At Our New Table There Was Room For Every Name

I interviewed Nora on a Monday, after the morning rush.

She brought a notebook. I brought the job description Lorna had helped me write.

We talked about hours, wages, school pickup, and what happened when someone called in sick. We talked about the drawer count and the loan shelf and customers who left their wash until closing.

"What would you change first?" I asked.

She looked around the office.

"I'd put the prices where people can read them before they bring in six bags. And I'd have two people check the cash count."

"Even if one of them is me?"

"Especially if one of them is you."

I offered her thirty hours a week at $22 an hour. We could afford it because I would handle repairs myself and stop paying an outside service. Lorna had checked the budget with me, line by line.

Nora read the offer twice.

"This isn't part of the settlement?"

"The settlement is finished. This is a job."

She signed. I signed. We each kept a copy.

On her first day, Dennis showed her where the stubborn supply drawer caught. She showed him how to lift it slightly so it would slide.

By noon, they had moved the price board.

Willa started at her new school that same week. Nora walked her to the bus stop, then came to work with a small blue lunch box.

There was no grand opening when I became the only owner. I couldn't afford one, and our customers mostly wanted the dryers to work.

I replaced the broken bench cushion. Dennis painted the bathroom door. Nora put a fresh pad of paper beside the phone so nobody had to write messages on old receipts.

The fund's five thousand dollars went to another project. We received the written decision and filed it. I had no reason to argue with it.

Instead, I set aside $96 a month from repair work for free wash credits. We started small. Nora tracked every credit, and Lorna checked the total.

No one had to tell a sad story to use one.

Once, a man asked whether he should thank me in front of everyone. I told him the clean socks were thanks enough.

Willa visited after school on the days her mother worked late. She did homework at a small table near the office. Then she went to the sitter until Nora finished. We wrote that plan down too.

Her mailbag hung from the back of her chair.

For a while, she checked it every few minutes. Nora kept the important documents at home now, in a sturdy folder. The bag held pencils, folded drawings, and a little pack of crackers.

One afternoon, Willa asked me to sew its loose strap.

"I'm better with metal," I said.

"Alma said small stitches."

She watched me make six of them, then decided my work would hold.

"You can put it down while you play," Nora told her gently.

Willa laid it on the table. Ten minutes later, it was still there, and she was outside drawing squares on the sidewalk with Dennis's granddaughter.

Nora stood beside me at the window.

"That's the first time she hasn't asked me to watch it," she said.

We stayed quiet until the dryer buzzer sounded.

By late April, the last old snow had melted from the shaded edge of the lot. I went to Nora's apartment one Sunday with a curtain rod and my drill.

She had made lunch. Two plants sat on the windowsill. Willa's yellow coat hung by the door with a new blue button beside the old one.

"I kept them different," she told me. "So I know which is which."

We hung the curtains after lunch. Nora held one end of the rod while I checked the level. Willa stood below us, giving advice neither of us needed.

When we were done, she brought out three folded cards.

One said MAMA. One said WILLA. Mine said JUNE.

She put them around the kitchen table.

"Are we expecting company?" Nora asked.

"It's mail," Willa said. "Everyone gets some."

Inside mine was a drawing of three chairs under a window. She had written their new address beneath it.

I traced the apartment number with my thumb. Willa had drawn a small plate in front of every chair, and a cup beside mine.

Nora poured tea. I put my drill away.

Willa left her little mailbag on its hook by the door and took her place at the table, where the afternoon sun had warmed her chair.