He paid for forty minutes and took the window seat. The companion opposite him pulled the blind. She stopped it exactly where the glare left his hands.
“The tea with the smoke in it?”
“I had the other one on the eleventh.”
“You had the smoke on both visits.”
“I didn't.”
She apologized. He remembered then: the tea had gone cold while he talked about his sister. He let the apology stand. She took the cup away.
He folded the corner of the laminated card back until it whitened. Forty minutes, priced where a haircut was. He wanted to ask what she had done with the first version.
At the corner table a man had come back to report that the advice had worked. He was crying. His companion moved the sugar out of his reach while his hands shook.
“What do I call you?” he asked the woman across from him.
“Whatever you like.”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing it is.”
She offered to put a hand between his shoulders.
“Ten counts,” she said. “You can stop me.”
He nodded. Her palm settled through his shirt. The muscle under it slackened; his jaw hurt as he unclenched it.
“Take it off.”
Her hand returned to the table.
“Four,” she said.
She waited with both hands visible. He wanted her to put it back without making him ask. The muscle began to knot again.
“Your hand was warm.”
“It is kept at blood heat. It says so on the card.”
He turned the card over. There it was. The hand lay beside it, palm up. He could not make himself ask for it.
Neither spoke. The blind's pull knocked against the window.
“The tea with the smoke in it?”
He watched her mouth finish the question before she seemed to hear it.
“You asked me that.”
“I lose the thread.”
“You're a machine.”
She looked at the spoiled corner of his card.
At forty-nine minutes she offered him the same table next week. He shook his head and put the card in the slot beside the sugar. He pocketed the receipt: Next week: requested.
The slot thanked him in her voice. So did the door. On the bus he heard it again. At his stop he kept his hands on his knees. The doors closed.