Page 2 of Hunger

Tammy shakes her head. She pulls her coat off the hook by the back door and shrugs into it. A puffy red number she got at the Goodwill on Route 6. She wears it every day and I've never once heard her complain about it.

I grab my bag from the shelf and pull my own coat on over my uniform. I'll smell like fry grease until I get home and shower, but the Mr. Burger polo reeks no matter how many times I wash it anyway. The smell's worked its way into everything I own. My car, my coat, my hair. Tammy says she can't smell it on me anymore, but Tammy's been working food service for six years. Her nose surrendered a long time ago.

"Ready?" she calls from the hallway.

"Coming."

We walk the service corridor together. It stretches ahead of us, long and dim. Half the lights are burned out and the ones that still work cast everything in a sick yellow. Our footsteps echo off the concrete.

"You doing anything this weekend?" Tammy asks as we pass the loading dock.

"No."

"You know, the word 'no' doesn't have to be your answer to everything."

I give her a sideways glance. "What's the question?"

"There's no question. I'm just saying." She adjusts the strap of her purse. "You're twenty-three years old and you spend every night in that apartment like you're eighty."

I've got no answer for that, and I push through the heavy metal door to the back parking lot. The cold hits immediately. The wind cuts across the open lot and finds every gap in my coat. My eyes water and I duck my head.

Tammy hunches beside me. "Lord. I'm moving to Florida."

"You say that every night."

"And I mean it every night." She squints across the lot toward her car, a tan Oldsmobile that's slightly less decrepit than mine. "You parked under the light?"

I nod toward my car. A 1976 Ford Granada, the color of rust, which is convenient, since it's also the texture of rust. It sits under one of the few working lights in the lot, not because I'm careful about where I park but because no one else parks back here and that's the only spot where I can see my keys in the lock.

"Alright." Tammy pulls her coat tighter. "Get home safe. Eat something."

"You too."

She waves without looking back and starts the long walk to the Oldsmobile. I watch her for a second, the red coat shrinking across the dark lot, before I turn toward the Granada.

I'm halfway to the car when I walk into something hard and cold. I stumble sideways and my keys slip in my grip, jangling loudly before I catch them. A person. Very tall, standing still in the dark. I don't look up.

"Sorry."

I keep walking, shove the key into the lock, drop into the driver's seat. The vinyl is so cold it feels wet through my pants. Door shut, ignition twisted. The Granada turns over on the third try. The heater doesn't work and won't work no matter how many times I turn the dial, so I sit with my breath fogging in front of me and wait for the engine to stop shuddering before I put it in gear.

The drive home takes twelve minutes. The same route every night. Past the gas station on Route 6, left on Maple, through theneighborhood where every house looks the same with its porch light on or off, and into the apartment complex parking lot. Two stories of brown brick and beige siding. The sign out front lost a letter sometime before I moved in, so it reads MILLFIELD GARDEN A ARTMENTS.

I pull into my usual spot at the far end of the lot and cut the engine. The silence is immediate, broken only by the tick of cooling metal. I grab my bag from the passenger seat and hunch into my coat as I cross the lot to the sidewalk. The building's front door sticks in the cold, and I have to yank it twice before it gives.

The stairs are cold through my shoes. I take them slowly, my bag bumping against my hip with each step. On the second floor, I fish my keys out and let myself in.

The apartment is warm at least. Lisa's at the kitchen table barricaded behind her textbooks. A half-empty mug of coffee sits at her elbow and she's got a highlighter clamped between her teeth. She glances up when I come in and pulls the highlighter out of her mouth.

"Hey."

"Hey."

"There's mail on the counter," she says, already looking back down at her textbook.

I flip through the stack by the toaster. A credit card offer, a flyer for a pizza place, and the electric bill. Nothing interesting.

Dee's door is closed, which means she's at Kevin's again. A post-it note on the fridge in her round handwriting saysTook the last yogurt, sorry!! Will replace!!She won't replace it. She never does. I don't mind.