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knees almost sliding on the tile. But Number 19 didn’t bother looking her way.
    Ann slipped on her clothes without properly drying her body, so the sleeves of her shirt clung awkwardly to her upper arms. She felt embarrassed about being so upset. This was Number 19’s workplace, after all. She had to be friendly to all the other customers.
    Ann left the massage room and crossed over to the driving range to hit a bucket of balls. Since she didn’t have any clubs, she had to rent a nine iron too. She hadn’t hit balls since her mother’s ex-boyfriend had left them. Seven irons were the most versatile clubs, her mother’s ex-boyfriend had said. If you had a decent swing, you could even tee off with a seven iron at a three-par course. You could never go wrong with that club.
    She placed a ball on a one-inch plastic tube, a substitute tee, on the plastic grass pad. She then overswung three times, missing the ball completely. Remember not to muscle the ball, her mother’s ex-boyfriend had said. Don’t force it. Just use the laws of nature and gravity. Ann relaxed and slowed down. Soon she was in a groove and the ball was sailing past the hundred-foot marker.
    “Hey, lady, you want more balls?” asked a teenager who was collecting the empty metal buckets at some point.
    Ann looked down and saw her bucket was empty. How long had she been taking swings without the ball?
    “It works better with balls, you know.”
    After the sun went down, Ann decided to return to the massage waiting room. The wooden box was unlocked and the desk clerk was slitting open the tip envelopes with a knife. On top of the reception table were neat stacks of twentydollar bills.
    “We closed,” the clerk said, finally noticing Ann. She smiled as if she knew of an inside joke. Her magenta lipstick looked freshly applied.
    Ann couldn’t imagine why the clerk needed to looked well-groomed to count money. She figured the clerk must be a higher-up, maybe a manager. “You know that’s their money, not yours.”
    “We pay them tomorrow. They will get their money, I assure you.”
    Once Ann returned to the apartment, she ate a bowl of tomato soup she had bought from the 99 cents store. It was a brand she had never heard of; the soup, which had the consistency of silt, was a strange crayon orange color. Marie had been right—business had slowed down considerably and now people were leaving their spare change instead of dollar bills for tips. Ann looked for Marie’s cell phone number in her purse and dialed it. A man answered the phone.
    “Is Marie there?”
    “Huh? I think you got the wrong number.”
    Ann ended the call and tried again.
    “I told you that you have the wrong number, okay?!” The man then cursed, warning Ann that there would be consequences if she called a third time.
    That night Ann fell asleep to a repeat of a late-night talk show, voices laughing at jokes that didn’t make much sense anymore.
    The next evening, Ann returned to the block where the spa was located, but this time she waited at Number 19’s bus stop. She didn’t know if she would recognize the masseuse with her clothes on, but the minute she and another masseuse walked across the street, Ann got up from the bench.
    “Did you get your tip money?” she asked.
    The masseuse and her friend looked afraid.
    “This is America. You have rights—it doesn’t matter if you’re illegal or not.”
    Just then, a bus roared to the stop and the two women rushed to get inside.
    “Next time I’ll give you the tip. Or give me your address. I’ll send you the money,” Ann said from the street. The doors folded together; the bus sighed before joining the lines of traffic.
    “I’d like to see Number 19.” Ann stood in front of the check-in desk of the spa on Friday. It was the same manager, only this time she was wearing tangerine lipstick instead of magenta.
    “One hundred dollars.”
    Ann wasn’t about to admit that she didn’t have the money. “I just need to speak