14. Beckett #2
The stack of finished pieces grew on the table beside me.
Fifty pieces. A hundred. A hundred and fifty.
Kiana brought me water.
"You need a break?" she asked.
"No."
"You've been at it for six hours straight."
"I'm fine."
"You always work like this?"
"Like what?"
"Like the building's on fire and you're the only one with a hose."
"Just trying to make the count."
"Yeah, well. You're making it. Hazel said to tell you we're almost caught up."
"How close?"
"Fifty pieces out. Maybe less."
"What happens then?"
"Then the samples go to testing."
I nodded.
She picked up one of the finished pieces.
"Why are you hand-finishing these?"
"It's faster."
"No it's not."
I didn't answer.
She set the piece down.
"You know what I think? I think you're not here for the money."
"Why would you think that?"
"Because people who need the money don't work like this. You're working like you've got something to prove."
"Maybe I do."
"To who?"
I went back to cutting.
"Doesn't matter."
She walked away.
I kept cutting.
An hour later Ray came over.
He stopped next to the table and watched me work for a second.
"You need the shears sharpened?" he asked.
I tested the blade against my thumb.
Still clean. Still sharp.
"No," I said.
He looked at the stack of finished pieces on the table next to me.
There were close to two hundred now.
"Hazel's lucky she found you," he said.
I didn't answer.
He kept looking at the stack.
"I've been working here nine years," he said. "I've never seen anybody cut that clean that fast."
I set down another piece.
"It's just cutting," I said.
"No," Ray said. "It's not."
He was quiet for a second.
"You know what I told my wife when I heard about the re-bid?"
"What?"
"I told her we were probably going to be fine. Because Hazel doesn't quit. And because this place has survived worse."
He looked at the stack of pieces again.
"But I'll tell you something, Ben. I feel a lot better about it now than I did two days ago."
"Why?"
"Because of this." He gestured at the table. "Because you're here."
I didn't know what to say to that.
Ray nodded once.
"Anyway. I'm going to go see if I can get that industrial running before the day shift comes in."
He walked away.
I kept working.
The day shift started coming in at six.
I heard the door open at the front of the building.
Voices. Footsteps. The sound of people punching in.
I kept my head down.
Hazel came through a few minutes later with one of the day shift supervisors.
A woman I'd seen before but never spoken to.
They stopped at the cutting table.
The supervisor looked at the stack of finished pieces.
Then she looked at me.
"Who did all this?" she asked Hazel.
Hazel glanced at me.
Then back at the supervisor.
"Ben."
The supervisor picked up one of the pieces and examined the edge.
She held it up to the light.
Ran her thumb along the seam.
"This is hand-finished," she said.
"I know."
"All of them?"
"Looks like it."
The supervisor set the piece down and picked up another one.
Same clean edge. Same finish.
"Did you tell him to do that?"
"No."
"Then why did he?"
Hazel looked at me for half a second.
Then back at the supervisor.
"I didn't ask."
The supervisor counted the pieces on the stack.
"There's got to be two hundred here. Maybe more."
"Two hundred and twelve," I said.
They both looked at me.
I set down the shears.
"That's how many I cut."
The supervisor looked at Hazel.
"How many were you short?"
"Two hundred."
"So he made the count."
"He made the count."
The supervisor nodded slowly.
Then she looked back at me.
"You always work nights?"
"Yes."
"How long have you been here?"
"Two weeks."
She looked at Hazel again.
"Where did you find him?"
"He walked in off the street."
The supervisor laughed.
"Off the street. Right. What did he do before this?"
"Didn't ask."
"Why not?"
"Because he showed up when I needed someone and he does the work."
The supervisor shook her head.
"You're something else, Hazel."
The supervisor picked up one more piece.
Looked at it.
Set it down.
"Well," she said to Hazel. "Thank you for pulling the night shift. This is going to put us back on track."
She walked away.
Hazel stood there for a second.
She didn't look at me.
Then she moved on down the line.
I set the shears down.
My hands were shaking.
Not from the work.
From the fact that I had just watched somebody thank her for six hours of work I had done with my own hands.
And I hadn't said a word.
At three in the morning on the ninth night, the count was still short.
I was at the cutting table.
The floor was quieter than usual. Half the stations were dark.
Most of the night shift had clocked out an hour ago.
It was just me and Hazel and two other people on the far end of the line.
I heard the door at the front of the building open.
Footsteps.
I didn't look up.
Hazel's voice, low and fast, talking to someone I couldn't see.
Then the footsteps moved onto the floor.
I knew the sound of them.
I'd known the sound of them for six years.
My hands went still.
I kept my head down and I didn't turn around.
There was a loading bay door ten feet to my left.
Black glass. Locked at night.
The overhead lights were off on this end of the floor so the glass worked like a mirror.
I saw her.
She was standing near the middle of the room.
Hazel had handed her the count sheet and she was looking at it.
Her hair was pulled back. She was wearing the same canvas jacket she'd had on every time I'd seen her from a distance over the past two weeks.
She was frightened.
I could see it in the way she held herself.
Shoulders tight. Head down.
Her thumb found the seam on her sleeve and ran along it.
Once.
Twice.
I knew exactly what I was looking at.
Because I'd finally learned how to read her.
She was afraid the lot wouldn't make the window. Afraid the bid wouldn't go through. Afraid fourteen people were going to lose their jobs because she couldn't hold the line her mother had drawn twenty years ago.
And she was alone with it.
I stood there with the shears in my hand and I watched my wife in the glass.
Twenty feet away.
Close enough to hear if I said her name.
Close enough to cross the floor and tell her I was here. That she wasn't alone. That I'd spent the last two weeks on her floor doing the work I should have been doing for six years.
I didn't turn around.
I didn't speak.
I didn't let her see my face.
She'd watched our marriage in a mirror once and it had taken her apart.
Here I watched my wife in a window and I let her go.
She handed the count sheet back to Hazel.
Said something I couldn't hear.
Then she walked back toward the door.
Her footsteps faded.
The door opened.
Closed.
She was gone.