Ruth caught her at the drink station. Ruth Hale was sixty-eight and had owned the diner since the suburb was still mostly fields with a rumor of a grocery store. She had a face like a good potato and eyes that missed very little and commented on less. She refilled a pitcher and spoke to the ice.
“Toni says you held a math class in twelve,” she said. “Toni is not a snitch. Toni is a schedule. Are we hiring you out, or are you coming back to the floor you already work on?”
“Coming back,” Emily said. “They’ll want pie in twenty minutes. I’ll take it. I’ll stay and do the bins.”
“You’ll stay and do the bins because you stayed at the table,” Ruth said, not unkindly. “I don’t mind a long table if the table is a person and not a performance. Was it a performance?”