He Called Himself Blind and Kept Me Poor, So I Let Him Watch Me Leave novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: The Deposit

Floyd's POV

The bakery owner told me about the rent while I stacked the Saturday trays.

She did not mean to.

She was counting a drawer of quarters and talking to herself, and she said, "Eleven thousand four hundred and the landlord won't blink."

"What's eleven four?" I said.

She looked at me over the register.

"Nothing. Mind your trays."

"Ma'am."

She sighed and shut the drawer.

"Back rent," she said. "Fourteen months of it, when my husband was sick and the mixer broke. The landlord has been very patient. But he told me last week he won't sign a new lease for anybody until the old one is clean."

"Does Brinley know?"

"God, no. And you won't tell her." She jabbed a finger at me. "She'd put every dime of that account into it, and it's her first dime. I won't have it start that way."

I carried the tray to the rack and set it down.

The back room smelled of cinnamon, and the oven ticked as it cooled.

I knew exactly how much was in my own account.

I had four hundred and ninety dollars.

Everything else I had ever made was in a savings book with Brinley's name on it, and I had promised myself it would stay there.

But I had a microphone.

It sat on a stand in the closet at Dearborn Street, wrapped in a pillowcase, a large-diaphragm condenser I had bought at twenty-four with my first real paycheck.

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