The Manager Set A Cash Box Beside My Dog Towels

The first thing Prudence Keene put on my folding table was a cash box. The second was a page that said I admitted to stealing water.

Between them sat my stack of warm dog towels.

"Two thousand four hundred dollars," she said. "Cash, by four. We'll settle this without making it ugly."

She said it loudly enough for the woman rinsing her terrier to turn off the spray.

I had a rescue hound named Button on my grooming mat. He feared hose clicks, raised hands, and people who stood over him. I lowered my hand and hummed three notes, the same little tune I used when a dog began to shake.

"Please step back," I told her.

"You don't give orders here, Lian."

I was a thirty-seven-year-old Chinese American woman with a blunt black bob, brown skin, and a pale scar across my left thumb. That morning, my apron held a slicker brush, two combs, and half a biscuit. I looked like the dog groomer I was.

Prudence Keene was a fifty-eight-year-old white American woman with a stiff silver bob, pale eyes, and a cream suit that never seemed to catch dog hair.

She managed Morrow Court Arcade, a short row of shops outside downtown Newark, Delaware. Rain had gathered under its covered walk. Wet leaves stuck to the mat at my door.

"Everyone else pays for what they use," she said.

The terrier's owner stared at the floor. Button pressed his nose into my elbow.

"What meter number are you talking about?"

Prudence tapped her page.

"The arcade's water. Your little dog business has been taking it for months."

My little dog business had two self-service tubs, a low grooming table, and a floor drain I scrubbed every night. It also had its own water bill.

"My bill comes straight to me," I said. "Show me yours."

"Don't make this a performance."

She had placed her cash box beneath the hand-lettered sign that said, TAKE YOUR TIME. SOME DOGS NEED IT.

I took Button's lead from the hook.

"Mrs. Ellis, could you wait with him in the dry room? I'll finish his feet in a minute."

Button followed his foster mother, his nails clicking softly on the rubber runner.

Only then did I read the demand. It named me, Lian Zhou, but not the owner listed in the arcade records. It had no bill attached, no dates of use, and no meter reading. The bottom held a line for my signature.

Above that line was the word tenant.

"That word is wrong," I said.

"You occupy a bay. I manage the property. Call yourself whatever helps."

Behind my desk was a narrow file cabinet. Its bottom drawer held a blue folder labeled UNIT FOUR. My aunt had written those words when we bought the bay together seven years earlier. Prudence had seen the folder many times. She had never asked what was in it.

"I'll need this demand by email," I said.

"Cash doesn't need an email."

"Your demand does."

She smiled at the terrier's owner.

"Some people hear kindness and think weakness."

Then she leaned toward me.

"After four, it's a hundred fifty dollars a day. I can also review whether animals belong in this arcade at all."

There had been a dog wash in Unit Four before either of us arrived. Its permitted use was in that blue folder too.

I moved the towels away from her box.

"Please take that with you."

She left the paper. She took the box.

For the next hour, I trimmed feet, checked ears, and worked conditioner through Button's rough coat. My three notes came out unevenly. He still leaned against my knee.

When the last customer left, I opened my phone's meter album.

Every Friday, I took a picture of the reading beside a dated card. A cracked pipe had once soaked my first rented shop. Since then, checking water had felt as normal as cleaning a clipper blade.

For eleven months, my use had climbed even when my bookings fell.

I had reported it twice. Prudence had answered that rescue dogs required extra rinsing.

Those same eleven months, she had collected an extra $480 each month for what her notices called a temporary drain reserve. I had paid while asking for the promised accounts. The notices said unused money would come back after the work was checked.

Now I laid them beside the demand.

Across the walk, the new salon annex glowed behind frosted glass. Prudence had cut its opening ribbon herself. I could hear a washing machine through its open back door.

My meter's red wheel turned.

Both my tubs were dry. My washer was unplugged. I checked the toilet tank and every tap.

The wheel kept turning.

I took a photograph and called Felix Tran, the plumber who serviced my mixing valves.

"Could you come before I open tomorrow?"

"Bad leak?" he asked.

"I don't know yet. Bring the small clipboard."

At 4:03, Prudence's email arrived with a red heading: FIRST DAILY PENALTY, $150.