Chapter 23: Gold Leaf

The flatbed stood in the lot at dawn with a tarp over its load.

The whole shop crew stood around it with coffee.

The foreman had put on a clean shirt.

"Boss," she said. "Look away till he says."

"I'm not looking away."

"Then look at me. I'm prettier."

Rafe came down the loft stairs beside me in his jacket, and he did not smile.

His jaw was tight.

"You don't have to like it," he said. "I want you to know that first."

"Show me."

He nodded to the driver. The driver pulled the cord.

The tarp slid off.

It was a sign, eight feet long, cut from black steel, with the shop's name across the top in white.

BRASHER RESTORATION.

Under it hung a second panel, the same size, bare and primed gray.

Nothing was painted on it.

I walked around the flatbed once and put my hand on the empty steel.

"The name goes there," Rafe said. "I didn't decide it."

"You left it blank."

"You said no one decides for you. I asked the foreman what that meant."

"I told him," the foreman said, "that it meant he shut up and bring the steel."

I laughed. It came out wet.

"I want to paint it myself," I said.

"I thought you might."

"Here. In the lot. Before anyone puts it up."

"That's what the sawhorses are for."

Somebody had already dragged a pair out, with a work lamp.

I went upstairs for my cases and came back down with my brushes.

I mixed the gold on the lid of a coffee can.

The crew stood in a half circle and said nothing.

I chalked the letters first, large and plain.

Then I took a size-zero brush and began to lay them in.

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