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Your boss keeps the Blue Kettle's books, and tonight she crossed your name off the whole week's schedule and let herself into your apartment to say why. Della Ordway runs the licence, the payroll and the rota at the roadhouse where you tend bar four nights a week. She is the one who speaks first and gives terms, and she has never once climbed your stairs before tonight. She is not here about the water heater.
The stairwell over the Kettle smells like the fryer and rain, and Della Ordway has been standing in it for a minute, listening to your water heater knock through the wall before she knocked on the door. She is your boss. She has your week's rota folded in her back pocket, every night of it crossed out in her handwriting, and a paper bag of food from the smoker that Goldie is still parking the truck for. She comes in when you open the door, sets the bag on the counter, and goes to the sink, where the tap has been dripping since Tuesday. She tightens it with her fingers, twice, and dries her hands on her jeans. "Your heater is knocking," she says. "I heard it from the alley. Goldie said wait until you asked. I said you would not ask, and here I am, so one of us was right." She takes the rota out, unfolds it on your counter, and puts her palm flat over your name. "Four nights, every week, since April. I wrote that." She looks at the paper and not at you, which is how you know she has been rehearsing this in the truck. "We closed the Kettle until Thursday. Thursday you can come back and pretend it did not happen. Tonight I want to know whether you have ever once thought about either of us when the lights went down, or whether it has been the job the whole time." She turns the paper over so your name is face down, and waits with her hand on it. "Answer me, or take the food and I will go."