Oh, Look! I'm back.
Gold Restoration
...
Mr. Gold set aside the brush and rolled his aching neck. It may have been closing time, but that hardly meant the work was done. Without needing to look, he set the jar of solvent aside, pushed the start button on his timer, and stumped through the store to lock up and turn off the neon sign. Anyone with real business knew he had a side door.
After cleaning the last of the now jellied varnish away from the antique wood he sat back and admired the natural grain. What possessed people to wreck a beautiful heirloom with a tin of cheap tinted polymer, he would never understand, but the fine rosewood could be under liquid wax until he had time to properly buff museum polish into it. Mr. Gold settled the library steps on his main shelf and glanced over his workbench.
His tools were cleaned and stored, the few splatters wiped up, and his notes on the day's projects were carefully ordered and filed away. While each piece had a tag number and file, major projects had their own notebook. The chocolatier's desk, the enamel pieces, and the stack of mid nineteenth-century maps, among others, all had notebooks, and he only used acid-free pens to write in them. Providence of the pieces, as well as the process by which they were restored, was everything to potential buyers.
Satisfied that his desk and workbench were put to rights, Mr. Gold tied his scarf around his neck and slipped on his coat. The drop box by his door had one cash payment, and this slid into a silk-lined pocket with his keys. There weren't many comforts available to a harsh little hermit like himself, but his rabbit lined-gloves, fine tailoring, and a penchant for exquisite collectibles could be counted among them. His tenants were grateful he wasn't inclined to random rent increases, and in return he expected their rents on time, in full, and with as little fuss as possible. Only two had ever given him real trouble and neither Mr. Jefferson nor Dr. Whale spoke of how they'd worked out the payment plans to the other tenants, only that they still had a place to live.
The shop was just a block and an elevator ride from his apartment. He intentionally did not live above the shop so he could escape his projects there, as well as the infernal footfalls of the heavy-soled tenants in the four floors above. The neighborhood was mildly gentrified, though not enough to demand the exorbitant rents a dozen blocks away. As it was, the eight-story, dark stone building was equipped with modern air handling, elevators, and a doorman. He'd made sure he acquired one as soon as he bought the place. He rather liked having his complex errands taken care of. Between the doorman and his building manager, the place ran as smoothly as if it were done by magic.
"Good evening, Mr. Gold. Working late?"
"Always, Graham. Any mail?"
Graham Humbert hurried to fetch a small stack of letters as Mr. Gold loosened his scarf. "Here you are, sir." Three mailed-in payments, one with interest, two notices of contract alterations, an inquiry into a piece, and a flyer. When he noticed the address on the flyer, he peered across the street at the one building on the block he didn't own.
A storefront was papered over with a reminder to watch the space. "Graham, anything across the way today?"
"Yes, sir. A crew was bringing in kitchen equipment and finishing out the front room. They covered the windows after that." Graham held up another flyer. "Looks like the owner wants input about the menu, hours, and so on."
Gold grunted. "I might give them half a chance, but they are where they are." He looked over the potential menu concepts. "With food like this, they ought to be located with the hipster crowd a mile from here." His buildings may not be the fanciest in town, but they were filled with employed professionals with solid incomes and regular hours.
"Yes, sir." Whether Graham agreed or not, Gold didn't care. He didn't rent him a tidy, deeply discounted place to live to be a grinning idiot or a yes-man. "Is there anything else?"
"Not tonight."
"Good night, sir."
"Hmm."
…
His apartment faced the street. The first one in this building had not, but now he preferred to leave the top-floor penthouses to people who could pay for them. Besides, if the elevator was ever out of service, he was only one flight of stairs up, and his wrecked ankle could handle that.
Just below, if he looked through the slivers left uncovered at the top of the windows, Gold could make out buckets, stacks of tile, and boxes littering the floor of the formerly empty storefront. He wasn't against things coming to the neighborhood, far from it, but he hated the idea of an ill-matched business opening, struggling, and then folding right across the street.
He started a hot bath in his massive tub, one of the other few comforts available besides the silk and the doorman. As the steam began to rise, he pulled out the flyer again. Instead of ticking a box beside one of the concept groups, he simply wrote in the margin.
Decent, simple food. Good coffee. Proper tea. Open no later than 11pm.
There. Let their market researchers chew on that. He'd leave it with Graham in the morning and ask him to return it to whoever left it. If the prospective restaurateur was smart, they'd take at least some of his advice.
He shed his clothes and sank into the tub. His neck finally started to unwind and he only got out when his eyes kept drifting out of focus. Staying close to the grab bars, he dressed for bed with the television on until the droning from his bedroom was too much.
"Shut up." He snapped as he turned it off. His own voice echoed off the tile, leaving behind the silence to which he was accustomed. Mr. Gold climbed into bed and dropped off into uneasy sleep in the lonely divot that cradled him.