Page 48 of Love Hollow at Last
He put a hand to his mouth.“God, Grace, you know I would never ask you to do that!”
“I know you would neverask,” she said.“But the thing is, Noah, when there’s not an account from which I can be paid?It amounts to the same thing.”
“I’ll sell something,” he said.“My car.”
“How?You’re not there to sell it.You know it’s not going to go for the same price you got it for, don’t you?”
“My parents always told me never to buy a new c-car,” he mumbled.
Grace nodded, solemn.“Well, they’re probably right about that.And how are you going to accomplish this sale?”
“Ask your friend, the one with that weird Mohawk.Isn’t she always looking for work?”
Grace looked at him quizzically.“Thea?You know, that’s not a bad idea.”
“Not all my ideas are bad,” he said and finally got a small smile out of her.
“Okay, so we’ll use the money from the sale of your car, minus whatever we pay Thea,” Grace said.Noah could see her tallying figures in her head.“That’s about a third of what we need.We still need about a hundred thousand dollars.What else should we do?”
“I don’t know.But I’ll find something.Okay?”
Grace looked skeptical.“It might be more efficient, at this point, to cancel,” she said.“Then at least we won’t end up having to pay the full amount.”
“There is no we.You’ll get paid, right?And the staff who are coming tomorrow?”
“For as long as the car money lasts, yes,” she said.
“Then that’s where we are now.Now, I’m going to make some calls.”
“Really?”Grace perked up.One of her perpetual complaints was that Noah was overreliant on email, even when calling would be more effective.Since Grace was also young, he couldn’t claim it was generational.He just hated having a stutter to contend with.
“No,” he said.“But I’m going to send a lot of emails.There’s got to be someone who would love this kind of advertising.”
“Yes, but are they prepared to pay a hundred grand for it?”
Noah pretended not to hear.
“I’m leaving the museum stuff to you,” he said.“Can you handle it?”
“Icould,” said Grace.“But I consider it your mess.”
“Mess?”
“Whatever you want to call it,” she said, turning back to her work.“You and your friend Aya need to figure it out.I wouldn’t want to get in the way of that.”
42
Aya
Aya ended up at her mother’s studio.She hadn’t meant to go there.There was no escape from the number of things she needed to complete at the museum.But eventually, Emi dragged her out.
“I haven’t gotten what I needed,” Aya moaned on her way out the door.The sunset, she noticed rather abruptly, was beautiful.The night before, she had been able to appreciate the sight.But now it just heralded her doom.If the sun is almost setting and I’ve made virtually no progress, what does that mean?She should really stay up all night, working on both her doctorate and the Pilgrimage, if she was going to make a go of either.
“Yes, but I need to eat,” said Emi patiently.“Unless you want me to faint.”
“You probably have trail mix in your bag,” Aya grumbled.Emi was a master of preparation.
“You don’t know that,” Emi said patiently.
