It gave her a strange feeling. In one year, she found herself in her first real relationship. Then the shock of pregnancy. Then the sudden, furious preparation for marriage. She had the feeling that, in all her adult life, little happened. Now everything happened.
“Slow down,” her fiancé, Walt said.
“I can’t!” Reba stood at her sink, washing cups and plates. “There’s no time.”
“All you have to do is make a baby,” Walt said. “Eat your vegetables. Stay healthy and relaxed. All these other issues will resolve themselves.” Walt owned his own business, a thriving sign shop. He was reasonable, careful-thinking, far-seeing. For a pregnant woman washing dishes, these are not pluses.
“Do something!” she cried.
“I am.” Walt sat with a legal pad and laptop, reviewing venues for their reception.
“I mean get over here and start drying!”
Smiling, Walt snapped shut the computer and stood. He could not love her more.
* * *
The wedding would be very small, and very soon. I’m unsure why, but one day in her studio, Reba showed me the guest list. I made the cut. So did, to my surprise, John Schatz.
“I see you invited our Mr. Schatz,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“It’s a wedding. You have to invite someone.”
“Aren’t you afraid he might be… inappropriate?”
“Why would I be afraid he might be inappropriate?”
“Because you said he was inappropriate.”
Reba smiled. She was relaxed and happy. Lately, this hadn’t been the case. But now as she stacked pots, aligning them perfectly, she hummed a little. The shop looked different. Shelves were tagged A through G, her dinnerware neatly labeled. Rose Gauntlet, Fireside Oval, LucindaWare.
Blue Maze was selling fast. She made a note on her clipboard. “I wasn’t going to invite him. Not at first.”
“What changed?”
“He’s been a good friend.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Is he leaving Li-Li alone?” Reba employed a young woman who caught Schatz’s fancy. He had, she told me, been most annoying.
“No. I don’t think he’ll ever leave young women alone. Do you?”
Probably not. “Is he getting along with Catherine Baker?” Baker and Reba had grown close. She would be her maid of honor. Long ago, Schatz and Baker had some kind of falling out. Baker went on to become exceedingly wealthy.
“Not exactly. There’s too much history there. But they’re adults.”
“And Walt doesn’t mind?”
Reba finished surveying her stock. “Let’s just say Walt and I found much to like in John Schatz.”
* * *
John Schatz is feeling very good. Even though he sits on a cracked wooden chair retrieved that morning from the curb. His days in a penthouse suite with a rich heiress have ended. There is no room service in his rooming house. No foie gras on crystal plates. As we speak, he heats a can of Our Family Black Beans on the stove.
But he feels good. In a small and rather limited way (for him) he has found success.
The week before he deposited twenty-seven thousand dollars in his bank account, having sold, in one fell swoop, a half-million ceramic tiles. There were many things he could do. He could lease a new Ford Bronco. Pay off his room for the rest of the year. Gamble on the stock market. Even move to Chicago and try his luck with a few furniture types who did not know, or knew in only the vaguest way, the pyrotechnic loss of his empire.
Or he could give the money to Reba.
After all, the tiles had been sold in her name. Her reputation invoked. Schatz even created a Rebel Pots brochure showing her at her desk, Li-Li at the wheel, rows of tiles and pots, and hundreds of smiling assistants loading boxes on conveyor belts. This final image came from Shutterstock.
Reba knew nothing of this. She would have put a stop to it if she had. Why give her anything?
Because he was John Schatz. All his life he took care of others. He paid the salaries, hired the employees, promoted the executives. It was always his money, his buildings, his reputation and influence. Not long ago $27,000 would have meant nothing, a mere item. Had his CEO Catherine Baker, or some other officer approached him he’d have laughed them off. Why are you bothering me, he would ask. We make or lose that in an hour.
And so, a few days after receiving the $27,000, he wrote a note to Reba. Calling it an early wedding gift, he sent his personal check for the entire amount.
Minus 20 percent. The standard commission. He was the salesman, after all.
Richard Donnelly lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Classic flyover land. Which makes us feel just a little… superior. He publishes a weekly column of essays on the writing life at richarddonnelly.substack.com