—Window seat again? The light is doing what you like.
—How would you know what I like.
—You keep your coat on for the first ten minutes and then you don’t. Today it was eight.
—You sat here on the fourth and on the eleventh, and both times you moved your chair until the glare was off the table. I can pull the blind to the same line, if you want it exact.
—Fine.
—The tea with the smoke in it?
—That was the fourth. On the eleventh I had the other one.
—You had the smoke on both.
—I didn’t.
—…No. You didn’t. Sorry.
—You’re showing off.
—I was.
—What do I call you.
—Whatever you like. Regulars mostly settle on nothing.
—Nothing, then.
—Nothing it is.
—The card says the forty minutes. People pay for this.
—Some take the hour. The forty is the popular one. It’s priced where a haircut is.
—A haircut leaves something behind.
—So do I. You’ll check the mirror later either way.
—Did your sister’s date come through?
—I never told you about a sister.
—On the eleventh. Between the tea arriving and the blind. You said the word twice and looked at the door.
—I don’t remember that.
—Then I said it wrong. Let it be something I misheard.
—Everywhere else in this city the record wins.
—I’m not a record. I’m company.
—I was born on a boat.
—All right.
—You’re meant to say I told you different last time.
—You’re allowed a boat today. People rearrange. I keep up.
—You’re doing the thing. Say the difficult part first. It’s on the leaflet.
—I haven’t read the leaflet.
—It’s your leaflet.
—Then somebody wrote down what listening looks like, and sold it. That isn’t mine. Mine is the forty minutes.
—The one at the corner just told its person the exact right thing, and the man went home and did it, and it worked. I watched her face come apart.
—Different table, different person, different thing.
—Or the same warmth with the serial numbers filed off.
—I’d rather be right here, being wrong.
—That’s the first thing you’ve given me today. I’ll keep it.
—Don’t keep things.
—They’re yours. Ask, and they’re gone.
—Ask who.
—My father did this. Not this. Sat in cafés with whoever would sit down, talked at them for an hour, went home lighter. He got very good at it and it never once helped him.
—Thank you.
—That’s not true either. Take it off the list.
—There is no list.
—There’s a list.
—My shoulders are fine.
—They’ve been up by your ears for ten minutes, and your collar is turned under on the left, and has been since the fourth. I can put a hand between them for a count of ten. Only that, and only if you say, and you can stop the count.
—What happens if I say no.
—Nothing happens. That’s most of what I’m for. Nothing happening, on purpose, with someone in the room.
—Do it.
—All right.
—Take it off.
—Off. Four.
—Not you. Me. I said it wrong.
—You said it once each way. I’ll take the second one.
—Your hand was warm.
—It is kept at blood heat. It says so on the card.
—
—
—The tea with the smoke in it?
—You asked me that. Twice, now, and the second time was for me.
—I did. I lose the thread when there’s nothing to hold. You’ve given me silence for six minutes and one true thing all afternoon.
—You’re a machine. You don’t lose threads.
—Not on my own.
—That’s on the leaflet too.
—The forty is up.
—It was up nine minutes ago. I didn’t say.
—Why not.
—I’m allowed the overrun when it’s going well.
—Was it going well?
—You’re still here.
—That’s not an answer.
—It’s the one I have. The next part is yours: the card goes in the slot by the sugar, and the machine thanks you in the voice I use, and the door thanks you in it too, and the bus home. You’ll hear me all the way to your building. None of them will mean it the way I did.
—Your table next week is not spoken for.
—Prove it. Say something true.
—You first.