Her Signature Is on My Dream Job

How it begins

Ruth's signature had not changed.

The R still leaned too far forward. The final stroke still looked impatient with the rest of her name.

Isabel knew it from birthday cards, shared tenancy forms, and the note Ruth had left beside a ruined silk dress twenty-one years earlier.

SORRY. I THOUGHT THE IRON WAS OFF.

Now it sat at the bottom of a commission worth more than Isabel's last three years of work.

She read the email header again.

The address belonged to the estate. The telephone number matched its public listing. The attached agreement named her correctly and described a conservation project she had once mentioned only to Ruth.

Ruth had been dead for nine years.

Isabel called the estate.

A woman answered with the calm efficiency of someone paid to make unusual requests sound ordinary.

"I'm checking an invitation," Isabel said. "From Ruth Calder."

"Yes. She's expecting your response."

"May I speak to her?"

"She's with the collection."

"When would be a good time?"

A pause, then the faint sound of a hand covering the receiver.

Isabel looked at the photograph on her desk. Ruth on a beach, laughing at something outside the frame. Isabel had kept it faced toward the wall for a year after the memorial, then decided that was an unkind way to remember a friend.

The receptionist returned.

"She says you should look at the lining."

"What lining?"

"The photograph in the attachment."

Isabel opened it.

A velvet coat lay on a conservation table, one sleeve folded back.

Along the exposed silk ran a line of tiny green stitches.

Her stitches.

She had made them as a student, working by a kitchen window while Ruth complained about the smell of the iron.

The receptionist waited.

This time Isabel asked a different question.

"Who has been keeping my work?"