Page 5 of Hunger

I set down the spatula. "Tammy."

"I'm just saying." She lifts her hands like she's surrendering, which she isn't. "If you're coming down with something, I'd rather know now than have you sneeze into the grease trap on Friday."

"I'm not coming down with anything."

She watches me for a second. I can feel her deciding whether to keep pushing. She decides not to, and goes back to counting the drawer.

We close at nine on weeknights. By nine-fifteen the food court is dark except for the security lights, and Tammy and I are walking out the back together. The wind has picked up. Snow is starting, just a few thin flakes spiraling under the lot lights. Tammy pulls her coat tighter around her ribs.

"Drive careful."

"You too."

She lifts a hand as she walks toward the Oldsmobile and I lift one back. The Granada starts without protest tonight, which I take as a quiet kindness. I sit with my hands wrapped around the steering wheel and wait for the engine to settle before I pull out.

The drive home is quiet. The radio in the Granada works intermittently, and tonight it works, so I listen to a countrystation out of Omaha until the signal cuts out around the apartment complex. By the time I pull into my spot, the snow is coming down in earnest. Thin, dry flakes that the wind pushes sideways across the lot.

I let myself into the apartment. The phone is ringing.

I know who it is before I look at the clock. Nine forty-eight on a Wednesday. She always calls at nine forty-five. She's always called at nine forty-five.

Lisa is in the living room with her textbook open on her lap and her highlighter in her teeth again. She glances toward the phone on the kitchen wall and back at me with a question in her face. I nod and set my bag down. She uncaps the highlighter and goes back to her notes.

I pick up the receiver on the fourth ring.

"Hello."

"???."Jenny-ya.My name in her mouth always sounds like a small reaching."Why does it take you so long to answer?"

I lean my hip against the counter. "I just got in. I worked late."

"You always work late."

"It's a closing shift, Umma. I work the closing shift."

"It's not good for you. You don't sleep enough."

"I sleep fine."

"You don't eat enough either. I can hear it in your voice."

You can't hear malnutrition through a telephone, but I don't say this to her. I've learned which arguments are worth having and which ones will only make her sad. "I ate today. I had a sandwich."

"A sandwich isn't a meal."

"It was a big sandwich."

She hums."Sunday,"she says."Come for dinner."

"Umma."

"I'm making galbi. And the radish kimchi you like. The one with the pear."

"I have to work."

"You always have to work."

"I do always have to work."