Saturday afternoon, November 14
The back entrance opened onto a space that smelled of dust and fresh paint. Beth stood by a row of black cases, holding a roll of white tape between her teeth. She took it out when she saw Willa.
“Good. You're here.”
“I have arrived.”
“Can you hold this?”
Willa took the end of the tape. Beth measured a length against a case and tore it, then wrote a number on it. There were already numbers on the case, crossed out or half peeled away.
“Which one's the actual one?” Willa asked.
“The one I'm doing now.”
“Very philosophical.”
“Not today.”
Willa set the zippered pouch on a clean bit of table. Beth saw it, touched the yellow-marked adapter through the open top, and nodded.
“Thank you.”
“He brought buns too.”
Beth looked at her.
“I didn't bring the buns.”
“All right.”
It was not an opening. Willa took off her coat and put it on a hook beside a high-visibility vest. Beth pointed to a carton.
“Those straps need counting. Anything with a broken buckle goes in the other box. Don't try to fix them.”
“I wasn't planning to.”
“You always think you can make a thing work one more time.”
Willa picked up a strap and tested the buckle. It held. She put it in a little pile and began again.
The space belonged to a small production company that seemed to have acquired much more equipment than space. A painted door stood against the wall without a house around it. On a high shelf, three identical heads stared past Willa, all with their mouths open. An inflatable dog lay flat on a table near a dehumidifier.
“Is that him?”
“That's him.”
“Smaller in person.”
“Uninflated.”
“That's what they all say.”
Beth made a sound that might have become a laugh if she hadn't been writing. Willa counted twelve straps and started again because she had lost track of which pile she'd taken the last one from.
A woman in a wool hat came through carrying a clipboard. Beth introduced her as Lena, one of the performers. Lena had a long tear in one sleeve and a lovely singing voice when she spoke, which seemed a waste on the word straps.
“We've got a problem,” she said.
Beth put the pen down.
“The van. They've changed it.”
“Changed what?”
“It's the short one.”
Beth looked toward the cases.
“They said long.”
“I know.”
“They had the measurements.”
“I know. They say the other one's coming back Sunday. They can give it to us Monday.”
“We leave Friday.”
“They mean the Monday after.”
Beth took the clipboard. She didn't swear. That was how Willa knew she was angry.
“Who's there?”
“Gareth.”
“Can you get him?”
Lena put the call on her phone and handed it over. Beth walked three paces away, stopped, and came back for the list she'd made. Willa could hear only her sister's half.
“Yes, I'm looking at it. No. Not the seats. The internal length.”
She listened.
“No, they don't fold. Some things fold. These don't.”
Lena watched the cases as if they might volunteer. Willa kept counting straps, quietly now.
Beth asked two questions, wrote a number on the back of a scrap, and asked for a different vehicle. She didn't get it. Willa could tell by the way she stopped tapping the pen.
“Then I want a price for two.”
She listened, made a face, and looked at Lena.
“Can we do the second load Thursday?”
Lena thought.
“Pat can be here. I'll call.”
Beth held up a finger to keep the phone conversation alive, then put her hand over the microphone.
“We split it. Props and wardrobe Thursday. Instruments and personal kit Friday. Not ideal. Fits.”
“Costs?”
“I'm asking.”
Lena nodded. Beth uncovered the phone and kept going.
When she finished, she stood without moving for a moment. Then she turned to Willa.
“How many?”
“Twenty-one good. Four broken.”
“Twenty-one?”
“I counted twice.”
“All right.”
It was the nearest thing to praise Beth had given her all afternoon. Willa felt absurdly pleased.
Lena came back, saying Pat could do it, and the two women stood over the list. Beth crossed out one arrangement and drew another underneath. They began moving cases into two groups.
Willa took the lightest-looking one. It wasn't light.
“Wheels,” Beth said.
“I can see the wheels.”
“Then introduce them to the floor.”
Lena laughed. Willa set it down, pulled out the handle, and rolled it across. One wheel caught on a little ridge. She lifted the case rather than dragging it, and Beth said thanks without looking up.
For an hour they worked. Once Willa put a case in the wrong group and Beth made her move it back. Once Beth read a number wrong and Willa pointed to it; her sister stared, then crossed out her own mark.
“Good catch.”
“I'm available for all your number needs.”
“Don't get excited.”
By four, the two groups looked deliberate. Lena had gone to call someone else. Beth sat on a case and leaned forward, elbows on her knees.
“You want a drink?”
“Is there one?”
“Machine.”
“What kind?”
“Brown.”
“Tea or coffee?”
“I wasn't that optimistic.”
They went to the corridor, where a machine offered tea, coffee, hot chocolate and something called white. Willa bought two coffees. Beth took hers with both hands and stood against the wall.
“Better than it looks?” Willa asked after a sip.
“No. Exactly.”
They drank anyway. Beth had a spot of paint on her sleeve. She picked at it with one thumbnail, then gave up.
“Does the dog go in the first load?”
“Of course. He needs time to settle in.”
“Does he get his own room?”
“He's sharing with the dehumidifier. We think they're together.”
Willa laughed. Beth smiled into her coffee.
“It's going to be good,” Beth said.
“The show?”
“The work. The show too, I hope. I'm not in it.”
She put the cup on the machine's small shelf and stretched one arm above her head. Willa watched her make a little circle with her wrist to loosen it. No one would be checking whether Jo had water while Beth was doing this work. Somebody else would have to look.
Willa's phone rang. Her mother.
Beth looked at the screen, then back toward the cases.
“I'll be in there.”
Willa answered before Beth was through the door.
“Hi.”
“Are you with your sister?”
“Yes.”
“Can you ask her about Wednesday? I need her for the clothes and the things that—”
“She's working.”
“I'm not asking for today.”
Willa lowered her voice. “She's being difficult about the show stuff.”
Beth stopped in the doorway.
The words sat in the corridor between them. Willa felt them before she could hear what Jo was saying next.
“Put her on,” Jo said.
Beth held out her hand.
Willa gave her the phone.
“I can't do Wednesday,” Beth said. “I'm loading Thursday. Wednesday's the last day to sort it.”
She listened, face still.
“No. You have somebody. Ask them.”
Another pause.
“I'm not going to do that. I've sent what they need. If there's a question about where something is, they can ask me. I won't come in.”
Her eyes moved briefly to Willa.
“I have to go. Bye.”
She handed the phone back. The call was over.
Willa took it and put it in her coat pocket without checking the screen.
Beth picked up her coffee and walked back into the room. Willa followed.
“I'm sorry,” she said.
Beth put her cup on the table.
“Hand me that strap.”
Willa handed it over. Beth tightened it around two cases and pulled the end through the buckle.
“I won't say it again,” Willa said.
Beth looked at her hands, not her face.
“Please. I need to finish these.”
Willa shut her mouth.
They finished the last group. Lena returned with a man who was apparently Pat; he had a missing fingernail and a very precise idea about how to secure a case. Beth let him explain. She changed one of her straps when he finished, thanked him, and asked whether he wanted the written loading order or a photograph.
“Photo,” he said.
“Then you'll get both.”
He laughed and took the list.
Willa stayed until five. Her lesson bag was still on the hook, coat slipping off it. Beth carried the adapter pouch to a case near the door and put it in an inside pocket, where it apparently belonged.
“Anything else?” Willa asked.
“No. Thank you.”
“I can help Thursday.”
“I've got Pat.”
“Okay.”
Beth took out her phone, checked something, and put it away.
“Monday. Still all right?”
“Yes.”
“Ten. I don't want to be there when he comes home.”
“All right.”
Willa put on her coat.
At the door, Beth held up one of the broken buckles.
“Did you keep trying this one?”
“Maybe.”
“It isn't going to love you.”
“I thought it might respond to care.”
“It's plastic.”
“Finally, an honest relationship.”
Beth laughed, tiredly, and put the buckle in the discard box. The sound was small but real. Willa left with it, not asking for another.
On the way home she passed a chair in a furniture-shop window. Green, too high in the back, wrong in every detail. She knew at once how she'd describe it onstage. She kept walking.