Finally Moving On After A Decade novel · Chapter 7 of 24
Chapter 7: The Fitting
The auction hall was an old warehouse in the Pearl District with brick walls and six hundred empty chairs.
On Thursday night Freja had it to herself and the cleaning crew.
She stood on the low stage with a measuring tape around her neck and four safety pins between her lips.
"Take the jacket," she said around them. "It's a donor's. He's a forty-four long and you're a forty-six, so I'm going to hurt you a little."
I put it on.
The shoulders pulled and the sleeves stopped an inch above my wrists.
"It's too small."
"It's perfect for a fundraiser," Freja said. "Tight enough that they think the chest is real."
"The chest is real."
"I've been told. By three coworkers and a man who runs a bar."
I stared at her.
"Teddy has my number," she said. "He texted me on Tuesday. He wrote, 'Open jacket. Trust me.' I replied with a thumbs up, which I regret."
"You're not putting me on a stage with my shirt open."
"The shirt stays on. It's the jacket that's open."
"Why does it matter?"
"Because I have to sell four hundred thousand dollars of casserole money in forty minutes." She took the pins out of her mouth. "People bid on a story, and the story is that a man walked out of a ballroom with his coat flapping open."
"My coat wasn't flapping open."
"The video's been edited by two thousand strangers. It was flapping."
She stepped up close to pin the lapel.
I stood very still while her fingers worked at my chest.
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