The yellow paper had a greasy smudge right over my apartment number. The landlord’s assistant held the slip against the doorframe with one thumb, his eyes looking past me into the dark hallway theif.
“He wants it by Friday at five,” the assistant said tools.
I looked at the bold print of the eviction notice. My name, Cara Vance, was typed underneath the landlord’s corporate logo, right above the outstanding balance.
“I have the main portion of the rent,” I said.
I twisted the plain silver band on my right index finger, moving it up and down against the knuckle. It was a habit I could not seem to break when my hands had nothing else to do.
“The balance is three hundred,” the assistant said. He didn’t touch the envelope of cash I had sitting on the table behind me. “He told me not to come back without the full seven hundred.”
“I just need a few more days to gather the three hundred dollars,” I said.
“Friday at five,” he repeated. He peeled his thumb away, leaving the yellow paper in my hand, and turned down the concrete steps.
The basement apartment felt colder after he left. The small kitchen window looked out at the grass level of the backyard, showing only the dead stems of the summer weeds.
I closed the door and laid the paper on the kitchen table next to my salt shaker. Three hundred dollars was a mountain.
At noon, the lunch rush at the diner always left the Formica sticky. I wiped down the counter with a damp rag, then pulled a handful of quarters and dimes from my apron pocket.
“Another cup, Cara,” the man at the end of the counter said. He was wearing a faded work jacket from the old plant.
I poured the dark coffee from the glass pot into his thick ceramic mug. The menu on the wall showed a three-dollar cup of coffee, but the tips today had been mostly nickels.
“You look tired,” the customer said.
“Just a long week,” I said.
I stacked the quarters in columns of four on the worn counter behind the cash register. The total came to sixteen dollars and fifty cents
