October 23, 2007
Peter was on the telephone when I reached the shop. He had spread the equipment list over the counter and was holding one hand flat against it, as if the paper might otherwise get up and leave.
“I understand,” he said. “No, you shouldn't have to.”
He hung up before I could ask who it was.
“Sam's loading crew can't wait while we move display pieces out of their path. He wants everything that isn't his cleared by Thursday evening.”
“That's November eighth.”
“I know what date it is.”
I set my bag down. The revised plan had grown around the equipment as if the sale were a distant possibility. I had imagined visitors seeing the old composing stick beside a photograph of the worktable, the cabinet standing behind the original poster. But Sam was buying the cabinet, and some of the tools were included with the equipment. I had sold space to pay for a display and then planned the display around the things I had sold.
Peter took the leaflet proof from my bag.
“We could cancel this. Tell Elena it's too much at once.”
“We've already corrected the invitations.”
“That doesn't mean we have to put on a show.”
He looked exhausted. There was ink on the cuff of his shirt, though he had not run a press in weeks. He had been cleaning machines for a buyer who might notice every mark we had learned to stop seeing.
“You think I want the old version back,” he said. “I don't. I want one part of this to finish.”
I sat beside him rather than across the counter.
“What absolutely has to happen?”
He named the things in order. Clear the aisles. Empty the last drawers. Have the keys ready. Meet Sam on Friday morning. Let the crew work without being asked to rescue another sentimental object from a machine already on the truck.
I wrote each one down.
“And what do we need for Elena?” I asked.
“Apparently a museum.”
I looked at my plan. “No. Four pieces. Photographs of the rest. Labels people can read in a minute.”
Peter leaned back. “Four?”
“Leah's poster, with permission. Ruth's supper-card border, if she agrees. The uncertain birds, labeled honestly. One corrected introduction.”
“That's three objects.”
“Then we're already doing better.”
He laughed, briefly and unwillingly.
We called Elena together. She could not move the opening; the following weeks were already arranged. But she could give us the front room Friday afternoon, after the equipment collection, and a table on which to assemble everything. We would not need to build the display at the shop.
I crossed the cabinet off the exhibit sketch.
“Can I photograph it before Sam takes it?”
Peter looked around the room. “I can photograph all the equipment today. You'll want to remember where things stood.”
It was the first part of the display he had offered to make himself.
I phoned the printer and confirmed that the order was still on hold for the final wording. The materials were ready; the labels would not be printed until I brought the corrected file. I changed the title of Leah's poster in that file while Peter watched.
We made a new schedule on one sheet. November eighth: collect the drawing, clear the shop. November ninth: equipment pickup, then install at Elena's. November tenth: open. After one week: take down the borrowed original and return it the next day.
Peter put his initials beside the photographs and the Friday collection. I put mine beside everything that needed words.
“No adding objects after this,” he said.
“Unless one of these turns out to be wrong.”
“Then take it out. Don't replace it with something bigger.”
We shook hands over the counter, feeling foolish enough to smile. When he went to find the camera, I looked at the new plan. It was smaller than the one I had imagined, and much closer to something we could actually do.