Chapter 7: The Partner

Renata's doctor had said days, and on Monday morning Lorena still did not know what she would do on the day it came true.

She went to the workshop because it was the one place that did not ask her.

A man was standing there with a chair on his knee, and he was laughing.

He was in his mid thirties, in a linen shirt with the collar open, and he had turned the prototype upside down to look at the joints.

"Pilar, who made this?" he said. "I want to marry whoever made this."

"That's your problem," Pilar said, from the far bench. "She's taken."

"Then I'll settle for hiring her."

Lorena stood in the doorway with her sketchbook.

The man looked up, put the chair down very carefully and held out his hand.

"Octavio Rangel. I put the money into Pilar's new saw, so I'm allowed to touch anything in this building."

"Lorena."

"I know," he said. "Pilar talks about you all day long."

He tilted the chair toward her.

"Is it all right if I say the back support is the best I've seen in ten years?"

"You can say it twice."

"The back support is the best thing I have seen in ten years."

Lorena laughed in spite of herself.

It was the first time she had laughed in a week.

She put her sketchbook on the table, and the smell of fresh varnish came up from the far bench, and she swallowed.

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