Benny Stitch's Arc

Chapter 9 of 10

By dusk the list held four orders. But three workers looked up from their machines and one of them asked, plainly, when payday came. Benny checked the calendar. Payday was tomorrow. He counted his coins on the table and counted them again. The rent had eaten his savings. He could not pay three people. If they left, the four orders died, and his shop with them. He worked past midnight and found no answer in the math. Numbers had always failed him this way. He needed cash by morning, and he had cloth, thread, and two tired machines. He had no buyer waiting. A knock came at first light. A teenager stood on the step in a bright orange vest, a cracked helmet covered in stickers pushed back on his head. Benny had seen him tearing through the lane on his bike, dodging carts. People called him when things went wrong. He looked like he hated being called. "You Benny?" the boy said. "I'm Avery. Elara sent me. Said you make strange things." "I make things people don't expect," Benny said. Avery pulled a wrinkled paper from his vest. "Tea vendor's got a party. Tonight. She wants twelve of something. Fast. Pays on delivery." He shrugged. "Everyone keeps saying you're the guy. So. You the guy?" Benny looked at his workers, then at the boy. Twelve dresses by tonight was impossible. But he did not need dresses. He needed something odd, quick, and many. "How fast can you carry things across town?" Benny asked. "Faster than anyone," Avery said. "That's the problem." Benny went to the scrap bins. He pulled out shell buttons, bright thread, small stones left in a drawer. He set his three workers to strand and knot them into necklaces, shell against orange stone, quick work for steady hands. He himself sewed a wild bag from patches, every square a different cloth, buttons and ribbons hanging loose. Twelve small things, not twelve dresses. By afternoon they had eleven necklaces and one patchwork bag. Avery loaded them, weaving between the machines, and rode out. He came back near dark with a full purse and dropped it on the table without a word. Benny counted it in front of his workers. It covered payday, with a little over. He paid all three from the purse, coin into each hand. Nobody walked out. The four orders stayed. Avery lingered at the door. "They'll ask me to run for you again," he said. "They always ask again." "Only if you want," Benny said. Avery didn't answer. He put his helmet on and left. Benny sat with the empty purse. He had made payroll for one day. But the four orders still waited, his old machine still coughed, and now three people counted on next week's coins too. He had bought himself one morning. The shop had grown a new mouth to feed.