By November I could recognize a repair customer by the way he carried a coat. A man bringing me a loose button held it by the collar. A man who had sat down hard and split the lining kept it folded under his arm, as though he could conceal the damage from the person he wanted to mend it. I spread a clean cloth over the depot collection table and tried to make every transaction look simple.
The customer that morning would not put down his money. I had shortened his sleeves, pressed the cuffs through a cloth, and hung the coat where he could examine both sides. He pulled it off the hanger and pushed one hand into a pocket. Then he looked at me instead of taking his hand out.
"Empty them," he said.
"I checked them before I sewed."
"Then checking again won't hurt." He laid the coat across my cloth. Two men waiting behind him stopped talking. I had an envelope marked with his name and the price, but he kept his bills folded in his fist. The objective was plain enough: if I wanted payment, I would do this in front of everyone.
I turned out the first pocket. A little gray lint fell onto the white cloth. I turned out the other one, then the inside breast pocket, easing its lining through the opening so I would not tear what I had just repaired. "Nothing here," I said. My voice sounded brisk, almost cheerful, and that was what shamed me most.
"There you go." He handed over the money as though he had completed a useful inspection. I counted his change twice. After he left, I picked the lint up with a damp fingertip and carried it to the wastebasket. I could not bear to leave it there as evidence of how carefully I had obeyed.
Celia Rusk had been waiting near the shelves with a bundle of work shirts. She had worked uniforms at Harrowgate before my hours were cut, and I knew her by her blunt scissors and the little paper sleeves she made for spare needles. She put her bundle down without mentioning the man.
"You've got a cuff puckering," she said. "Not that one. The blue shirt under your elbow."
I drew it toward me. She was right. I had used too much tension where the fabric doubled. "It'll press out."
"It'll look pressed out until he washes it." She asked for a pin, slipped it beneath the stitches, and showed me the small ridge I had pulled into the cloth. She did not take over. She waited until I reached for the seam ripper myself.
We stood there while I opened the cuff. Celia said she could use paid sewing work, two afternoons to begin with. She had a machine that would handle heavier seams than mine. I said I couldn't promise regular money. She said she wasn't asking for a promise I couldn't keep; she was asking whether I had more work than hands.
I looked at the pile beneath the table, where I had been hiding the jobs I had not finished. There were three coats with damaged pockets, trousers needing hems, and a shirt I had already unpicked twice. "Piece rates," I said. "We agree before you start. I collect from the customers."
"And I get paid when?"
I almost said when they paid me. Instead we worked out a weekly settlement for completed pieces, whether I had collected or not. Celia took a pencil and wrote the agreed prices on the back of my order sheet. Her handwriting was square and easy to read. I liked it until she reached toward the cash envelope to clear a place for the paper.
"I'll keep that," I said, too quickly.
She drew her hand back. "I was moving it out of the way."
I told her it was easier if one person handled money. She said that was my business, and asked which coats she should take. We counted them together and wrote a receipt. After she left, I locked the cash in the van and checked the lock with my hand. I had gained somebody who could help me, and the first arrangement I made was to ensure she could not reach what mattered.