A Place to Stand

Lena Hart finished the last corner like a musician landing a phrase: precise, private, and merciless if anything unsettled the key. She knelt on the engineered-wood floor of the townhouse and eased a velvet cushion into the crook of an armchair until the light skinned the fabric in the way she wanted—soft but not sentimental. She had learned early in the business that a room that looked too loved read as messy; a room that looked too clinical read as unaffordable. Between those poles she carved a place that made buyers imagine themselves moving the first coat of paint, not the whole history.

Outside, a vendor shouted about scallion pancakes and a shrill-voiced accordion took up a tune two doors down; the city always did its own staging, a soundtrack for other people's scenes. Lena smelled frying oil for a moment and visualized the buyers arriving hungry, which meant she should tuck a warm, doughy hint into the kitchen vignette rather than perfume the whole flat with something cloying. Small, specific cues. She reached for the matte bowl, balanced it on the coffee table like a tiny sculpture, and then wrestled a rug into a forgiving crease.

Sam pushed the narrow door open with the pride of a person who treats thresholds as personal projects. He carried not only his tool bag but an inflatable flamingo clutched under his arm as if the bird were the missing mallet. A ferret hung like an important cuff from his shoulder; the animal's dark eyes found Lena and registered her as a new landscape to explore.

"Do you always bring a tropical bird to clients' houses?" Lena asked, not looking up. She pulled a lamp into alignment and peered at the bulb through a tissue to soften its edge.

Sam set the flamingo down and gave it an affectionate squeeze. "Only on days I need a straightedge and an audience. Besides, Gatsby likes the buoyancy. He says it reminds him of swimming he never learned."

Gatsby, who had already freed one paw, hopped off Sam's shoulder and inspected the baseboard. He decided the lamp tassel would be an adequate antagonist and launched himself at it. Sam lunged for the ferret with the graceful clumsiness of someone who had learned to repair things by accident and carry their disasters like trophies.

"You could be less dramatic about it," Lena said, smiling despite herself, and the sentence slid into the ritual of companions who had been delivering property illusions together long enough to predict each other's gestures.

She moved with the blunt certainty of someone who had measured hundreds of sightlines—knees bending, back pivoting, arms lifting and lowering in a rhythm that turned the flat into a set. Her hands were quick and efficient: she jammed a throw pillow a fraction to the left, brushed dust from a brass candlestick, hooked a plant into a lower pouf. Sam balanced a ladder while she threaded a curtain rod and then clambered up himself to straighten the art, humming as if the work needed a soundtrack. The accordion outside hit a minor chord and stopped; someone snapped a shutter across the street and the moment felt like an audience inhaling.

A realtor arrived wearing optimism as a coat. He put his palm flat on the glossy kitchen island like a man momentarily in love with commodity. "Lena, these touches—people will come for this feeling. You've done it again." He turned to Sam and said, "Who did the fixtures?"

Sam gave a modest shrug and lifted the flamingo's wing as if offering credits. "Me and the bird."

The realtor laughed, a quick, relieved sound, and tipped his head toward the hallway. "There's a woman downstairs—older—who asked if you could help someone. She said you never refuse the odd job."

Lena's fingers paused in the fabric. "Who?"

"June Park. Lives on the third. Says she used to teach art. The building manager wants someone to ‘make sense’ of her place so her niece can come collect some things. It's not a sale; it's more... a clearing."

Lena's mouth made the shape of a polite refusal by reflex. Projects that were clearings tended to lean sentimental and long. But the townhouses' clients had been kind to her; the industry had been kinder to those who cultivated narrative and then walked away with a commission. She had a short list of favors she could do without draining her stocks of reputation and sleep. Helping an old teacher seemed, on paper, like one of those favors you check and then forget.

Sam watched her work for a moment, his face smoothing into a question. "You're going to say yes, aren't you?"

She laughed, a quick exhale. "Probably." She imagined herself offering two hours, maybe three, enough to tidy and photograph for a portfolio shot that would show generosity without wrecking her calendar. She didn't imagine the ceramic bowls, the stacks of pastel sketches, the small cardboard boxes that might contain a lifetime. Yet the thought of a former art teacher arranging clay on a table had its own language—one that piqued a curiosity Lena had started to mistake for sentiment.