"We've got big renovations coming!" the glowing sign on the door reads, though backwards, since I'm inside and the sign's meant for the street.

That's tomorrow. Tonight.

My heart skips two beats.

And today...

My heart skips, like a cookie across a countertop.

Today we're putting up the sign from Parro's birthday, replacing the old wooden one over the doors outside that says "Par o n An e' " in worn letters instead of "Parro and Ange's" like it's supposed to. We're--I'm--doing it in the middle of open store time, since that'll probably attract attention for potential customers. Like doing a dance in the middle of the street to point people to the store. But not so obviously desperate.

I agreed to do it in the middle of open store time, for the sake of attracting customers. But I regret that.

I have my shirt with "do not disturb; I'm busy" written on the front and back in red letters so hopefully nobody will ask me questions. Hopefully they'll go inside and ask Ange about why we're taking the store sign down--are we moving? Are we selling the place out? Are we rebranding? (No, we're just replacing the old wooden sign with a new wooden sign, oh yes, we still sell high quality wood products and hand-crafted clothing from the surface, yes we do.)

But who knows if the people coming for the curiosity of a shop's sign changing in the middle of the day will pay any heed to my shirt telling them to go ask somebody else because I'm busy. What if they try asking me?

I regret agreeing to do it in the middle of the day. And, I've got the whole morning before I'm allowed to start on it, so my heart just keeps skipping like a bouncy cookie on a table.

To distract me, I do inventory, getting ready for the "big renovations!" tonight, renovations such as, we're revamping the whole layout of the store. The whole thing.

I count how many rice shirts, shorts, and wood bedposts we have to make sure we don't lose any in the transition. I stack boxes in the back, organize the colored putty so it's easy to find later. I write little reminders on the bottoms of the price tags, "ro" for "rice shorts," "bp" for bedposts, so after we move all the wares we'll know where to put them back to match the correct price tags.

I spend minutes at a time in the back room, stressing over screwdrivers and back up screwdrivers and putty, buckets; I know I can lift the sign by myself, I brought it over this morning on my own and it sits propped by the exit of the back door's box maze. I have a bucket to put the old screws into so I don't have to touch them and get the taste all over my fingers, I dump the package of new screws into a different bucket and practice picking them up with the sticky point of the screwdriver so I don't have to touch them either.

I've never technically put a store sign up before, my right arm might twitch and betray me and spill everything over the street. But I did help fix the back door's hinges with Ange, and I put together broken boxes sometimes, and I watched Da fix many table legs. It's just, I've never put up a store sign before. And not in the middle of open-store time either, with customers coming and going through the door just a few paddles away, watching me...

***

I put up the sign. Like pairs of eyes scour my skin, I do it all unsettled, unsure how to move as a regular being anymore. People watch me jerkily move my limbs to twist out one screw, then another, and another, until the sign wobbles, and I balance it on my knee, and my swim bladder cooperates for once because I keep floating steady in the water, but the one time I get a cramp in my left hand and switch the screwdriver to my right hand to flex out my palm--my right arm flings the screwdriver onto the teardrop roof, and the bucket of old screws on my right elbow tips over but I flip it upright before anything falls out. The screwdriver tumbles out of sight, and I hope Ange or Parro weren't coming out the back door just then.

But I brought a second screwdriver (and a third, just in case the screws were different sizes. They aren't, but the second screwdriver fits well enough like the first), so I use that, and quiver my back fins because people surely saw me chuck the screwdriver. But I don't actually look behind me into the street; I don't want to actually see anybody staring.

I twist out screws, I plop them into the tiny wood bucket on my right elbow, I prop the sign up with my knee, and I twist the last screw out and the sign nearly falls on my face but I catch it, and a pair of people swim out of the store and glance at me funny but I stiffen my back fins like their stares mean nothing. Absolutely nothing.

I carry "Par o n An e' " over the roof to the back door. I leave it outside. The end bites into the mud. The bucket of old screws sits beside it. I can't find the screwdriver, until I check under the building and it's sprawled beside the anchoring rope. I scoop it up, rubbing the sandy mud off.

I swim inside, through the box maze, and grab the new sign by the box maze exit, I slide a new bucket of screws up my left elbow; vibrations buzz from the store and they might be more than usual, or they might not, am I attracting more customers?

I put up the new sign. By holding it up with my knees plus one hand and wiggling it around until the corner sits over the screw position in the wood frame plastered to the glass and I get the first screw in alright but my right arm twitches, sending the second screw disappearing into the street. A little kid, eyes bright, fins red-nearly-pink, swims up to me and says something, and I point at my shirt and my ears and probably his dad comes up and says more things and I point at my ears with the screwdriver and he pulls the kid away and that's messed up my swim bladder because the rest of the time I'm putting up the store sign I keep having to kick with my free leg to keep from sinking, all the street goers must notice the strange paddling of my foot fins how could they not, but I get the sign up. I fill all the slots with screws. I only lose three other screws in the street. My hand keeps hold of the screwdriver even though it cramps a little. And I ignore the people in the street staring at me, my paddling, my twitching arm.

I put up the new sign, I push and pull it to double-check that it's sturdy then I swim over the roof to the back door and drop the screwdrivers and bucket to the mud. I lean against the door frame and float there, head bopping the top of the frame, fingers tap-tapping together, toes wriggling between their webbing.

I put up the new sign. So there. It didn't fall and I didn't flatten anyone with it. So there.

I leave "Par o n An e' " by the back door, with the screwdriver and screws, and I swim back home. I eat half a box of kelp cakes and want to take a nap but whenever I take naps I wake up feeling like seaweed chewed up and spat out so I swim back to the store. I carry "Par o n An e' " in through the box maze, so we can turn it into a table when we revamp the store layout tonight.