“A third?”
“More than a third.” He wrote another line. “And if people could buy wine at a sunset art event with an ocean view, the numbers change significantly.”
“How significantly?”
“Enough to matter.” He set down the pen. “You’d need a liquor license.”
He reached into his bag and pulled out a folder. Thick. Official. He set it on the table between them.
“California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control. Type 47 license application.”
Anna opened it. Page after page. She flipped through ten and gave up.
“This is forty-seven pages.”
“Forty-seven pages. For wine.”
“Forwine. Not a nightclub. Just wine, with painting, on a patio.”
“The state doesn’t distinguish. Same application.” Michael pulled the folder toward him. “I’ve done three of these for other clients. I can handle the paperwork.”
“You’d do that.”
“I’ll need the property deed, the business license, and a floor plan.” He clicked the pen. “And time. Weeks to prepare properly.”
“So we’d be working on this?—”
“Thursday nights. After close. I’ll bring the forms.”
“I’ll bring takeout.”
“I don’t eat?—”
“I know what you don’t eat, Michael.”
They stood on the patio with the folder between them and the sunset behind them. Anna picked up her coffee. Cold.
“Thank you,” she said.
“For what?”
“For not saying ‘I told you so’ about the dinner service. For staying when your audit was done. For standing on this patio and telling me my worst quality is actually useful.” She set the cup down. “For this.”
Michael clicked his pen. Unclicked it. Clicked it again—a crack in the precision.
“I like this place,” he said. “I’d like it to survive.”
“Is that all?”
The pen stopped clicking. The ocean filled the silence.
“I believe in the Shack,” he said. Then, quieter, “And the person running it.”
Anna nodded. Picked up the folder. Forty-seven pages, and Thursday nights, and an art night she was going to plan in secret because she was terrified and excited and those two things had always been the same feeling for her.
“Thursday,” she said.
She went back inside and stood in the kitchen with the liquor license application and her cold coffee and the sound of his pen starting up again in the back office.
