Will Ray's Arc

Chapter 1 of 6

Will Ray had until Friday to hand the landlord full cash, or the man would put Aj Blackbird on the street. Will stood outside her small flat and counted the bills in his coat one more time. He was short. He had spent years saving to marry Aj, to keep her and the three cats fed. Now that money leaned against a single week's rent, and it wasn't enough. He lit a cigarette and let the smoke hide his face. His eyes went from blue to green. He never let Aj see him worried. Aj opened the green door before he knocked. Her long black dress swept the step. Her large hazel eyes searched his face for bad news and found nothing. She held the smallest cat against her chest, the striped one, no bigger than her two hands. "He came by," she said. Her voice was quiet and childish. "He asked if you were real." "I'm real," Will said. He did not tell her he was two hundred short. He kissed her forehead and walked away before she could ask where he was going. Will drove to the grocer with his name on the sign. The polished storefront held wine and cheese behind clean glass. It had been his father's shop, and now it was Will's. He unlocked the door, went to the back, and opened the safe. Inside sat the deed papers and a locked cash drawer he never touched. That drawer was the shop's whole cushion. Emptying it would cover Aj's rent, but it would leave the store one bad month from closing. Will stood there a long minute. He thought of Aj on the street with three cats and one suitcase. He took the cash. He still needed to reach the landlord before the man wrote Aj off. Will drove to the roadside stop where the landlord ran his coffee window between the fuel pumps. The man leaned out of the service window, a cigarette sign buzzing over his head. He counted the bills twice, slow, wetting his thumb. "Ray's word," the man said. "Some folks said it was air." He tapped the last bill flat. "It's cash now. She stays." Will said nothing. He drove back and stood again outside the green door. He had bought Aj her home. He had also emptied the store's cushion to do it. Rent was paid, but the shop that fed them both now ran on nothing. Aj opened the door again, the striped cat still in her arms. "You're back," she said, and smiled like a child. "You keep the flat," Will told her. He did not say what it cost. He watched her carry the cat inside and thought about the empty drawer. To marry her, to keep them all fed, he now had to save the shop before the next month's bills came due.