The Calligrapher

Nora hated Brighton Mall. She wanted to go home as soon as she stepped on the grounds. She had moved her shop from her home at the request of her granddaughter Mina, which was a thinly veiled command. “You’ll find better opportunities here,” Mina had promised. Get out of your house so I can sell it, is what Nora heard.

The last time Mina had visited the house, she’d stayed less than fifteen minutes. She, in a tailored navy suit and her microlocs pulled into a tight bun, had struggled to yank her heels from the muddy crevices of the cobblestone that led to the cottage. Once inside, she grimaced at smells that reminded Nora of her childhood. Ink and cedar. She sat stiffbacked in the stool Nora offered, and politely refused the tea brewed by Nora's favorite neighbor. Mina kept a safe distance between herself and everything else, explaining that she couldn’t afford to have her new suit dry cleaned. Nora sometimes wondered what Mina would think of her if they weren’t related.

Opening the wooden case with a soft click, the elderly woman smiled at the broad edged pen inside. Thin streams of sunlight shone off the metallic sticker declaring the handle to be “Genuine Mother of Pearl.” At its end, her name was inscribed in golden lettering: Nora Butler. The pen sat snugly in its bed, ready for a brand new day of writing. Her mother had given it to her on her thirtieth birthday, the inscription a recent Christmas gift from Mina.

Her sign was up, Nora’s Calligraphy; her papers were neatly organized in their bins, separated by color, pattern, and quality; and the ink well was ready, filled with her favorite blue ink. Before pulling the pen out, Nora needed to prepare herself for a day of writing. Spring was still leaning toward winter, wrapping the world in the coldness that brought out the tremors. Her art would be nothing but an erratic mess of smudges and drips if she didn’t chase them away.

To get her blood flowing, she moved her shoulders in circles. Her arms went up and down, her wrists touching above her head before dropping in her best imitation of a ballerina. They brushed against her small halo of coily silver hair. Each one of these exercises was coupled with a breath and one affirmation: Slow and steady wins the race. She rolled her wrists. First, inward–slow and steady– then, outward– wins the race. She held her hand away from her and bent the fingers back, stretching each wrist. Slow and steady wins the race. To finish, she imagined all the beautiful things she might be lucky enough to create that day. Only then did she finally feel ready. The customers would be coming soon. She pulled her pen from its box.

A shiver of nervousness washed over her, exacerbated by the blowing wind. The long misplaced feeling of being the new person in town. She had worked out of her home for twenty years; twenty years since this queasy feeling rippled through her before settling in her stomach.

A feeling made worse by how her jeans squeezed her belly like she squeezed tubes of metallic ink. No one judged anyone for wearing sweats in their own home, but here, she “needed to make a good impression.” Mina’s words of course. She had invited Mina to sit with her on her first day at the stand, but she had many reasons why she couldn’t. Distance and work, Mina had said.

The clock said the mall was open, and she waited for someone to approach. She tried to smile at as many people as she could, but they averted their eyes, like she was a leper. A contaminant. Mina had coached her, “You have to wave and invite people over to your shop to get their attention. How else will they know what you sell?” Surrounded by bright electronic signs that flashed through phrases faster than she could read them, Nora’s stall felt tiny and antiquated. Back home, she didn’t have to compete. People came to her.

At one corner of the courtyard, a little girl with a man looked her way. She waved her over, and the two sat down in front of her. Her first customer was Aspen. “A beautiful tree,” she told the toddler, who smiled blankly. Aspen wanted her name and flowers. Nora started right away. She dipped her pen into the ink well and approached the paper.

Nora was versed in all types of calligraphy, but she specialized in blackletter. The strokes looked so strong and bold to her, and they provided plenty of room for adornments. She couldn’t wait to add some bark texture to the letters. She started her first stroke right above the faint waistline guide. The ink glided like water across the page. The satisfaction of such a clear line never diminished for Nora. The girl watched her hands closely, her eyes widening with each strike of her pen.

The nib swiped up and down, building a beautiful piece. She liked how the scratch of the pen sounded against the thick paper. Writing was a meditation that quieted the din of any space. Just Nora, her pen, and the paper.

She used a thinner pen to add loops and curlicues, turning the blue letters into the forest the name suggested. It was then that the meditation broke.

“That’s not a flower,” Aspen said to her father. She pointed and frowned. “I want flowers!” She started to cry. Nora stopped and looked at the man, eyes wide. He winced at the little girl’s wails. He apologized, and asked if she could make a new one.

While Nora started the new piece, Aspen wandered away, bored after sitting for ten minutes. Her father trailed after her as she explored. Nora grumbled about the tiny critic. Toddlers had terrible taste. She would finish the original piece and use it as a display piece.

Suddenly, a flash of red caught Nora’s eye. She looked up. A man in a bright red suit was walking straight toward her. He moved briskly, as if he had many places to be after he stopped at her stall. His short black hair was neat and stylish. The sun caught his wrist and bounced off the golden luxury watch he was wearing. His face was mildly annoyed, as if there were a fly he needed to squash. Just behind him, a short man in a black suit worked hard to keep up with his long strides.

“Hello, how can I–” Nora began. He placed his hand up to stop her.

“My name is Daniel Warring, the owner of this mall.” This made Nora sit up straighter. He was so young to be an owner. He couldn’t be any older than her Mina, who’d just turned 34 earlier that year. “Despite the curious nature of your approval, it is set to be revoked by the end of the month. Your business doesn’t align with our brand. ” He emphasized align as if Nora needed help spelling it.

“Is there something wrong in the contract?”

“Well no, but–”

“Then I’ll be here next month whether you like it or not.” She didn’t want to be here, but there was only one young person that she would let boss her around. And it wasn’t Daniel Warring.

She smiled like a crocodile. His eye twitched and his mouth curled up on one side. This boy was used to things going his way, and it gave Nora great satisfaction to disrupt that. He placed his hands on the tabletop, and leaned in to look her in the eye. She held his gaze. Whatever weakness he was looking for, he wouldn’t find.

“By the end of the month,” he repeated. Nora shook her head and continued to smile.

He flared his nose before pulling his face into a neutral expression. He opened his mouth, but before he could speak, the short man in black stepped between the two of them. The man directed Daniel away, off to their next stop. Nora could hear him grumbling about old ladies and their stubbornness. She would show him just how stubborn she could be.

Yet her hand shook as she finished Aspen’s piece. It took twice as long as it should have, since she had to stop often to chase the tremors away.

Two weeks passed before their second confrontation. That ugly red suit was always zipping around the mall, meaning he had no time to bother her. Nora found that while she could get many more customers here than she did in her home, the style of art they wanted was simplistic. Unlikely to wait for a more complex piece, and unwilling to pay any higher than her lowest price. In the end, the numbers were about the same, but she was left with a growing hole in her creative satisfaction.

Once, within earshot of Nora, and after frowning at all the options she provided and ordering nothing, someone told their partner not to worry: they could print something similar at home. “There are plenty of fonts like that. We can download them and change the colors however you like.” That rattled Nora. After her, this would, in its authentic state, become an obsolete art.

A visit from an old client cheered her up. They commissioned a sizable piece, one that she would get to work on at home for the next month or so. Nora would write a selection of the The Canterbury Tales on several large pieces of handmade paper. She already knew where she would order the paper and what colors she would use. Sketching a few different ideas for the large ‘S’ would be fun, and she could later use it as a nice display piece for her stall. While halfway through some flower additions, after already finishing two letters, the paper skidded away and out of her hands.

She looked up in a daze to see a bright red suit.

“People pay for this?” He had pulled it close and away from his face, back and forth like it was an illusion. He twisted it in different directions to discern what exactly was appealing about it.

“The last time someone did that to me, it was my granddaughter.” A dot of ink dripped onto the tabletop.

“Really?” he said, not looking away from the paper. Nora could see the large red smudge left by his grubby hands. He noticed the ink and wiped it off on one of her nicer pieces of cardstock.

“Yes, when she was a toddler. More than thirty years ago.” She snatched the paper away. There was no salvaging the ugly red blob that covered the corner of the paper. She huffed a breath and glared. His eyes shone with triumph.

“Sorry,” he said. He smirked, then walked away, soon out of range. If he had stood there any longer, Nora would have thrown something at his head.

Their last altercation put Nora in the hospital.

Three months had passed. Nora had scraped by with loans from Mina. While proud that she had proved the Warring boy wrong, she and Mina both knew it wasn’t sustainable. “You liked that Korean barbecue place we went to before, right? We can meet this Saturday evening to talk marketing. I know a lot,” Mina said on the phone. Are you self-sabotaging?, is what Nora heard.

Another cold and windy day, typical for mid-April. Most people had headed home, and Nora started packing up early. She was eager to get to the restaurant. The sweet succulent meat would dilute the bitter discussion that awaited her.

The glass ink well was the last thing sitting on her table. She had forgotten her gloves today, and the tremors were extra strong. She was trying to figure out how to pack it up without breaking it.

Someone sat at her booth, dragging the chair across the ground.

“Sorry, I’m closed for the night,” she said without looking up. “Come back tomorrow.”

“Are you aware of how vulnerable you are?” Nora stopped. She recognized that voice. Did he mean her contract? He must’ve found a loophole. Her chest tightened.

For the first time, he was in blue jeans. They were dark and baggy. His white shirt was frumpled, one piece stuck up awkwardly to reveal a splash of red, black, and green ink. He had tattoos? The more she looked, the more wrong he seemed. His hair was flat and lifeless, his golden watch was gone.

“Me?” She pointed to herself.

“Yes, you. Fragile. Frail. Flimsy, delicate, feeble.” He pointed an accusing finger at her. She scoffed, which made him lean in. “Every day you’re outside in the cold working on shit no one even cares about.” He punctuated each of the last five words with stabbing jabs. She looked past him, at the black suit man sprinting their way.

“By the end of the month,” she said, parroting his words. “And yet here I am. Months later.” She tilted her head and smiled. She wasn’t fragile. A little shaky maybe. But not fragile. Not yet.

He laughed dryly. His voice was louder now. “Yes, with the extensive help of your granddaughter.” Nora had heard enough. She leaned into his face as well, and started yelling. He needed to leave Mina out of this. Later, when she recounted this story, she found she couldn’t remember much. Just the beads of sweat on his face. His hot cabbage filled breath. Hands banging on the tabletop.

She was sure it had been his arm that knocked into the ink well. Sending it through the air. Spinning. It spit out its contents, blue ink splashing on the two of them. Finally, it landed on its head, and shattered. Nora reached for it but missed, unwittingly shoving her hands into a mess of glass slivers.

He was at her side, and grabbed her trembling, bloody hand. He motioned to the black suit man, and assured her an ambulance was on the way. He shook his head, and continued to mutter about her fragility.

Nora cried as they pulled out each individual glass shard. The tremors made the extraction especially difficult. Mina had called to push back their dinner date. Distance and work, she had lamented. When Daniel filled her in, she said she was on her way.

Daniel insisted on being in the room with her so she wouldn’t be alone. Angry silence sat on their shoulders, and held them in place. All Nora could think about was whether she would be able to return to work. She should have reached with her left hand.

“My mother is in hospice,” Daniel offered. She remained quiet. She hadn’t asked. “I didn’t realize how much time I had spent away from her until this morning. When she waved good bye, it was as if she were a complete stranger. I remembered her towering over me in her high heels and smelling like roses. Today was the first time she’d been small.”

Nora had thought she knew everything there was to know about hospice once her mother had gone into it. The sad finality of it, but understanding that it was part of the circle of life. What jarred her was admitting her daughter.

When is it ever normal for a mother to bury her child? She remembered being comforted by the knowledge that it was possible for people to leave hospice. Anecdotes Mina had found from far corners of the internet corroborated this fact, and she held fast to them. That an imaginary cure would materialize and save her daughter. She remembered how she and Mina suffered in the aftermath of that lie. How they clung to each other.

Nora could feel Daniel’s eyes on her. She didn’t return his pitiful gaze. She wasn’t in hospice, and she didn’t plan to be. She wasn’t Mrs. Warring.

He sighed. “Jerry has already paid the bill. You don’t have to concern yourself with that.”

“Jerry?”

“The man that always follows me around.”

Nora nodded. “Well, I wasn’t worried. You were paying, even if I had to sue you.”

He laughed. “I’m not sure you would’ve had much of a case since you dove into the glass yourself.” The two bickered about what happened until the doctor showed up. Later, when Mina finally arrived, they said their goodbyes. Daniel never apologized, but he promised to replace her ink well and get her a nicer spot inside the mall.

Nora’s new spot in the food court almost felt better than working from home. Almost. It didn’t smell like ink and cedar, nor was the tea from the neighboring shop as good.

But she made friends with the cupcake lady next to her stall. Mina loved that shop. She rarely made it to the mall, but she was often at Nora’s house picking up cupcakes she’d ordered. The many different piping tips reminded Nora of her set of calligraphy pens. The two were discovering together how beautiful blackletter calligraphy looked on cakes. The young woman was a quick learner.

Daniel denied purposefully putting her in the courtyard alone. “It was a lottery!” he’d said. She didn’t believe that. He knew she didn’t, and was eager to please. While making a pass around the mall, Nora noticed an activity center with empty classrooms. She had an idea she planned to pitch to Daniel the next time she saw him.