Marigold Neon on Printer's Glass

“You need eight words,” Pilar Trujillo says, blocking the landing to my flat with a bucket of marigolds planted on one hip. “Eight devastating, fundraiser-saving words.”

I set my groceries beside my door. “No.”

“That is one word. You’re hoarding the other seven.”

“I’m protecting them from misuse.”

Below us, Pilar’s flower shop throws orange and green across its front glass. The old print shop beside it has been vacant since I signed the upstairs lease, though its back room still houses a small press, a finicky duplicator, and enough type drawers to ruin a person’s posture. Next door, Nisha Patel props open her tattoo studio door with a paint can and watches us over coffee.

“Charging tolls for the stairs now, Aguilar?” she asks.

“Considering it.”

Pilar raises a flyer between us. “Yadira Salas is launching Five Mondays in the Window. Every Monday, a question for the block. Marigolds in the glass. Answer cards, donation jar, then an adult arts room when we have enough money.”

“Ambitious.”

“Thank you.”

“That was not praise.”

“Your famous softness is showing.”

Nisha takes a drink. “Terrifying development.”

Pilar taps the flyer. “First question: What room does Barelas need? I need one good line under it.”

I read the page despite myself. Six exclamation marks. Three fonts. A sunburst behind the donation instructions. *There are crimes that require a court, and there are crimes that require a red pen.*

“Write: ‘Answer the question.’”

She squints. “That sounds like a parking ticket.”

“It is accurate.”

“I want people to feel welcome.”

“Then ask someone welcoming.”

Her grin stays put, though it changes at the edges. “You write novels. Bestselling ones. You can spare a sentence.”

“I write alone, under contract, and nowhere near sunbursts.”

“Fine.” She folds the flyer once, neatly. “No sentence. No guilt trip. I asked; you declined.”

That lands cleaner than pleading would. Pilar has a talent for making refusal feel like a door she leaves unlocked instead of a debt.

Nisha says, “Both of you go to work before I tattoo your bad attitudes on the building.”

“I own one bad attitude,” I tell her. “It is heirloom quality.”

Pilar laughs and heads downstairs, marigolds bobbing against her yellow apron. “Enjoy your bunker, Renata.”

“It’s a flat.”

“Needs better copy,” Nisha says.

At ten, Pilar’s lights go dark. I tell myself I am checking whether the block has settled down. I tell myself that twice, which makes it a lie.

The flyer remains taped inside her window, visible from the sidewalk. I can read every ugly exclamation mark through the glass.

The print shop’s rear door takes my key. I switch on a task lamp, pull blank stock from a cabinet, and rebuild the whole thing. The new version gives the question room to breathe. It tells people where the money goes. It does not shout.

FIVE MONDAYS IN THE WINDOW WHAT ROOM DOES BARELAS NEED? Leave your answer. Help build an adult arts room.

I set the type in black, add marigold orange only where it earns its keep, and run fifty copies before the duplicator begins making its offended little clatter.

Then I take my screwdriver to Pilar’s lower window hinge. The panel has sagged for days, scraping its frame whenever she opens it. Three turns, a thin washer from my junk drawer, and it closes flush.

I stack the flyers under her door before dawn. No note. Notes invite gratitude, and gratitude invites conversation, which is how people get ideas.

At eight, I sit behind my curtain with coffee and a manuscript I haven’t read in ten minutes.

Pilar unlocks her shop. She sees the stack. She reads the top page. Then she opens the display window without fighting the hinge.

“Well,” she calls to the quiet block. “My anonymous helper has excellent kerning and access to basic tools.”

Nisha appears in her doorway, hair wrapped in a red scarf. “Sounds dangerous.”

“Extremely.” Pilar pins the new flyer to the glass, then looks straight at my second-floor curtain. “I’m a florist. I know how to follow a trail.”

I lower the curtain another inch.

“Threatening donors is bad business,” I call.

Her delighted laugh travels up the building. “So is hiding them. What else are you going to fix, Renata?”

I spend the rest of Monday pretending I do not have a suspect.

That lasts until lunch.

The replacement flyers are clipped to the counter beside the answer cards, and every time I look at them, I see Renata all over the page. Not her name. She would rather eat a potholder. Her choices.

The question gets the biggest type. The instructions do their job and stop talking. The orange sits where it belongs instead of screaming from every corner. Even the period after “Leave your answer” feels deliberate.

I’ve read all of Renata Aguilar’s novels. Twice. Her books have the same ruthless manners: they invite you in, hand you a chair, then rearrange your furniture while you’re distracted.

Nisha comes over at two with an iced coffee and studies the flyer.

“Your helper did good work,” she says.

“Your helper did good work,” I echo.

She squints at me. “That sounded annoying.”

“I’m collecting evidence.”

“Against whom?”

“The woman upstairs with the face of a tax audit.”

Nisha drinks her coffee. “Aguilar doesn’t do favors.”

“She does punctuation.”

“That is somehow worse.”

By closing, twenty-three answer cards sit in the jar. Somebody wants a room with long tables. Somebody wants a place to learn bookbinding after work. Somebody writes, in enormous green marker, A ROOM WHERE NOBODY HAS TO PRETEND THEY KNOW EVERYTHING.

I pin that one beside the cash register.

Tuesday morning, I arrive early with coffee in one hand and my keys in the other. Renata is hauling two cedar planter boxes through my open door.

She wears black jeans, a charcoal shirt, and the aggravated expression of a woman being forced to participate in civilization. A card tied to one box reads FOR FIVE MONDAYS, in Yadira’s blocky handwriting.

Renata stops when she sees me.

“Good morning,” I say. “Anonymous punctuation tyrant.”

“That is a slur against a legitimate trade.”

I lean my shoulder against the doorframe. “I knew it.”

“If you knew it, why did you yell at my curtain instead of asking?”

“Because I enjoy a trail.”

“You enjoy being a nuisance.”

“Also true. Are you stealing my donations?”

“Yadira said the boxes would be dropped behind the print shop. It looked like rain.”

I glance outside. The sky is clear enough to make a postcard jealous.

“Rain is not expected.”

“Bad weather is emotionally expected.”

There it is: a joke. A dry little thing, almost hidden under her scowl.

I grin. “You should put that on a flyer.”

“Absolutely not.”

She carries the second box farther into the shop. “Where do you want these?”

I point at the window. “One on each side. We’ll fill them with marigolds before the next display.”

“You have a plan.”

“I’m a florist. Plans are just prettier lists.”

“Debatable.”

“You fixed my hinge, rebuilt my campaign copy, and lugged in planter boxes before eight. You don’t get to act surprised that I have opinions.”

“I am surprised you let people say them out loud.”

“Only the interesting ones.”

We set the boxes beneath the glass. Renata crouches to straighten one by half an inch, then another quarter inch. Of course she does.

“You recognized the flyers from the punctuation?” she asks.

“From the punctuation, the spacing, and your pathological hatred of exclamation marks.”

“They are lazy.”

“They are festive.”

“They are screaming in party hats.”

I laugh so hard I have to put my coffee down.

Nisha arrives ten minutes later, takes in Renata beside the planter boxes, and lifts one eyebrow.

“Look,” she says. “The elusive volunteer.”

“I’m not volunteering,” Renata says.

“Then why are you holding dirt?”

“Circumstantial.”

Nisha looks at me. “She’s getting worse.”

“She’s getting funnier,” I say.

Renata shoots me a look that promises nothing and somehow makes me more cheerful.

I pull three index cards from beneath the register. “Since you’re here, I need a professional menace.”

“No.”

“That was fast.”

“You haven’t asked anything yet.”

“Next Monday’s window question. I have options.”

Renata folds her arms. “They’re all bad.”

“Two are merely unripe.”

I hold up the first card. “What do you wish you knew how to make?”

“Too broad.”

The second. “What would you learn if you had a room to try?”

“Better. Still vague.”

I lift the third. “What belongs at a long table?”

Renata studies it.

I keep my tone light. “You can decline, by the way. No punishment. No sad florist eyes. Tomorrow I will still sell you a reasonable bouquet you pretend not to need.”

Her mouth shifts, almost giving me a smile.

“That sounds threatening.”

“It’s excellent customer service.”

She takes the cards from my hand. “Fifteen minutes.”

“That wasn’t no.”

“It was not yes either.”

“Fine. The first draft of yes.”