Then, very suddenly, Edie arrived one morning and announced that she was closing up the shop. She had decided that her father needed a private-duty nurse, and the only way she could pay for that was to go back to practicing law, and her old firm was willing to hire her again.
Pru was working only part-time—in theory to supplement her nonexistent grant-writing income—but the news threw her. She was happy at Edie’s. She knew it wasn’t her whole life, of course, but she’d been enjoying the restful interlude.
After work, instead of going home, she went to the Korner. She wanted to sit and think about what to do next, and the one thing she could no longer do at her apartment was sit and think.
To her surprise, she found McKay and Patsy sitting together at a table.
“Great,” she said, joining them. “Are you two plotting my death?”
“Relax,” said Patsy. “We just ran into each other. I have to go get Annali, anyway. But I’ll see you in the morning, right?” she said, to McKay.
“I’m just taking her to meet our human resources person,” McKay said, when Patsy was gone. “Don’t be so suspicious.”
“Oh, honey, that’s nice. Thank you for doing that. Just don’t like her better than me. That is not allowed.”
When she told him about Edie, McKay said, “Why don’t you just buy her out?”
“Buy her out? What, and run the store myself?” She felt her skin prickle a little, and, sure enough, here came John.
“Sure. Why not? John, don’t you think Pru should buy Edie’s?” McKay said smoothly, when he was near.
“Better yet,” said John, seating himself at the table. “Buy her inventory, and open your shop here.”
“In Adams-Morgan?”
“Absolutely. I bet Edie’s spending a fortune to rent that space. You’d do better here, anyway. I’m telling you, another year from now, you won’t be able to buy your way into this neighborhood. Hey, the Chinese bakery is moving. It’d be perfect for a dress shop.”
“But I don’t know the first thing about running a business,” Pru said.
“I’m sure Edie would help you. And you’d have me. I didn’t know anything, either, when I bought this place.”
“But I don’t have that kind of money.”
“So, you take out a loan. Find investors. Do you have any savings?”
“Of course. But that’s what it is—savings. Besides . . . retail. It’s not exactly what I envisioned doing with my master’s degree.”
“What did you envision?”
A good question. “I don’t know. Read?”
She had to admit, she was intrigued with the idea. Afterward, instead of going straight home, she and McKay turned and went up Eighteenth to look at the Chinese bakery. It was an appealing site, an Adams-Morgan landmark that she’d always loved. The building was situated where Eighteenth curved around, so the building itself was actually rounded, too. It stood between an Ethiopian restaurant and a tiny electronics store, the kind where everything was all mumble-jumble and, one suspected, hot.
From the outside, it looked perfect for a small boutique. A dress shop, that’s what John had called it. There was a tall, narrow display window that, for the six years she’d lived in the neighborhood, had held the same giant, many-tiered plastic wedding cake. The window, she realized, had great visibility from three of the four corners of Eighteenth and Columbia, the busiest intersection in the neighborhood. Right away, she imagined replacing the cake with an artsy display of boots and shoes hanging from invisible strings. Already, she could see the sign: THE DRESS SHOP. Or PRU’S FROCKS. ALFRED J. PRU’S FROCKS, as a nod to her master’s in literature. No, that was goofy. Still, she felt a surge of excitement, as she headed home. She didn’t feel quite so annoyed when she got home to see the usual accumulation of daily mess, while Patsy sat on the couch with Annali, watching something on PBS and not making dinner.
IT TURNED OUT THAT JOHN KNEW THE OWNER OF THE bakery, Mr. Yao, from the neighborhood business association. He was able to get them in to see the space the next day. That morning, Pru stood in the middle of the store, watching the sunlight come through the tall front windows.
Mr. Yao and John chatted amiably while Pru looked around. Pru was embarrassed that she couldn’t understand much of what Mr. Yao was saying. John repeated what he’d said in a low whisper: the bakery had done so well on Columbia Road that they had bought a building on U Street, a part of town where Danish-modern furniture stores and bistros were beginning to replace the pawnshops and check-cashing places. Pru would be taking over the lease on a storefront that had already proved itself successful. Of course, John pointed out, she’d pay more for that.
But when Mr. Yao told John what the rent was, and John told Pru, she was shocked. It didn’t matter that Edie paid at least twice that for her shop on Connecticut. How many dresses would she have to unload to make that back? she wondered. Back at the Korner, John began running the numbers. He showed her how to make a cash-flow estimate. Their heads were bent together over the calculator as he punched in the numbers. She tried not to notice how close their noses were. He gave her the number of a loan officer at a downtown bank, who’d given John his start-up loan.
“Are you actually thinking seriously about
