The Thursday bus cost nine dollars round trip and came with a buffet voucher, which was why she took it, the same as every month since the county payroll office let her go at sixty-one. A girl in a green vest found her at machine 114 by 10:40 and never once let the glass go empty. Amaretto sour, extra cherries, no charge, a small nod each time like a shared secret.

She tipped a dollar on every free drink. Nineteen dollars, which she thought about on the ride home more than the four hundred and ten the machine took. Her daughter calls on Sundays, usually. On the bus she told the women in the front row that the staff there were just lovely, that they knew her name by the second hour, and she meant every word.