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here,” Kat said, “but there’s one downstairs in the kitchen. And there’s a toaster oven down there, too, if you want to bring it up. You get two meals a day, which will be whatever I’m serving that day. I do breakfast and lunch, open at five o’clock April through September, six o’clock the rest of the year, and I close at three—which means you stopped by at a good time, because after you’ve unpacked you can help me close and we’ll have time to talk.”
    “I can unpack later. Put me to work,” Carlin replied, barely able to believe her good luck. A place to stay, plus food? That more than made up for the low pay. With two meals a day, if she timed it right, she wouldn’t need to eat dinner at all. She could get by with a late breakfast and then a mid-afternoon meal, maybe right before closing. Or she could eat half of her lunch and take the other half up for dinner. Either way, that was a big money-saver.
    “All right then, let’s get started,” Kat said, handing the door key over, then heading back down the stairs. Carlinslipped the key into her pocket, but didn’t lock the door behind her. If she had to move fast, she didn’t want a locked door in her way. She started to drop her jacket on the futon, but at the last second caution made her keep it in her hand. No matter how tiny the chance that she might have to run, she wanted the jacket close by.
    The three stool-riders were still in place at the counter, but as soon as Kat reappeared they grabbed their tickets, slid from the stools, fished tip money out of their pockets, then ambled toward the cash register situated at the end of the counter closest to the door. A quick glance at the clock on the wall told Carlin they were leaving with ten minutes to spare. Kat efficiently rang up the tickets, ignored one customer’s attempt to flirt, and as soon as the last one left she flipped the sign on the door so it said “Closed,” then turned the lock.
    “I hate it when someone comes in at the last minute,” she explained with a slight grumble in her tone. “Throws off my whole schedule.”
    Carlin figured closing a little early had more to do with the “talking” Kat wanted to do, but because she was interested she asked, as she hung her jacket on a coatrack not far from the door, “When do you do your baking?”
    “If I have any special orders I usually stick around after closing to bake, so I don’t get overloaded during business hours. If I’m here late anyway, I’ll go ahead and bake for the next day, too. Otherwise I head home shortly after closing; baking usually starts as soon as the breakfast rush is over.”
    Carlin made herself handy removing the dirty crockery from the counter and, after a nod from Kat, took it through to the kitchen area. From her few brief stints as a waitress she knew there were all sorts of health department rules that had to be followed, and each state haddifferent laws, so obviously things had to be done a certain way. Still, cooking was cooking and eating was eating, and some chores were the same except for the volume of what needed to be done.
    Kat didn’t strike her as a naively trusting person, despite the speed with which she’d offered the job, so Carlin waited for the questions to begin. Kat had acted on her own reasons, and she might or might not divulge them. That was fair enough, considering Carlin had already decided to keep some things to herself, too, such as her real last name.
    While the huge commercial dishwasher was running, they tackled the public area. Carlin did the mopping while Kat did the refilling and putting away stuff, though she kept an eye on her employer to see how things were done. Starting at the far wall, she mopped toward the kitchen area, scrubbing the floor with a solution that smelled like pure bleach and burned her sinuses. She wrinkled her nose. “Any germ that still lives after being drowned in this stuff deserves a nice cushy home on Easy Street.”
    “Any germ