Dan asked to come up. Ruby met him outside instead.
It was late afternoon. She'd spent most of the day photographing the pieces for her business page, posting the finished pictures, then checking prices until she couldn't remember what any of them should cost. When he said he wanted to make an offer, she thought he meant the equipment again.
‘It's not the risers,’ he said as soon as she came out.
He stood by his car with a sheet of paper in his hand. There was a mark of flour on the thigh of his trousers. He hadn't dressed for persuasion. That made him look more like the Dan she'd once trusted.
‘What is it, then?’
‘Your stock.’
‘What about it?’
‘I'll buy it. All the finished pieces you were going to take. Nine hundred pounds.’
Ruby stared at him.
‘I can display them in the bakery,’ he said. ‘Sell them over time. I pay you now. You keep your weekend.’
She looked at the paper. He had worked out what was in the photographs she'd posted on her own business account. Bowls, jugs, little dishes. The total was more than she'd expected to take on the day, even if she sold well.
‘You haven't seen every piece.’
‘I've seen enough.’
‘Some of them won't suit the bakery.’
‘Some of them will. It's a fair offer, Ruby.’
It was. She checked the figure again, looking for an obvious mistake she could use to dismiss it. There wasn't one.
Nine hundred pounds would pay her studio costs for a while. It would cover the class hire, materials and the worry of spending money before she had bookings. She could go to the market with a few samples and enjoy herself instead of wondering what the boxes would weigh on the way home.
‘And then?’ she asked.
‘Then you make more.’
‘For you?’
‘For whoever buys them.’
He held the paper out. She took it.
The back room appeared again beneath the stock offer: two workshop dates, room provided, bakery open late. He'd kept the figures from the other proposal but taken their names off the top.
‘I told you I'm not teaching there.’
‘I'm offering you somewhere people know. They liked it. You liked it.’
‘I have somewhere.’
‘The hall room?’
Ruby looked up.
‘You put the date on your page,’ he said. ‘I saw it. It looks good.’
She had. That morning. She hated having to stop and check every ordinary thing he knew.
‘It's booked,’ she said. ‘I've paid.’
‘You can keep that one. I'm not saying don't. I'm saying you don't have to put all your work through one little market.’
He leaned against the car, waiting. He knew she needed to think. He'd always been patient with a decision when he believed the answer was going to favour him.
Ruby unfolded the paper fully. The corner trembled in the breeze.
‘Would you have offered this if we hadn't been together?’
Dan looked away down the street.
‘Probably not,’ he said. ‘But I know the work because we were. That's not a bad reason.’
‘Not by itself.’
He came back to her face. ‘I kissed someone else. I shouldn't have. I can't make that not happen. But I can't believe it's the only thing I get to be to you now.’
Ruby felt the old ache behind her ribs. It would have been easier if he had done nothing kind, built nothing useful, remembered nothing about her. But he had done all those things. He was standing in front of her with nine hundred pounds he could afford to pay, and a way to stop one small venture feeling so frightening.
‘It isn't the only thing,’ she said. ‘But you've just paid Mae to tell you how to get round what I say.’
His face tightened.
‘I believed her. I was wrong.’
‘You believed her instead of me.’
‘Yes.’
Ruby folded the paper. She could say yes to the purchase and no to the classes. She could watch Dan sell her pieces, then try to work out whether each order was business or hope. Perhaps she could manage it. Perhaps she'd spend the next six weeks thinking about him every time a message appeared.
She wanted people to choose her work while she stood beside it. She wanted to hear somebody say the price was too much, or the colour wasn't right, and survive it. She wanted the chance to find out what she'd made without Dan deciding its future first.
‘I'm taking it to the market,’ she said.
Dan looked at the paper in her hands. ‘You don't have to answer now.’
‘I do know the answer.’
She gave it back. It was hard to open her fingers.
He took it and nodded, slowly. ‘All right.’
Then he looked down at the class dates. ‘People might ask for the bakery on the day. The ones who used to come. If they do, will you at least listen?’
‘I listened today. I'm offering the hall class.’
He folded the paper without answering.
Neither of them moved for a moment. The light was beginning to go from the upper windows across the road. Ruby thought of Mae inside, trying to find somewhere else to sleep next week.
‘You haven't given her the last payment?’ she asked.
‘No.’
‘Good.’
Dan put the paper on the passenger seat. She said goodbye and went up the stairs.
At home the stand was waiting, less handsome than anything in his photograph. Ruby put the green jug on it, straightened the price card and sat down to count the bags.
There were enough for the day. There might be too many. She counted them anyway, then packed the offers for her hall class beside them.