Page 105 of ClickBack

I laugh. “Deal.”

Chapter 18

Giselle

The skates are still on my kitchen counter Wednesday morning. I lift the box to wipe underneath it, then set it back in precisely the same spot. The hall closet has room if I move Zion’s outgrown cleats. I have thought about moving those cleats for two years.

I take my coffee to the dining table and open the records Prewitt finally sent. He inherited his father’s print shop, three elderly machines that still earn their keep, and the conviction that any receipt handed to an accountant becomes deductible through proximity. We have already discussed the fishing boat. Today he wants to discuss it again.

“I had a customer on it,” he says over video.

“You also have customers at your daughter’s birthday parties. We’re not deducting the bounce house.”

“That was one time.”

I let him decide which part of the sentence he means. He scratches his cheek, then begins looking for the payroll report I actually need.

While he searches, one of his employees crosses behind him carrying an armful of T-shirts. Prewitt turns to explain an order, sets the phone down, and forgets I’m there until the woman picks it up.

“Giselle?”

“Morning, Marcy.”

“I put what you asked for in the shared folder yesterday.”

“Thank you.”

“And the duplicate invoice is voided.”

Prewitt takes the phone back. “See? We got it.”

I smile at Marcy over his shoulder. She has already gone back to work.

After the call, I send him the list of what is still missing and check my own appointments. Friday is blocked off for Jarrett in the evening. There is a dress upstairs that I bought for it, and a tailor’s card I have moved from my purse to the table and back twice. The size that fits my middle needs taking in through the shoulders. The saleswoman pinned it, showed me the difference, and offered the card. I believed her in the fitting room. At home, I started calculating how much I was spending to get dressed.

I send Di the two pictures I took at the boutique.

Me: Is the dress wrong, or am I tired?

Then I finish reconciling an account instead of sitting there waiting for her to tell me what I already suspect. When she calls, I am carrying my mug to the kitchen.

“I have twelve minutes,” she says. “Ten if Patrice finds me.”

“What does Patrice need?”

“Scissors and supervision. What have you done to that dress?”

“Nothing. That’s the problem.”

Her screen shows racks of costumes behind her and a cardboard moon propped against the wall. She sets the phone down and lifts a length of fabric from her shoulder.

“The second picture fits,” she says.

“The woman pinned it.”

“Then have somebody sew where she pinned.”

“It already cost enough.”