Chapter 171

• The morning was quiet enough that I could hear the kettle click off from the back of the boutique. I had been here since just after sunrise, not because I had to be, but because I wanted the stillness before the first customer walked in. The Kyoto silk in the window caught the early light, softer now than yesterday, and I could see faint outlines of people stopping on the street to look.
• I was cutting pattern paper when Claudia came in, her scarf still pulled high against the wind. She had a paper bag with two coffees in one hand and a folded newspaper tucked under her arm. She set the coffee in front of me, then slid the paper across the table.
• “Read this,” she said.