Page 1 of Chosen By the BRATVA Grump

Kimmie

The last label card is a sixteenth of an inch too low. I’ve been standing in front of it for four minutes.

Nobody will ever see it. That’s what I keep telling myself, at twenty past five on the evening before the biggest day of my professional life. Not one person walking through that door tomorrow is going to crouch down at the corner with a spirit level and discover that the card beside Tobias Ren’s small oil of the boatyard sits a hair below the ones on either side of it. They’ll look at the painting, because the painting is the point. The cards are just so people know what they’re looking at and how much it costs, and half of them won’t even read the price until they’ve decided they want it anyway.

I peel it off and put it back on slightly higher.

Then I stand in the middle of my own floor and turn around slowly.

This is it. The moment that my dream is being realized. It feels good. It feels great, in fact.

There are twenty-two pieces on the walls. Six artists, five of them local, one of them a woman in Bellingfell who works in reclaimed copper and answers emails at three in the morning. The concrete floor I sanded myself has gone the color of wet sand under the lights, and the lights are finally, finally where I want them, angled so that nothing throws a shadow in the wrong direction. There’s a plinth in the corner with Marianne’s stoneware on it. The whole room smells like fresh paint, cut wood, and the lemon stuff I mopped with an hour ago. Under all of that, faintly, turpentine, which is one of my favorite smells in the world and which my mother says is a sign of brain damage.

And on the long wall, on its own, with eight feet of clean white on either side of it, is the Rebecchi.

Four feet by five. A field going up toward a break in cloud, except that isn’t what it is, and everyone who stands in front of it says the same thing in slightly different words. Delilah went quiet for a full minute in front of it, and Delilah is never quiet.

I move on to the next task on my list, dragging the trestle out from behind the desk and setting it up along the short wall under the window. Boards go at either end for the cheese, the big shallow basket in the middle for Delilah’s cinnamon rolls, and fruit spread out between them, all on a crisp white cloth. Glasses and plates arrive at nine tomorrow. Wine is under the desk, six white, six red, and a bottle of something sparkling that I bought with my own money for after, when everybody’s gone and it’s just me and whatever’s left.

I write Confirm pastry timing with D. I look at the clock. Twenty to five. I crane my neck to check if I can see her through the cafe window over the street, but all I can see is Lemur curled up in the window, his stripy tail flickering from side to side.

There is a version of me that texts, and that version is sensible and stays here and finishes the run sheet. But my back hurts, and I’ve had nothing but a granola bar since eleven. If I stay in this room another hour, I’ll start moving the Renn again, so I grab my keys and my phone and go out into the street.

Fourteen weeks ago I moved here, not that I’m counting. After losing my job in the city I wanted a fresh start, and as soon as I saw the old hardware store, I knew it would be perfect. I used every last cent of my savings and poured it into the gallery. Next thing I knew, I was picking out paint for the front and receiving complaints about my choice. Six weeks and I still get a small unhinged thrill every time I see it from the outside.

The bell over the café door rings, and the warmth hits me in the face.

Purr and Pour at this time of day is my favorite version of it. The rush is long gone, the chairs are going up on top of the tables, and the enormous black cat is stretched full length along the window bench in a shape no spine should permit. Delilah is behind the counter with her hair falling out of its clip and flour on one forearm.

“Tell me you’re here for cake,” she says.

“I’m here for cake and to talk about timings.”

“Timings.” She’s already reaching for a cup. “Flat white?”

“Yes, please. And a slice of whatever you have left.” I stroke a hand over Rhodes’s head, who nuzzles upwards into my palm. I love it when the cats do that.

Delilah cuts me the end piece from a lemon pound cake, which is the darkest and therefore the best, and slides it across with my coffee. I eat it standing up at the counter with my elbows on the wood like an animal.

“Sammie has almost finished the last batch of cinnamon rolls,” Delilah says, making herself a coffee, too. “I’m sure we can talk the guys into delivering them for you tomorrow morning.”

The guys she is referring to are Sammie’s husband, Eduard and her own…boyfriend? Jasper. Two great big men who look darker than sin. I’ve seen them and the others a few times on and off. One of them, Natan if I heard correctly, held the door open for me when I ordered the cinnamon rolls, and my lady garden all but sat up and started panting.

I suppose that’s what happens when someone is single for two years. My college boyfriend deciding that we weren’t on the same page. Funny how we were on the same page when he needed a place to say. I scowl into my coffee.

Delilah’s voice breaks through my thoughts. “Everything okay there, Kimmie?”

“Yes, sorry.” I shake my head from side to side and smile. “Just went somewhere I didn’t enjoy.”

Delilah frowns. “The guys are solid. They wouldn’t be allowed in the cafe if we thought they were a danger to anyone…” she trails off without mentioning how their reputation proceeds.

“No,” I quickly interject. “It’s not that, I was just thinking about something else. I’ll be grateful for any help at all from anyone. Including your big scary boyfriend.”

The bell chimes, and I turn to find said big scary boyfriend entering the cafe with Natan. Obviously.

I take a deep breath and turn back to my cake, shoveling the last of it into my mouth quickly so I can get out of the vicinity of the stranger who makes my body respond without my permission.

“How are things going with the gallery?” The voice is rich and dark and warm, and makes me think of honey sliding over body parts that shouldn’t have honey sliding over them.