindness.”
The rain drummed harder. A bus hissed past outside, spraying water against the window.
“Wasn’t it?” I asked.
My father shook his head.
“Tonight he sent Paulie to tell me the offer has changed. He said if you have dinner with him Saturday, the debt is forgiven. If you don’t… we have until the end of the month to vacate. Elena, I’m so sorry. I should have told you. I thought I could fix it before —”
I stepped down from the platform. My legs felt numb.
“So that’s what this is,” I said. My voice sounded strange, flat. “A price. I have dinner with him or we lose everything.”
“It’s not just dinner,” my father said, and he couldn’t meet my eyes. “Men like him don’t ask a girl like you to dinner unless they intend to keep her.”
The back room was cold. I went in and sat on the stool where I did the hemming, and pressed my bleeding thumb against my apron until the blood left a small, rust-colored dot.
I thought about Noah’s hand on my wrist. How careful it had been. How his voice had softened when he said my name.
I thought about the gun under his jacket.
I thought about the way Paulie’s hand had gone to his own jacket when Noah’s lighter snapped shut.
I had a choice to make, and both sides of it felt like falling.
