I walk to the bathroom, relieved I don’t have to get in that awful shower, but when I catch myself in the mirror, I scare the shit out of me. Blood, streaked down my cheek, wiped along my jaw. I must have slept on my hand. I bled through the sheet strips. I do the best I can to clean my face with freezing sink water and realize that I can’t exactly go serving people at a coffee shop with a horror movie bloody stump.

Back in the car, I wriggle into my cleanest flannel, pull Margo’s hand-me-down leopard-print leggings on under my long skirt for extra warmth, and gather my hair into the most professional ponytail I can manage with one hand. I wrap a new strip of sheet around my knuckles and walk into town, even though it’s only eight a.m. and I don’t have to be at work until ten thirty.

I stop at the pharmacy, buy a bottle of peroxide and a roll of gauze, and take care of my hand in the employee bathroom. Then I go to a funny little shop that sells bulky sweaters and blow eight bucks on fingerless gloves to hide the bandage. They smell like incense even after I’ve left the store. I wonder if anything in Ithaca just smells like normal, or dryer sheets, or nothing.

Even if they pay me today and have hours for me tomorrow, which isn’t likely, there’s no way I’m going to be able to find a place to live by tomorrow night. But I can’t think of other options, so I go to work and hope for an opportunity to present itself.

There’s a long line at the cafe when I get there. I walk up to the counter and Carly stares at me with narrowed eyes, like she’s considering telling me I need to wait my turn.

“April,” I say. “You hired me.”

“Right, right.” She nods. “Come on back.” She points at a customer, a guy with a brown corduroy cap like old fashioned newspaper boys wore. “You’re up.” She takes his travel mug and starts making his order immediately, leaving me to figure out how to get behind the counter on my own.

There’s a plank door thingy where the counter meets the wall, like at Gary’s bar. You’re supposed to lift it to pass, but this one is piled high with coffee mugs, so I duck under, as low as I can, staying hunched a little longer than I need to because I have visions of sending the mugs flying.

I clear it, stand, and play with a loose thread on my glove while Carly makes the coffee machine hiss and spit.

“You’re short on details,” Carly says, and I can’t tell if she’s talking to the customer.

“Me?” I ask.

She nods. “No address, no phone.”