Page 33 of Hunger

"You know what I mean."

I do know what she means. I tie on my apron and try not to smile.

The shift is busy. There's some kind of holiday shopping push happening — the radio in the mall corridor is playing Christmas music on a loop, and the parents who have given up on doing it themselves are eating their feelings at the food court. We don't stop for two hours. Tammy keeps glancing at me sideways like she's going to say something else and never quite does.

Around three I'm scraping the grill between rushes and she comes up beside me.

"Did something happen?"

I don't look up. "No."

"Jenny."

"Nothing happened. I just slept well."

"Mm-hm."

"Tammy."

"All right." She holds her hands up. "All right. I'm not asking." She bumps me with her hip on her way back to the register. "But you let me know when you want to tell me about him."

I almost drop the spatula.

"Tammy."

"I'm just saying." She's grinning. She's grinning as she did when I brought in the jasmine. "When you're ready."

I don't respond. I scrape the grill. The heat from the metal is rising into my face and I tell myself it's the heat.

I close at nine. Tammy and I walk out together and the lot is colder than it was last night. The wind has shifted. I sit in the Granada with my hands on the wheel and let the engine settle and I drive home through the same neighborhood and the same streets.

Lisa isn't home when I get in. Note on the counter:Study group at Heather's. Back late.Dee's door is open and her bed is unmade and her keys aren't on the hook, which means Kevin again. I make a sandwich and eat it standing at the counter.

I go to my room.

I don't turn on the overhead light. I turn on the desk lamp. The room goes warm and yellow.

The violin case is on the floor. I look at it for a while. Then I sit down beside it and open the lid and lift out the violin.

I don't play scales tonight. My fingers are still tender from yesterday and I don't want to do anything that'd make Lisa knock on the wall again. I just hold it under my chin for a while, the wood warm and familiar against my collarbone, the bow loose in my right hand. I draw the bow across the open strings slowly. A G. A D. An A. An E. The intervals come into the room.

I put the violin away. I don't latch the case.

I get ready for bed and turn off the desk lamp. The room goes dark.

I get into bed.

I lie on my back. The window is closed and the curtain is drawn. The cool edge has been gone all day, but it's starting to come back. A thin thread of cold along the edge of the room.

I don't turn on the lamp.

I don't speak.

I lie on my back and I listen.

The wind is up tonight. The pipes click. Somewhere in the building, a door closes. The faint hum of the refrigerator through the wall.

I'm not afraid.