Chapter 24: Hennepin County

The new sign went up on the first Monday of April.

It was black glass with white letters, bolted over the door of the studio, above the fourth brick.

MACMASTER & FAIRBANKS.

I stood on the sidewalk with a coffee and read it three times.

"It's crooked," I said.

"It's not."

"It's a quarter inch off at the left."

"It's crooked in the way you like," Declan said, and put his arm around my shoulders.

Behind us, the bike shop clerk in the orange apron was filming it on his phone.

"For the store's page," he said. "My boss wants a before and after."

Upstairs there were nine desks now.

The one by the radiator was still mine, though I'd stopped needing the heater.

The girl who used to wear the pale braid sat two desks down with a camera strapped to her chest and a real salary.

She was shooting the studio's product work.

She'd cut the braid off in February, and she said it felt like losing a limb and a debt together.

"Morning, boss," she said to me.

"Morning."

"Mail's on your chair."

On top of the pile lay a padded envelope, and I knew what it was before I opened it.

The Lakeside Club had found it on the stage edge in November, in a lost-and-found drawer.

They had held it, waited, and finally sent it to my office.

Inside was a small box, and inside that the ring Rodney had given me in October.