Chapter 10: Both

Jem looked at Kath, and at the box, and at me.

"We have a couch," he said. "It's eight inches too short for anyone."

"I'm five foot one," Kath said.

"Then it's perfect."

She set the box on the counter.

On top of the box was a cactus in a coffee mug, a stapler and a framed photo of her cat.

"They let me keep the stapler," she said. "Very generous. Very on brand."

I came around the counter and hugged her, box and cactus and all.

She held still for a second, which is how Kath hugs.

Then she hugged me back hard.

"You got fired for me."

"I got fired for watching you. There's a difference. Legally."

"Kath."

"I was going to quit Friday anyway," she said into my shoulder. "I had a whole speech. It had slides."

She lasted two nights on the too-short couch.

On the third morning, I carried my bag across the landing from the loft to Jem's room.

I put Kath's cactus on the loft's round windowsill, next to the brass cylinder.

"That's a lock," Kath said, looking at it.

"It's a long story."

"I've seen the comments. It's the shortest story on the internet."

That Sunday, my mother decided we were having dinner at the shop.

Nobody voted.

She showed up at five with a roast, two pies and a folding table Pete had strapped to the roof of their car.

Pete set it up in the workshop between the grinder and the pegboard.

The old key-cutter tried to leave.

My mother put a plate in his hands, and he sat down.

The apprentice brought her girlfriend, who brought a salad nobody touched.

Kath sat between Pete and the old key-cutter.

By the second glass of wine, Pete was teaching her the ferry engine room hand signals.

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