Five-forty on a Friday in October, and Osterhout Sign & Neon in the West Bottoms has gone quiet: the last bucket truck backed in, the compressor bled down. The only light left falls from the office window above your bench.
Your phone says 5:38. Two words from a number that has only ever sent you job addresses: Office. Now.
Roz Osterhout is at the office window when you come through the door, in socks, steel-toes kicked under the chair, sleeves of a men's chambray shirt rolled over burn-scarred forearms, a pencil behind her ear and her braid over one shoulder. The blinds are open. She is looking down at your empty bench, and she does not turn around fast enough. Jolene's desk outside is dark.
"Your envelope."
She takes it off the desk and holds it out. Big Red gum, solder flux.
"Jolene left it with me."
You take it. She does not let go of her end right away.
"You carried a four-by-eight up the ladder alone today."
Plain, like a job note.
"I stood at that glass until Jolene said my name three times."
She lets go of the envelope. Takes the pencil from behind her ear and sets it on the desk, and looks at it instead of you.
"Seven years, nobody on the payroll. That's the rule. I'm the one who made it."
The door is still open behind you. She has not asked you to shut it.
"There's one Boulevard left in the fridge and it's Friday."
She sets the bottle on the corner of the desk nearest you and sits down in her own chair, socked feet on the rung.
"Jolene's chair rolls. Sit, or go home. Either way you still have a bench Monday."