Every morning she got up at five. She went to the diner and got ready for the breakfast rush. It was over by eight thirty, and then they would have a long cigarette break and get ready for the lunch rush at eleven thirty. They were busy, which made the time pass quickly. At two she would be exhausted and nearly done with her work. Ready for another cigarette, a change of clothes, and then a beer or a Seven & Seven. The girls all drank Seven & Seven or Canadian Club and Coke.

The next day they would show up, laughing about hangovers and throat clearing behind their fists over cigarettes and coffee. They stacked scratched yellow molded-plastic glasses for water. They refilled ketchup bottles and saltshakers. The quarters and dimes added up to a surprising amount of money. She liked the midmorning coffee break: one lit cigarette after another, and endless cups of weak coffee from thick mugs with permanent stains in the bottoms. It took three packets of sugar and two containers of half-and-half for the coffee to taste of anything. They wiped old, sticky syrup from plastic dispensers with wet cotton rags. They swept the floor and sprayed Windex on the Formica counter (Formica is a decorative laminate made of paper and melamine resin—she couldn’t help but hear Bobby’s voice. But it pleased her that she remembered), then there was yet another cigarette break, and a round of cleaning plastic menus until they signed out at three. Sometimes in the heat of the rush they would move within inches of each other—reach and duck at the exact right moment without saying a word. She felt an adrenaline lift getting it done when five things needed to be done all at once. Being able to do this in the face of chaos gave her a tangible confidence she hadn’t felt before. It was satisfying—a confidence that she wore in her hips.