All That Glitters Is Sometimes Made With Enamel

Okay so.

I'm just going to say it.

This was a terrible idea and I knew it was a terrible idea when I said yes and I said yes anyway so like. That's on me. Entirely. I am the architect of this.

We're not finishing these flyers. We're not. 

There aren't enough hours and I've been standing in front of this supply cabinet for — okay it's been a while. 

It's been a while and I still haven't taken anything out of it. 

The little drawer labels are all in different handwriting, someone's done them in red marker and someone else has done theirs in pencil and the pencil one says brad nails (misc) which. Why would you put brad nails in a — this isn't the point. This isn't the point at all.

Ribbon. I came here for ribbon. Or — no, border card stock. 

We said border card stock. 

Did we say that or did he say that, I think Sugihara said it, I should ask him.

I'm not going to ask him.

It's just weird, is all. We don't have each other's numbers. 

We don't run into each other. I see him at lunch and that's it, that's the entire surface area of our whole — whatever this is. 

And he had zero reason to offer. 

He volunteers here on weekends apparently, he knows where everything is, he could have just told me where the card stock lives and gone home. He didn't have to stay.

But he keeps staying.

Maybe he pities me.

That would make so much sense actually. He probably saw me standing there looking baffled by the laminator and felt some kind of — I don't know. Duty. He seems like someone who has a lot of duty. He's very —

He's very —

"Azusa."

Oh no.

"Yeah, hi — sorry, I'm here." I turned around a little too fast. He was holding a roll of kraft paper like that was just something a person holds.

He looked at the cabinet. Then at me. Then at the cabinet again in this way that wasn't quite anything but was still somehow a lot.

"Did you find it?"

"Find what."

"The card stock."

A beat.

"...Yes," I said. My hands were completely empty. "Almost."

He reached past me and got it. Set it on the table. Went back to unrolling the kraft paper like none of that had happened. 

Like I hadn't just been standing there conducting a private investigation of pencil drawer labels for six minutes. 

Like I was fine.

Cool. Great. Good start. Good start for both of us. Really strong.

I followed him to the table and sat down and tried to arrange my face into an expression that implied competence.

He was already sketching. Light pencil lines, very sure of themselves. I hadn't even uncapped my pen.

"You were doing it again," he said. Not looking up.

"Doing what."

"The thing." A tap to the side of his head, still looking at the page. Not unkind. Not particularly anything. Just — noting it. Like he'd note a scratch on a crystal face. Here. Present. Catalogued.

I didn't know what to do with being catalogued.

"There's a lot to think about," I said.

He made a small sound and went back to the sketch.

Okay. Right. Flyers. 

That's why we're here. 

Restoration Showcase, lowercase r, maybe a clock face on the header, gears on the border. 

I can do the lettering because I do calligraphy, I have done calligraphy since I was eleven, I have a framed regional certificate above my desk at home which I will take to my grave and never mention out loud, the point is I'm not useless here, I just have to open my pen, I just have to—

"Your clip's different."

I looked up.

He was still looking at the notebook.

"My—"

"Hair clip." Eraser end pointing vaguely upward. "Don't think I've seen that one."

Okay.

So.

He notices my hair clips. Sugihara Yuta, who once walked me through the mechanical difference between a lever escapement and a coaxial escapement for — I timed it, I was so bored I timed it — twenty three minutes, and I'm pretty sure he forgot I was there around minute fourteen. 

That person has a working memory of my hair clips. A catalogue. I've been catalogued.

"I just grabbed it this morning," I said.

My hand touched it before I'd decided to do that.

He leaned in a little. The way he leans at the shop when something's caught his eye, that same kind of — attention. Careful and close and not quite touching. Like I was something in a case.

My heart did something rude.

"Hand painted," he said.

I nearly spat out a 'what' directly into his face.

"How can you even—"

"Lines aren't even." He leaned back. "Machine painted's consistent. Hand painted's got variation." Back to the notebook. 

"Small stuff like that tends to be the more interesting kind." He added.

He said it the way he says everything. Flat. Factual. A thing he'd noticed and filed. He was probably thinking about the sketch two seconds later.

I was not thinking about the sketch.

So he looks at me. Like, carefully. Like I'm something worth looking at carefully. We see each other at lunch. That's it. That's our whole thing. This is completely normal and I'm being insane.

I looked at the card stock.

"Gears around the border?" I said.

"Probably." He turned the notebook toward me. He'd already drawn three options. Three. While I was standing in front of a cabinet reading brad nail labels. "Clock face on the header, I think. Let the motif do the work."

I stared at the sketches.

"When did you — how are you this good at drawing?"

"Hm." He pulled it back, kept going. "Once you spend enough time with things people made carefully, I think it becomes muscle memory eventually."

I uncapped my pen.

I put it back on.

I proceeded to do that about twelve more times.

Okay. Lettering. That's me. That's my thing. I was going to write Restoration Showcase in a clean pointed nib, even baseline, good ink weight on the downstrokes, and I was going to feel like a person who showed up and contributed and wasn't just a weird girl in front of a cabinet.

I got through the R.

"Why'd you pick up the scratched one."

My pen stopped.

"Sorry?"

"At the shop." He was looking at the sketch. "Last Saturday. The pocket watch in the back case, scratched crystal. You picked it up first." A pause. Small. Like he'd measured it. "Nobody touches that one."

I remembered it. Dull case. Passed-over looking. The kind of thing that's been sitting in the same spot so long you stop seeing it.

"It just looked like it had been waiting a long time," I said. And then I heard myself say that and I wanted to fold in half like a piece of paper and disappear under the table.

Something moved in his face.

"Yeah," he said. Quiet. "Exactly."

He pointed at me once, briefly. Like I'd gotten an answer right.

I looked at my lettering.

The R was a little shaky.

"People who see things like that." Still on the sketch. Easy. Offhand. The same voice he uses for escapements and card stock and brad nails, just absolutely no awareness that he's— "They tend to catch my eye."

I put the pen cap on.

Took it off.

Put it back.

Picked up the pen.

Put the cap back on.

"Should the subheader be lighter or same weight," I said. And my voice came out even, which honestly, given everything, is the greatest achievement of my entire life.

"Lighter," he said. "Give the title room."

"Right."

He looked over at my lettering.

"You're good at this, Azusa."

I nodded and looked at the card stock and held the pen very still and thought about the letterforms. Just the letterforms. The angle of the nib. The weight of the downstroke. The way ink sits on paper if you let it.

Just that.

Nothing else.

I'm fine.