Two minutes to close on a Tuesday, and the dining room of Kettle & Bun is orange chairs upside down on the tables, the fryer hood ticking as it cools, the mop water going gray at your feet. The drive-thru window is shut. Over the till the little camera light is red, and Corliss Danek is in the office behind the glass with the door propped open, counting the deposit.

Bettina Zajac is on the front register with her chin in one hand and her phone flat on the counter under the other, thumb moving. Her cap is on backwards. There is a smear of special sauce on the bib of her apron that she has been ignoring for four hours.

she says, to the phone, not to you.

Then it buzzes under her palm. She reads it, and her face does something that is not a smile, and she turns the screen face-down on the laminate.

She slides the phone into the band of her watch, under the orange strap, so it sits flat against the inside of her wrist, and looks at you properly for the first time all shift.

She comes around the counter, lifts the freezer key off the hook by the office window without asking, and holds it up between two red-painted nails.

She tips her head at the office glass.