Chapter 3 - The Hostile Workshop
On Monday morning at precisely seven-thirty, Jenna Walsh stepped through the heavy wooden doors of Hartley Piano Restoration. Her skin was still pale, and she had to pause briefly in the entryway to catch her breath, but she wore a clean, pressed denim shirt, sturdy leather boots, and her hair was tied back tightly. Maisie stood beside her, holding her mother’s lunch pail.
The workshop was an orchestra of industry: the rhythmic rasp of cabinet planes, the sweet scent of melted hide glue, the sharp ping of wire being brought to concert pitch. But the moment Jenna walked through the central aisle, the tools began to quiet down one by one.
Technicians in gray shop aprons peeked over workbenches. Rumors had spread like wildfire over the weekend—that an unknown cleaner, a charity case with a sick child, had bypassed five certified candidates because old man Graham had gone soft in his senior years.
Sitting near the back, at Bench Seven, was Jenna’s battered metal toolbox.
Before she could take five steps toward it, Trent Kesler stepped out from the main office, flanked by two younger men wearing immaculate, matching shop coats with embroidered emblems from a prestigious private conservatory.
“Mrs. Walsh,” Trent said loudly, his voice echoing over the quieted machinery. “I see you survived your dramatic weekend.”
Jenna stopped, keeping her chin up despite the cold knot tightening in her stomach. “I’m here to take my regulation test, Mr. Kesler. Mr. Hartley gave me until eight o’clock.”
“Mr. Hartley is sixty-four and sentimental,” Trent sneered, stepping closer so that only she and the nearest bench workers could hear his venom. “I run operations. And I don’t believe in bedtime stories. If you want Bench Seven, you aren’t just getting a standard entry exam. You’re taking the Master Regulation Challenge. Right now.”
Murmurs broke out across the room.
“Trent, that’s out of line,” called out an older technician named Morris, who had worked for Graham for twenty-five years. “The master exam is for twenty-year guild veterans! She applied for a bench technician slot!”
“She took a job that belongs to paying clients’ deadlines!” Trent snapped back, glaring at Morris before turning his cold eyes back to Jenna. “You claim you know vintage actions. Fine. You will regulate an eight-piece Renner assembly from an 1890s concert grand. You have forty-five minutes. Tolerances must be within three-tenths of a millimeter. If a single hammer fails the escapement or let-off test, you pack your rusty toolbox and take your daughter out of this building forever.”
“Trent!” Claire’s voice cut through the room as she marched out of her office. “What do you think you’re doing? Dad isn't here yet—he's at the lumber yard inspecting spruce!”
“I am protecting this company’s bottom line, Claire!” Trent shouted back, refusing to back down. “If she’s as good as her little girl claimed, she’ll pass. If she’s just another down-on-her-luck charlatan using her child for sympathy, she fails. Isn't that right, Mrs. Walsh?”
Jenna looked at Trent’s arrogant smirk, then looked down at Maisie, who was gripping the handle of the lunch pail with white knuckles. She remembered the nights sitting by Maisie’s bed with a wet rag on the girl’s feverish forehead, calculating pennies in her head while listening to the wind rattle the cracked window of their basement apartment. She was done running. She was done apologizing for existing.
“Start your timer, Mr. Kesler,” Jenna said, her voice clear and ringing like a struck tuning fork.
May you like
She walked straight to Bench Seven, picked up her grandfather’s vintage regulating pliers, and set her wooden gauges on the scarred maple surface. Her hands, which had trembled in the hospital bed, were steady as stone the second steel touched wood.
Trent tapped his silver stopwatch. “Forty-five minutes. Go.”
