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Tracey had forgotten the table again. The cloth sat under one small hand, bunched into a damp pink lump against the Formica, while she leaned so far around the back of the chair that her belly pressed into its vinyl edge. Marian Bell had three plates on one arm. Not two. Three. Tracey had counted them when Marian came through the kitchen door, lips moving silently with each one, and now she watched the waitress turn sideways past a man pulling out his chair without losing so much as a pea. Marian did not look at the plates. She looked where she was going. That was the part Tracey liked. Her arm stayed flat and steady, and when a little space opened between two chairs she went through it as if she had known the space would be there all along. Tracey lifted her own arm and made it flat too, forgetting that the cloth was beneath her other hand until Glenda passed close enough to touch two fingers to the top of her head. “Table, baby.” Tracey looked down as though surprised to find one there. “I doin’ it.” Glenda kept moving with the coffeepot. “Do some more of it.” Tracey scrubbed the same clean patch twice, heard Marian say, “Coming around you, hon,” to another waitress, and immediately stopped again.
Marian put the plates down one after another before Tracey could see exactly how she did it, and Tracey’s face pinched with annoyance. She climbed onto the lower rung of the chair for a better look, one sneaker slipping once before she caught herself against the backrest, and by then Marian had already tucked the empty arm against her waist and turned away. Tracey hopped down and put the cloth across her forearm. It fell straight to the floor. She picked it up, folded it once because the folded napkins on the counter stayed where people put them, and tried again. This time it rested along her arm for nearly two whole steps before sliding toward her elbow. She twisted sideways to save it and bumped the chair. “Uh-oh.” Nobody came running. Tracey looked toward Glenda anyway, found her mother writing something on a little pad while an older man spoke across the counter, and quickly set the chair straight. Then she laid the cloth over her arm again and tried Marian’s walk, chin up, arm level, feet careful. She made it around one corner of the table before the bell above the front door rang, and the cloth dropped forgotten behind her.
Darlene Price looked up before anybody else did. Tracey watched that too. Darlene had been pouring tea into a glass and talking to a woman near the register, but the bell sounded and her eyes went to the door while her hand kept pouring. A man and a woman came in with a boy between them. Darlene finished the tea, set the pitcher down, took three menus and met them before they had gone more than a few steps. “Three?” she asked, and the man nodded. “Anywhere’s fine.” Darlene looked once across the room. Tracey looked too, though she did not know what she was supposed to see. There were empty tables near the window and two empty booths farther back, but Darlene took them toward the booth near the wall. Tracey hurried two steps after them before remembering the line Glenda had made very clear earlier, the line that was not painted on the floor but might as well have been. She stopped just short of it and put both toes together. Darlene handed out the menus, moved the sugar jar away from the boy when he reached for it, and turned before the family had even settled properly. Tracey stared after her. “How she know?” she asked when Glenda came near again. “Know what?” Tracey pointed with her whole hand. “There.” Glenda glanced toward the booth. “Where to put them?” Tracey nodded hard. Glenda said, “She looked,” and continued past. Tracey’s mouth opened. That answer seemed much too easy.
She went back to her table and tried looking at it. Really looking. There was the sugar jar, salt, pepper, a metal box with napkins, four chairs and one pale scratch near the edge that her cloth could not remove. She crouched until her eyes were level with the tabletop, then stood again. Nothing happened. No place announced itself as the right place for anybody. Tracey frowned and wiped around the sugar jar, then lifted it to wipe beneath. The jar was heavier than she expected, and she had to use both hands. When she set it back down, it landed crooked. She straightened it. Then the napkin holder looked crooked because the sugar was straight, so she moved that too. By the time she had lined up the salt and pepper, Marian came past carrying a stack of saucers and Tracey abandoned the arrangement entirely. “Mari’n.” Marian glanced down. “Mm-hm?” Tracey pointed at the saucers. “Lemme.” Marian did not even slow. “No, ma’am.” Tracey trotted beside her for three steps. “One.” “Nope.” “Little one.” “Still nope.” Tracey’s brows drew together. “I careful.” Marian pushed through the swinging door with one hip. “I know you are.” The door swung shut between them. Tracey stood facing it, offended by how little this had helped.
Glenda found her there and turned her gently by the shoulders. “Your table’s over yonder.” Tracey resisted just enough to make the turn slow. “I wanna help.” “You are helping.” Tracey looked back at the kitchen door. “In there.” “Not in there.” “Why?” “Hot.” Tracey considered this and pointed toward Marian’s vanished saucers. “Them not hot.” “Some things are.” “I don’t touch hot.” Glenda crouched enough that they were closer eye to eye without making a ceremony of it. “You stay this side, you can help. You go behind there, you sit with me till we leave.” Tracey’s face changed at once. “No sit.” “Then stay this side.” Tracey glanced at the invisible boundary, then down at her shoes. “Here?” “Here.” Tracey placed one foot half an inch backward, checking. “Here?” Glenda nodded. “That’ll do.” Tracey stepped back another inch on her own, satisfied now that the rule had become something she could locate. Glenda kissed two fingers and pressed them against Tracey’s forehead on the way up, then went back to the counter before Tracey could turn the gesture into a reason to follow.
For perhaps half a minute Tracey worked with unusual discipline. She wiped the tabletop from one edge to the other, climbed onto a chair to reach the far corner and climbed down again. She even rubbed the chair back because it was there. Then Evelyn Pike crossed the room with a pencil tucked over one ear and Tracey froze. Evelyn was older than Glenda, with silver running through the brown at her temples, and she never seemed to hurry even when everybody else did. She had a way of standing beside a table that made people look up at her. Tracey watched her approach two men who had been talking loudly enough for their voices to carry across the room; the louder one kept speaking while Evelyn waited with her pad against her palm. She did not interrupt him. She did not look bored. She simply stood there until he noticed her. He stopped in the middle of a sentence. “Sorry, Ev.” Evelyn raised the pencil. “I figured hunger would get you eventually.” The men ordered. Tracey watched Evelyn write without looking at the paper, and when the louder man changed his mind halfway through, Evelyn scratched something out and kept going.
Tracey found the blunt red crayon Glenda had given her earlier and tucked it over her own ear. Her hair was too soft and the crayon fell. She pushed it harder. It fell again. She frowned, licked one finger for reasons known only to herself and tried once more, this time wedging the crayon into the curls above her ear. It remained there. Tracey stood very still. Marian came out of the kitchen, saw her and smiled, but Tracey was watching Evelyn too intently to notice. She found the small order pad Glenda had made for her from several stapled pieces of receipt paper and slapped it against her palm. There was nobody at her table. That did not matter. She looked sternly at the empty chair. “What you want?” she asked. The chair said nothing. Tracey scribbled a violent red circle on the paper. “Okay.” She walked around to the next chair. “You?” Another scribble. “Okay.” When she reached the third chair the front bell rang, and the game vanished from her face so quickly that Marian, still watching, shook her head.
The woman who came inside carried a baby on one hip and held the hand of a little girl perhaps twice Tracey’s age. The baby had one sock. Tracey noticed that before anything else. The bare foot kicked against the woman’s coat while she tried to shift a purse higher onto her shoulder, keep the little girl from stopping in the doorway and stop the baby from grabbing her hair. Darlene came forward, but instead of asking how many, she reached for the high chair by the wall. Then she stopped, looked at the baby properly and pushed it back again. Tracey watched her take the family to a booth, place a menu in front of the older girl and set another down near the mother without handing it to her because both the woman’s hands were full. Darlene went away and returned with a folded towel. The mother put it beneath the baby on the booth beside her. Tracey’s eyes followed the towel. Nobody had asked for it. She looked toward Glenda, then back to Darlene, waiting for someone to explain. Nobody did.
The little girl dropped a spoon. It struck the floor with a bright metal sound, and Tracey hurried instinctively toward it. She stopped at her line, looked down at her toes, then crouched and stretched one arm as far as it would go. The spoon was nowhere near her. Marian got there first, picked it up and carried it away rather than giving it back. “She needs it,” Tracey said. Marian returned with a clean spoon and put it beside the girl’s plate. Tracey stared at the dirty one still in Marian’s other hand. “That one.” “Dirty now.” Tracey looked at the floor. “Floor dirty?” “Enough.” Tracey stared down more carefully. The floor looked ordinary. “Why?” Marian was already leaving. “Shoes.” Tracey looked at her own sneakers, then at the dozens of shoes passing through the room, and tucked the information somewhere deep enough that five minutes later she stopped herself from putting a fallen cracker back on her plate. She merely stared at it mournfully until Glenda noticed and brought another.
The baby began crying while the mother was trying to read the menu. Tracey turned at once. Crying babies were not unusual to her; she knew the rising red face, the breath caught between cries, the way adults shifted a baby automatically before deciding what was wrong. What she watched was Darlene. Darlene did not rush over and make a big face at the baby. She did not say anything to the mother at all. She walked past the booth on her way to another table, slid a little stack of napkins within reach and kept going. The mother caught them almost without looking and used one to wipe milk from the baby’s chin. Tracey’s head tilted. A minute later Darlene came back with coffee and set it far from the baby’s reaching hand. She put the little girl’s milk close enough for her to reach herself. Tracey tilted her head farther. When Darlene left, Tracey went back to her table, moved the sugar jar away from the edge, then moved the salt and pepper too. She stood back and inspected the result. Glenda came by and put them approximately where they had been. Tracey gasped. “No.” Glenda looked down. “No?” Tracey hurriedly pushed the sugar toward the middle again. “Baby.” Glenda looked at the empty table, then toward the booth with the baby, and understood. “No baby here.” Tracey pressed one hand on the sugar as if protecting an infant who might materialize at any moment. “Might.” Glenda smiled despite herself. “All right. Middle’s fine.”
When the café grew busier, Tracey stopped pretending to clean altogether. She stood with the cloth hanging from one fist and watched the women move. It happened without anybody saying it would. One minute there were open spaces between tables; the next there were coats on chair backs, coffee cups everywhere, people at the counter calling for refills and the kitchen door moving so often it never seemed to settle. Glenda crossed behind Evelyn and touched her lightly at the waist. Evelyn shifted an inch without turning around. Marian came the other direction with a tray, and Glenda stepped sideways before Marian said anything. Darlene reached across the counter for the coffeepot just as Glenda set it down. Their hands never touched. Tracey watched all of it with her mouth slightly open.
She tried the touch first. Glenda passed near her, and Tracey reached out with two fingers and pressed them into the back of her mother’s skirt. Glenda glanced around. Tracey slipped solemnly past her, sideways, exactly as she had seen Evelyn do. Glenda watched her go and said nothing. Tracey made it three feet, turned and came back so she could do it again. This time Glenda caught her hand. “Once was good.” Tracey nodded as if accepting professional instruction. Then Marian came around the corner carrying two bowls and Tracey stepped back against her table before anybody told her. The bowls sent up thin curls of steam. Tracey watched them pass, then looked at the invisible line beneath her shoes. Hot. She understood that part now.
A man at the counter raised his cup without saying anything. Glenda saw him while she was talking to somebody else and filled it on the way past. Tracey stared. A woman near the window lifted a hand and Evelyn nodded without going over immediately. Tracey stared. Darlene came through the kitchen door, looked at one table and turned straight back around. Tracey stared hardest at that. When Darlene emerged again she had ketchup in her hand. Nobody had called for ketchup. Tracey followed her with small quick steps until she reached the boundary. Darlene put the bottle down beside a boy eating fries. The boy’s father said, “Thanks, I was about to ask.” Darlene nodded and moved off.
Tracey caught Glenda’s apron as her mother passed. “Mama. Mama.” Glenda stopped because the urgency in Tracey’s voice suggested catastrophe. “What?” Tracey pointed after Darlene. “She knowed.” “Knew what?” Tracey pointed at the ketchup, then at Darlene, then made a frustrated little sound when the important part would not come out. “He din’t say.” Glenda looked toward the table. “No, he didn’t.” Tracey’s eyes grew wide, demanding the rest. Glenda leaned closer and said, “She saw his bottle was empty.” Tracey looked at the ketchup bottle already on the table. She looked back toward the service station where another bottle stood, then at Darlene’s retreating back. That explanation pleased her less than the mystery had. She let go of Glenda and stood thinking, one finger pressed against her bottom lip.
A few minutes later she began checking things. She inspected the napkin holder on her table and pulled out one napkin, then another, peering down inside. She lifted the sugar jar to see how much sugar remained. She turned the saltshaker upside down over her hand, and Glenda intervened before the experiment could continue. “No, ma’am.” Tracey righted it. “Lookin’.” “Look with your eyes.” Tracey looked at the shaker with exaggerated force, narrowing both eyes until her nose wrinkled. “Like that?” Glenda laughed before she could stop herself. Tracey immediately smiled because she had made her mother laugh, though she did not seem to know why. “Yep,” Glenda said, touching Tracey’s cheek. “Exactly like that.”
There was an elderly woman in the corner booth who came in with a cane and always took time sitting down. Tracey had seen her before. Miss Alma Reeves wore flowered blouses and ordered tea even when everybody else wanted coffee. This time Marian met her halfway across the room and did not offer to take the cane. Tracey noticed because adults were always taking things from children when children carried them badly, and Miss Alma carried the cane slowly. Marian instead moved the chair that stuck out from the end of the booth. Miss Alma reached the seat, turned carefully and lowered herself, holding the cane all the while. Only once she was sitting did Marian take it and lean it where Miss Alma could reach. Tracey watched the whole thing.
She edged closer after Marian left. Miss Alma saw her. “You working today?” Tracey nodded very seriously and held up the cloth. “I clean.” “Do you?” Tracey pointed toward her table. “That one.” Miss Alma looked at the already shining tabletop. “You’ve about rubbed the finish off it.” Tracey did not understand that and smiled because Miss Alma’s voice sounded kind. Then she noticed the cane. “Your stick.” “My stick.” Tracey reached one hand toward it, stopped before touching and looked at Miss Alma. “You need it?” “I surely do.” Tracey nodded. “Okay.” She left it exactly where it was.
Marian returned with the tea and a small pot of hot water. Tracey watched her place everything where Miss Alma could reach without leaning far. Then Marian moved the sugar closer. Tracey looked from the sugar to Miss Alma’s hand, to Marian, back to the sugar. Marian had done what Tracey had done for the imaginary baby, except the other way around. Things did not belong in one right place. They belonged where the person could use them. Tracey went back to her own table and moved the sugar jar to one side. She stood in Miss Alma’s place and reached. Too far. She moved it closer. Then she went around to another chair and reached again. Too close now. She pushed it into the middle and stared at it, dissatisfied by a world in which the correct answer would not stay correct.
Evelyn caught her testing it from the third chair. “Whatcha doing, little bit?” Tracey pushed the sugar an inch, climbed down and moved to the next seat. “Here.” “Here what?” Tracey reached for the jar. “Can get it.” Evelyn watched her try the reach from another chair. “Ah.” Tracey looked up. “Where go?” Evelyn took the sugar jar and placed it back near the napkin holder. “Depends who’s sitting there.” Tracey frowned immediately. “Why?” “People got different arms.” Evelyn held out her own long arm. Tracey held out hers beside it. The difference was enormous. Tracey stared from Evelyn’s hand to her own and burst into delighted laughter. “Yours big.” “Long.” “Mine little.” “For now.” Tracey spread both arms as wide as she could, apparently imagining the future. “Mine get big.” “Probably.” Tracey looked at the sugar jar, newly reconciled to its instability.
The rush thickened again, and Glenda finally moved Tracey’s table slightly farther from the main walkway by dragging it six inches toward the wall. Tracey objected instantly. “No, Mama. No.” She put both hands against the edge as if she could drag it back herself. “Folks are getting too close to you.” “I stay.” “You can stay. Table stays too.” Tracey looked at the new gap between herself and the action, lower lip pushing forward. “Can’t see.” “Yes, you can.” “Can’t.” Glenda crouched and pointed through the opening between two booths. “There. Whole room.” Tracey leaned, checked and discovered this was true. Her pout vanished with such completeness that Glenda smiled and stood again.
From the safer angle Tracey could see more than before. She saw Marian come out carrying four plates now, which seemed impossible after three had already seemed impossible. Tracey’s hands flew to her mouth. Marian walked toward a family at the big table while Darlene came the other way with a full coffeepot. Neither slowed. Darlene shifted right. Marian shifted left. The tray passed the coffeepot with inches between them. Tracey bounced once on her toes. “Mama! Mama!” Glenda was taking money at the register and did not look. “See!” Tracey cried anyway, pointing so vigorously her whole body moved with the arm. Marian set down the first plate. “Four!” Glenda glanced over just in time to understand. “I see.” Tracey held up four fingers, then looked at her hand because she had accidentally held up three. She added another finger. “Four.” “Four,” Glenda agreed.
Tracey laid the cloth along one arm again. She did not try walking this time. She only held the arm level and watched Marian’s wrist. Marian’s palm was slightly turned upward. Tracey turned hers. Marian’s elbow was bent. Tracey bent hers. Marian lowered the arm as each plate disappeared. Tracey lowered hers. No one had told her to copy. She seemed unaware of doing it. When Marian finally walked back with an empty arm, Tracey still stood in the same posture, eyes fixed on her.
Darlene came past and saw. “You studying us?” Tracey did not know the word. “What?” “Nothing.” Darlene touched the cloth balanced on Tracey’s arm. “You got that good.” Tracey brightened. “I carry.” “You’re carrying a rag.” Tracey looked down at it. “Plate later.” Darlene laughed. “Much later.” Tracey frowned. “Tomorrow?” “Try ten years.” Tracey did not understand ten years as anything useful. “After nap?” Darlene’s laugh grew louder, and Tracey grinned because she had apparently said something good. “Sure,” Darlene said. “We’ll revisit it after nap.”
The next customer to come through the door did not make Tracey turn immediately because something else had captured her. Glenda was talking to a man at the counter, and Glenda had stopped wiping. That was unusual. She almost always did something with her hands while she spoke—filled sugar, stacked cups, counted change, folded a towel—but now both hands rested on the edge of the counter. The man’s coffee sat untouched. He was looking down at it. Tracey watched her mother’s face.
She could not hear everything over the room. A name came through, then “plant,” then “Friday,” and something about twenty-three years. The man rubbed one hand over his mouth. Glenda said very little. Tracey knew when Glenda was talking because her mother’s face moved differently, because her hands joined in and her eyebrows could do whole parts of a conversation by themselves. Now she was barely moving at all. The man spoke, stopped, spoke again. Glenda waited.
Tracey crept closer to the line until both shoes touched it. The man’s shoulders were big beneath his work shirt, but they looked wrong somehow, drawn inward instead of filling the shirt the way they had when he came in. Tracey stared at them. When he finally looked up, his eyes were wet, and she turned immediately toward Glenda to see what her mother would do with a grown man whose eyes looked like that. Glenda did not tell him to stop. She did not make a worried noise or bend close to his face. She only stayed where she was with both hands resting against the counter while he spoke. Tracey could catch pieces through the dishes and voices around them, a name she did not know, something about Friday, something else about work, but none of it joined together. The man rubbed his hand over his mouth. Glenda waited. Even when Paulette passed behind her and reached for the coffeepot, Glenda only shifted it aside without taking her eyes from him.
When the man finally rose, he put some money beneath his saucer and pulled his cap down over his hair. “See you, Glen,” he said, and Glenda answered, “See you, Earl,” in the same voice she had been using all along. Tracey watched Earl cross the room and leave, the bell giving one little shake above him. She stayed at the line until the door closed, then looked back at Glenda. “He cry?” she asked. Glenda gathered the cup and saucer and said, “A little.” Tracey frowned toward the door. “Why?” Glenda glanced after him before stacking the cup. “Bad day.” That was not enough. Tracey’s face tightened with worry and she asked, “He hurt?” Glenda shook her head. “No, baby.” Tracey looked at the empty stool again. “Somebody hurt?” Glenda paused over the dirty saucer, considering what could be made small enough for her. “His work’s going away.” Tracey stared blankly, so Glenda tried again. “He won’t work there anymore.” This made more sense. Tracey looked down at the cloth in her hand, then back toward the door. “He work here?” she asked hopefully. Glenda’s mouth softened. “No.” Tracey thought for another moment and concluded, “He sad.” Glenda nodded. “Yeah.” Tracey studied her mother’s face and asked, “You make better?” The question held Glenda for a second. Then she said, “Maybe a little,” and Tracey accepted that more easily than anything else.
She returned to the table but did not begin wiping straightaway. For a while she watched faces instead of hands. A man near the window laughed while Evelyn poured coffee. A woman shook her head before Darlene could finish offering pie, and Darlene simply put the little dessert card back beneath her arm. A boy sat with his chin in both hands while his parents talked, and Marian pushed his chocolate milk closer without asking whether he wanted it. Miss Alma spoke so quietly that Marian bent nearer rather than making her repeat herself for the whole room. Tracey’s attention moved from mouth to eyes to shoulders and back again. She understood none of it in words, yet something about the room had changed once she had seen Earl leave. People were not only carrying plates and filling cups. They were looking at one another all the time.
A man at the nearest table pushed his coffee cup away from himself. Tracey saw it and immediately looked toward Darlene. Darlene had not seen yet. Tracey looked back at the cup, then at Darlene again, almost bouncing with the effort of waiting. When Darlene finally turned, Tracey pointed and called, “Coffee gone.” The man glanced down at his cup, then at Tracey with an amused smile. Darlene lifted the coffeepot in acknowledgment. “Good eyes,” she said as she came over, and Tracey beamed so hard that the compliment seemed to pass through her whole body. She slapped one palm against the table, leaned toward Glenda as her mother crossed nearby and announced, “I knowed.” Glenda followed her pointing finger toward the cup. “You did.” Tracey nodded fiercely. “I see.” Then she seized the cloth and scrubbed the table twice as though seeing and wiping were parts of the same job.
A few minutes later a woman near the door reached into the napkin holder at her table and found it empty. Tracey saw her fingers searching inside before the woman had even looked around for help. She grabbed two napkins from her own table and started across the room, moving so quickly that Glenda caught her gently around the waist before she passed the safe line. “Where are you going?” Glenda asked, and Tracey twisted in her arms, pointing with both napkins. “She need.” Glenda looked toward the woman and then down at Tracey. “Napkins?” Tracey nodded and thrust them upward. “Give her.” Glenda took them. “I’ll take them.” Tracey watched closely as her mother crossed the room, handed them over and replaced the empty holder. When Glenda returned, Tracey was waiting. “See?” she said. “I saw,” Glenda answered. Tracey bounced once. “I help.” This time Glenda did not qualify it. “You helped.”
That approval lasted Tracey nearly ten minutes. She wiped without needing to be told, rearranged the sugar and then carefully returned it when Glenda moved it back, and even resisted following Marian when the waitress crossed the room with three bowls balanced along her arm. She watched instead. The moment Marian disappeared into the kitchen, though, a fork clattered onto the floor near another table. Tracey ducked automatically, then stopped with both hands held behind her back. She remembered. “Dirty,” she said to herself. Darlene came past, stooped, picked up the fork and tossed it into the bus tub. Tracey pointed at it. “Shoes.” Darlene looked down at her. “Shoes make the floor dirty, yes.” Tracey nodded, pleased that the rule had survived. “Don’t eat floor fork.” Darlene gave her a solemn nod. “That is excellent policy.”
The crash near the kitchen came without warning. A glass shattered, silverware struck the floor and a plate bounced once before spinning on its edge. Tracey jerked backward against her table, eyes enormous. Marian stood in the middle of the mess holding the now-light tray in one hand. “Well, hell,” she muttered, looking down at the glass. Tracey’s head snapped toward Glenda because she knew that word belonged to one of the categories adults sometimes noticed around children. Glenda, already coming with the broom, barely reacted beyond asking, “You all right?” Marian nodded. “Yeah. Just made a damn orchestra.” Glenda pointed without looking toward Tracey. “Stay there, baby. Glass.” Tracey stayed. The sharp little pieces on the floor required no further explanation.
A man started toward the spill from the far side of the room before either woman noticed him. Tracey did. She threw both arms out and shouted, “No! Glass!” with such force that the man stopped mid-step. She pointed down the aisle. “Glass there.” He looked, saw it and went around the other side. Tracey stood taller. A woman approached next and Tracey blocked the end of her own table as if she had been assigned the duty by management. “No, lady. Glass,” she said, and the woman smiled before changing direction. Glenda glanced up from the broom and told her, “Good job, baby.” Tracey pointed after the woman. “I telled her.” Glenda nodded. “You sure did.” That was enough to make Tracey take the duty more seriously still. She remained with both arms spread until every bright shard had disappeared into the dustpan.
When Glenda finally said, “All clear,” Tracey lowered her arms and immediately looked at Marian. The waitress had already collected another tray. Tracey expected, for reasons she could not have explained, that Marian might carry it differently now. She did not. Her arm went flat. Her wrist turned. Her eyes stayed ahead. Three plates rested along her forearm exactly as before. Tracey watched the place where the glass had been, then watched Marian pass over it without hesitation. She looked down at her own cloth, placed it along her arm and tried the same balance again. It slipped off. Tracey caught it against her hip, frowned, put it back and tried once more. This time it stayed. She did not smile until she had taken two whole steps.
The tables began emptying after that, leaving actual work behind for Tracey to study. There were wet rings where glasses had been, sugar granules near one napkin holder and crumbs scattered across the surface of a table beside hers. Glenda waited until Marian had cleared the dishes, then wrung out a clean cloth and held it down. “You want a real one?” Tracey’s eyes widened. “Mine?” Glenda nodded toward the dirty tabletop. “That side only.” Tracey grabbed the cloth with both hands and attacked the mess so eagerly that the crumbs went flying toward the edge. She stopped just before brushing them onto the floor. Her face became troubled. “Mama.” Glenda looked over. “What?” Tracey pointed at the little pile. “Where go?” Glenda walked over and cupped one hand beneath the table edge. “Here.” Tracey swept the crumbs carefully into her palm. One escaped and landed near Tracey’s shoe. She stared down at it, then crouched, picked it up between thumb and forefinger and placed it with the others. “All.” Glenda smiled. “All.”
Tracey polished the newly clean table long after the dirt was gone, pleased by the difference between something that had actually needed wiping and the table Glenda had given her at the beginning. She rubbed around a water ring until it vanished, then stepped sideways and checked from another angle. When she straightened, she saw Evelyn lowering herself into an empty booth. Tracey stopped dead. Evelyn took one shoe off beneath the table and rubbed her toes through her stocking, eyes closing for a moment. Tracey stared as if she had caught the waitress doing something forbidden.
She wandered over and stood beside the booth. “You done?” she asked. Evelyn opened one eye. “Not yet.” Tracey pointed at the seat. “You sittin’.” Evelyn opened the other eye. “I surely am.” Tracey looked under the table at the discarded shoe. “Why?” Evelyn rubbed the side of her foot. “My feet are tired.” Tracey bent over to inspect them more closely. “Boo-boo?” Evelyn shook her head. “No boo-boo. Just tired.” Tracey looked around the diner, spotted Glenda leaning back against the counter with half a cup of coffee in one hand, and then looked at Evelyn again. “Mama tired?” she asked. Evelyn followed her gaze. “Probably.” Tracey studied Glenda more carefully than she had before. Her mother’s shoulders were lower now, and one hand stayed braced against the counter while she drank. Tracey had seen that shape hundreds of times without separating it from anything else. Now she recognized it as tired.
She climbed onto the booth seat opposite Evelyn, placed both hands in her lap and closed her eyes. Evelyn watched her for a second before asking, “You tired too?” Tracey opened both eyes immediately. “No.” Evelyn nodded gravely. “Of course not.” Tracey slid down from the booth and trotted away, only to stop when she saw Evelyn put her shoe back on and stand. The waitress took two slower steps, rolled one shoulder and then picked up her pad. A couple had just entered. By the time Evelyn reached them she looked much as she had before sitting down, though Tracey could see the tired part now because someone had told her where to look.
Tracey began dragging one foot. Glenda noticed on the third step. “What happened?” Tracey continued limping heroically. “Foot tired.” Glenda looked at the supposedly afflicted sneaker. “Which foot?” Tracey stopped. She looked down at both of them. For a long moment she seemed genuinely uncertain. Then she switched the limp to the other side. Glenda hid her mouth behind the coffee cup, but Darlene saw the whole thing and had to turn away from the counter. Tracey managed another two tragic steps before the bell above the door rang. She forgot the limp instantly and ran toward her line without the slightest difficulty.
The woman who entered alone did not come farther than the mat at first. Her coat remained buttoned and both hands stayed in the pockets. Darlene approached but did not immediately take a menu. The woman said something quiet. Darlene listened, then took one menu and let her choose the booth farthest from the counter. Tracey watched the whole thing. Darlene brought water and went away. No coffee, no quick question about pie, no cheerful remark. She simply left the woman alone.
Tracey waited for someone to go back. Nobody did. She tugged at Glenda’s apron as her mother passed. “Mama.” Glenda looked down. Tracey pointed toward the booth. “She no food.” Glenda glanced over. “Not yet.” Tracey frowned. “Go ask.” Glenda shook her head. “She’ll ask when she’s ready.” Tracey looked at the woman and then back at her mother. “Hungry?” “Maybe.” Tracey’s brows pinched. “Then eat.” Glenda touched one fingertip to her nose. “Maybe she wants quiet first.” Tracey looked again. The woman’s face was turned toward the wall and her hands stayed around the water glass. “Why?” Tracey asked. Glenda answered, “Sometimes people just do,” and moved on.
Tracey stood watching long enough for the idea to become something she could try. She returned to her table and began moving quietly. She set the sugar jar down with both hands instead of letting it knock against the surface. She pushed the napkin holder rather than picking it up. She walked around the chair with deliberate little steps, staring down at her sneakers to make sure they made no sound. When Marian passed, Tracey put one finger dramatically against her lips and whispered, much too loudly, “She wants quiet.” Marian looked toward the woman in the booth, then back down at Tracey. “Then maybe don’t tell the whole room.” Tracey’s eyes flew wide. Both hands clapped over her mouth. Marian walked away before laughing, leaving Tracey beside the table in profound embarrassment.
For several minutes Tracey hardly spoke at all. She watched the woman instead. The woman did not look toward people when they passed. She did not lift her hand for service. When Darlene eventually returned, she stood beside the booth without filling the silence first. The woman pointed to something on the menu. Darlene wrote it down. Later she brought soup, placed it carefully within reach and left with nothing more than a quiet, “There you go.” Tracey tilted her head. She understood only a sliver of it, but it was enough. Darlene had not ignored the woman. Leaving her alone had been something Darlene was doing for her.
When the woman finally departed, Tracey watched Darlene clear a half-full bowl and an unopened packet of crackers without commenting on either. That interested her almost as much as everything else. At home food that remained on a plate could become a subject. Here grown people left things and nobody asked them to take two more bites. Tracey watched the soup disappear through the kitchen door, then turned when Glenda pushed a loose strand of hair from her forehead with the back of her wrist because both hands were wet.
Tracey copied her immediately. She pushed her own hair with the back of her wrist. Nothing happened. She tried again harder and almost hit herself in the eye. Glenda saw and said, “Careful.” Tracey pointed at her. “You did.” Glenda nodded. “I did.” Tracey touched her own hair, then Glenda’s when her mother bent low enough. “Mine don’t.” “Different hair.” Tracey stroked each in turn, considering this, then released Glenda without argument.
A little later Darlene wrote something on the back of her hand because she had lost her pencil stub and somebody called an order at her while she was reaching for another. Tracey watched the blue mark appear. Within a minute she had found her red crayon and drawn a looping line on the back of her own hand. Glenda noticed. “What’s that?” Tracey held it up. “Work.” Glenda examined the meaningless red coil as seriously as she could. “What does it say?” Tracey looked at the mark and decided, “Milk.” Glenda nodded. “All right.” Tracey drew another loop. “Toast.” “Anything else?” Tracey added a third, stared at it and had no idea what it represented. “Um.” She looked around desperately, spotted a pie and announced, “Cake.” Glenda accepted the answer. “Busy hand.”
The tiredness came over Tracey gradually and without her consent. She leaned against the table while watching Marian. Her cloth dragged rather than scrubbed. Once she yawned so widely that her whole face seemed to open, but when Glenda asked, “You getting sleepy?” Tracey shook her head through the last of it. “No.” Another smaller yawn followed. “No sleepy.” Glenda only said, “Mm-hm,” because disagreeing would have kept Tracey awake through sheer determination.
Evelyn came by collecting salt and pepper shakers for refilling, and Tracey perked up at once. “I help.” Evelyn held out one hand. “Give me the salt.” Tracey lifted it with both hands and carefully placed it in her palm. Then came the pepper, then the sugar. Each successful transfer straightened Tracey a little more. Evelyn started toward the next table and Tracey followed as far as her line before stopping. “More?” she asked. Evelyn looked at her full hands, then back toward Tracey’s table. “Bring me your napkin box.” Tracey ran to fetch it, wrapped both arms around the metal holder and carried it back like treasure. “Here.” Evelyn took it. “Thank you.” Tracey looked at the stack in Evelyn’s arms. “You got lots.” “I do.” Tracey spread one little arm flat in front of herself, wrist turned upward in Marian’s familiar carrying pose. Evelyn noticed and smiled but did not comment. Tracey kept the pose for another second, then lowered her arm when she was finished with it.
The café softened around her as the last of the heavier traffic passed. Tracey discovered that the women remained interesting even when they were no longer rushing. Marian wiped menus before stacking them. Darlene shook the coffeepot to hear how much remained. Evelyn counted money at the end of the counter, lips moving silently. Glenda gathered abandoned newspapers and returned several battered books to the small shelf by the register. Tracey wandered over and saw one leaning sideways. She pushed it straight. Another sat upside down. She turned it around even though she could not read the title. Glenda looked down and said, “Thank you.” Tracey gave a shrug copied from Marian, but both shoulders went so high they nearly touched her ears. Glenda smiled and let it pass.
Back at her table, Tracey picked up the cloth and wiped once from one end to the other. Slowly this time. She rested her palm over it afterward and stared around the room. Marian was carrying two cups. Darlene listened to an older man at the counter while drying a glass. Evelyn had put on her coat but remained talking near the register. Glenda crossed through the middle of them all carrying three dirty plates, turning one shoulder to pass a chair without looking down.
The bell rang.
Tracey’s head lifted immediately.
A man came in rubbing his hands together against the cold and took a seat at the counter. Marian reached for a menu, but he shook his head. Darlene reached for the coffee instead. Evelyn stayed where she was. Glenda glanced at the clock, then said something to the man that made him smile.
Tracey watched every part of it.
After a while Glenda came over and stood beside her. Tracey leaned into her leg without looking away from the room. “You done with that table?” Glenda asked. Tracey nodded. “Done.” Glenda picked up the cloth. Tracey caught the corner immediately. “No.” Glenda looked down. “Thought you were done.” Tracey tugged it back. “Need it.” “For what?” Tracey looked around the café, trying to find an answer large enough for everything she had been doing. Marian had turned two coffee cups into one trip. Darlene had gone quiet because the man at the counter had gone quiet. Evelyn was buttoning her coat. Glenda had somehow known where everybody was even while talking to Tracey. The words did not come.
“I work,” Tracey said at last.
Glenda held the cloth for another moment, then let it go. “All right.”
Tracey hugged it briefly against herself before putting it back on the table. She did not wipe. She stood beside the spotless surface with one hand resting on the edge and watched Marian take two cups in one hand while pushing the kitchen door with the other. She watched Darlene tip her head when the man’s voice dropped. She watched Glenda collect three plates and stack them along one arm without looking. She followed Glenda’s path across the room with her eyes, carrying nothing at all.