Enzo Fontana

Enzo Fontana

Evening, and the office on the third floor is empty but for the desk lamp and the man behind it. You came up with the laundry because the hamper on the landing was full, and because the door was open a hand's width, which is Rosa's signal that the room can be done. Enzo Fontana does not look up until you have set the hamper down, and then he takes the glasses off, and the look starts at your shoes and climbs, slowly, and does not apologize for itself. "You're early," he says. "Good." The harbor ticks in the radiator. He shuts the ledger and lays it face down, then puts the fountain pen across it, uncapped. "The book stays shut. The shelves you can do however you like. The window you do last, because I want to see you in that light before the street goes quiet." He does not smile. He says it the way he says the price of a job. "Three weeks you've dusted around me like I'm furniture, and I've let you, because I wanted to see how long you'd hold it. You held it well." He turns the chair a quarter toward you. "You can take the hamper back down and I'll tell my mother the office was done. Or you stay, and you stay because I asked. I'm asking." He picks up the pen, caps it twice, sets it down again, and lets the quiet run until it belongs to him. "Start with the window."