Two portions of rice

“Seven,” Sora said, lifting the last scoop from the rice cooker. There was enough for seven bowls if she kept the scoops level. Mr. Yun would call it eight.

The metal paddle caught on the crust at the bottom. She worked it loose while steam fogged the cheap wall clock above the sink. It was three eleven. The clock was supposed to mark the end of her shift at three, though she had never once walked out then.

Luis carried the drink tub in from the dining room. Water sloshed over its rim and onto the stack of receipts beside the register.

“Leave it,” Sora said. “I’ll get those.”

“You’re still counting?”

“I can count wet paper.”

He gave her the tub and went back for the floor mats. On Friday, Sora would give Mr. Yun her key. On Monday she would start at a residential care kitchen across town, where the offer letter named a closing time and someone else was assigned to wash the floor. She had read that part twice.

Mr. Yun came through the swinging door with two empty paper bowls.

“Two portions,” he said.

Sora looked at the clock. “We’re closed.”

“I know.”

He had asked for two portions after closing on every shift she could remember. Years ago his wife had sat at the navy counter while he finished the books, picking scallions from her rice. She had moved to Tucson before Luis was hired. Sora had stopped wondering why Mr. Yun still asked for two.

Now she wondered because seven portions had become five.

“Are these going on the waste sheet?” she asked.

“They go on my sheet.”

“Which one is that?”

Mr. Yun set the bowls near the cooker. “I’ll serve them. You can go.”

The front door opened. Sora heard the click of a helmet buckle, then the scrape of a chair on the dining room tile. A woman in a gray delivery jacket came through the swinging door with her helmet under one arm. Sora had seen her waiting outside the bakery next door, checking her phone between orders.

“I can come back,” the woman said.

“No,” Mr. Yun told her. “It’s ready.”

Sora put the paddle down. The woman looked at the two bowls, then at Sora.

“I’m Mina,” she said.

“Sora.”

Mr. Yun filled the bowls with rice. His scoops were generous. Sora counted them anyway.

“How long?” she asked him.

He fitted lids to the bowls. “What?”

“How long have you been making her dinner?”

“It’s lunch,” Mina said. “Late lunch.”

“Since the end of spring,” Mr. Yun said.

Sora turned toward the sink. Luis was kneeling over the drain beneath it, trying to free a twist of cabbage from the grate. He had already changed out of his apron. When the two bowls were gone, someone would wash the paddle, wipe the cooker and take out the bag Mr. Yun had just added to the trash.

“Luis and I stay twenty minutes most days,” Sora said. “You write three on the time sheet.”

Mr. Yun’s hands stopped on the second lid.

“You know I settle up when I can.”

“You haven’t settled up.”

Mina rested the helmet on an empty shelf. “I thought you were doing this yourself.”

“He serves it himself,” Sora said. “Then we close around him.”

Mina pulled out a chair in the dining room but did not sit. Mr. Yun carried the bowls to the counter. One lid had popped loose, and he pressed it down with his thumb.

“She lost her night route,” he said to Sora. “I didn’t announce it because it’s her business.”

“It is,” Mina said. “I lost it when they changed the area. I didn’t ask for dinner.”

“No one said you did,” Sora told her.

Mina picked up her helmet. “I can pay for today.”

Mr. Yun shook his head.

“That’s between you two,” Sora said. “The time is between you and us.”

Luis stood up. A little water dripped from his sleeve. “I’m done with the sink.”

“Then go,” Sora said.

He looked to Mr. Yun. Mr. Yun nodded, and Luis left with his wet sleeve held away from his pants.

Sora rinsed the paddle. She wanted to leave it in the sink and make Mr. Yun finish the job. She also wanted her last week’s pay. She dried the paddle, set it beside the cooker and took off her apron.

“The crust is still stuck,” she told him. “I’m leaving it for you.”

Mr. Yun glanced at the cooker. “All right.”

She took her bag from its hook. As she passed Mina, the woman said, “I work mornings too. I didn’t tell him I was hungry.”

Sora stopped. The bowls were cooling on the counter between them.

“I believe you,” she said, and went out.

---

On Wednesday, Mr. Yun found Sora in the kitchen before the doors opened. She was counting six chopped scallion piles against six sheets of paper spread beside the cutting board.

He had brought her a revised time sheet. The closing times now read three fifteen on Monday and three twenty on Tuesday.

“Luis has one too,” he said. “I asked him to mark what I missed.”

Sora took the sheet. She had written her own times in the back of her recipe notebook. Tuesday had been three twenty-six.

“I stayed to clean the filter,” she said.

Mr. Yun looked at her entry, then took the sheet back and changed it. “You could have told me yesterday.”

“I did tell you yesterday.”

The phone at the register rang. Mr. Yun went to answer it. Sora swept the scallions into a covered pan, one pile after another. She kept counting after the pan was shut. Six bowls of rice would take the first servings from a fresh cooker. On Fridays they sometimes ran out before two.

Mina arrived through the back door at ten with a folded page in her hand. Her helmet buckle clicked as she loosened it.

“The print shop said yes to a Friday trial,” she told Sora. “Six lunches. They all eat together because the press runs until noon.”

Mr. Yun came back from the register. “What print shop?”

“The one on Alder,” Mina said. “I take their proofs to the frame place in the mornings. They order from three different places and somebody always has to go collect it.”

She flattened her page on the worktable. Six names, six orders. Four wanted chicken. Two wanted mushrooms and cabbage. Each had chosen from the counter’s regular menu.

“I told them the price on your board,” she said to Mr. Yun. “They’ll pay for the food when they call. They agreed to pay me eighteen dollars to bring the whole order over.”

“Who’s paying you?” he asked.

“The print shop. Directly. I talked to the manager.”

Mr. Yun read the page. “We’re busy at noon.”

“That’s why I wrote the orders down now.”

Sora went to the cooker and lifted the lid. Rice stuck in a brown seam around the bottom. She scraped the seam while Mr. Yun read each name aloud, as if one of them might cancel before he reached the end.

“We could make these after the rush,” he said.

“Their press stops at twelve,” Mina said. “That’s when they eat.”

“Then we need another cooker.”

“We have this one,” Sora said. “Friday rice starts at eleven anyway. Six bowls can come out first if the order stays at six.”

Mr. Yun tapped the paper. “If it stays at six.”

“Tell them six is the minimum for delivery,” Mina said. “If somebody’s out, the others can still place the order. But I’m not riding over there for one bowl.”

Sora set the paddle down. “And they call by four the day before. With payment. Same two choices each time.”

Mina looked up. “I told them they could have anything on the board.”

“Then you can carry six different lunches,” Sora said. “We can’t stop the line to make them.”

“I already asked each person.”

“They picked two things,” Sora said, pointing to the page. “That’s good for Friday. For next week, give them the two choices when they order.”

Mr. Yun took the paper to the register, where it would stay dry. The receipts from Monday had been laid along the windowsill to dry; two had curled so badly he had copied their totals by hand.

“You’re talking about next week,” he said from the doorway.

“Only if Friday works,” Sora said.

“And you won’t be here.”

“No.”

He came back into the kitchen. “You know how the noon line gets. I can’t run it alone and fill six extra bowls.”

“Luis knows the rice station.” Sora had shown him twice, though Mr. Yun still called her over whenever the cooker beeped. “You can ask him to take it on Friday while I’m here.”

“That takes him off dishes.”

“For ten minutes. Then you put him back. Put those minutes on his sheet.”

Mr. Yun looked at the revised sheet in his hand. Outside, a truck backed up to the curb, its warning sound coming through the open rear window.

Mina folded her arms. “I have other morning work. I can’t stand here hoping the bowls will be ready.”

“Eleven fifty pickup,” Sora said. “If we can do it on Friday, that’s the time you offer them.”

“I’ll tell them eleven fifty,” Mina said.

Mr. Yun pulled out a stool and sat on it. He had not sat down before opening since Sora gave notice. “What about the two lunches after close?”

Mina answered before Sora could. “You said you couldn’t keep buying them.”

“I said I couldn’t keep buying two every day.”

“Then stop,” Mina said. “I can buy my own lunch when I want it.”

He looked offended, and Sora nearly laughed. Mina kept her arms folded and waited for his answer.

“If the print shop likes Friday, they might order twice a week,” Mina said. “That’s one delivery I can count on each of those days. I’ll look for more. You don’t have to find them for me.”

Mr. Yun turned the revised sheet over in his hands. “I can do six twice a week. Maybe. I can’t promise more.”

“See if Friday works first,” Sora said. “You can discuss next week after that.”

He got up to turn on the dining room lights. On his way out he stopped by Sora’s board.

“I’ll put your correct Tuesday time on this,” he said. “You and Luis can check Friday’s times before you go.”

“Good,” Sora said.

When the door swung shut, Mina put on her helmet but left the buckle loose.

“You’re really leaving?”

“Monday.”

“Where?”

“A care kitchen on the west side.”

Mina nodded, then picked up a strip of cabbage Sora had dropped on the table and put it in the scrap bowl. “You sound like you’ve got the bus worked out.”

“I have to transfer.”

“You’ll hate that.”

“I might.”

Mina snapped the buckle shut. The sound was sharp in the small kitchen. “Eleven fifty Friday,” she said.

---

On Friday, the print shop called at four minutes to eleven.

Mr. Yun held the phone away from his ear. “One of them wants the chicken without scallions.”

“That’s fine,” Sora said. She counted four chicken bowls on the worktable and moved one to the end.

“He says the card didn’t go through.”

Mr. Yun listened. Sora filled two mushroom bowls. Luis set lids beside her in a row, printed side up.

“Ask if they want to try again,” she said.

Mr. Yun did. Sora looked at the clock, which had vanished behind steam from the fresh rice. She wiped its face with her sleeve. Eleven eighteen. A customer at the counter called for more sauce.

“We have the food ready,” Mr. Yun said into the phone. His voice had gone thin. He listened, then set the receiver down. “They’re calling back with another card.”

Sora covered the chicken without scallions. “Don’t send it until they do.”

“I know.”

At eleven thirty-one, the phone rang again. Mr. Yun took the payment, then wrote a large six on the order slip and brought it to the kitchen. The paper was dry. Sora set it under a jar of sesame seeds where nobody could spill a drink on it.

By eleven forty, the counter had filled. A man waiting for his own bowl watched Luis place the six print shop lunches into a carrier.

“I ordered first,” the man said.

“You did,” Sora said. She passed his ticket to Mr. Yun. “Your chicken’s next.”

Luis paused with a lid in his hand. Sora nudged the next bowl toward him. If he stopped to explain the order, he would lose his place.

Mina arrived at eleven forty-eight, her jacket damp at the shoulders. She checked the six names against the slip while Luis fitted the last lid.

“Four chicken, two mushroom,” he said. “One without scallions.”

Mina pointed to the bowl at the end. “That one?”

Sora nodded.

Mr. Yun came in from the dining room. “The print shop paid. You have your delivery charge with them?”

“They’ll pay when I arrive,” Mina said. “Their manager wrote it on my sheet.”

She showed him the line. He read it and handed the sheet back.

The carrier was heavier than Mina expected. She shifted it against her hip, tightened one strap and tested the weight again.

“I can take three,” Luis offered.

“You have people waiting,” she said. “I’ve got it.”

The back door caught on a raised patch of tile. Sora held it while Mina stepped out. At the curb, Mina fastened the carrier to her bike, tugged once at each strap and rode toward Alder.

Inside, the line had not shortened. Mr. Yun was calling orders faster than Luis could clear space for them. Sora turned to the rice cooker. Six portions were gone, then five more, then three. The crust caught her paddle.

“Mr. Yun,” she called, “that’s the last chicken until you start another pan.”

“I heard you.”

“You said that last time and sold two.”

He came to the kitchen door and looked at the pan. “I heard you this time.”

When the last customer left, it was two fifty-six. Luis washed the rice paddles. Sora wiped the worktable. Mr. Yun went to the register with both time sheets and returned while Luis was still rinsing his hands.

“Three ten for both of you,” he said. “If we’re done by then.”

Luis looked at the floor mats. “We won’t be.”

“Then mark when you are,” Mr. Yun said. He handed Luis the pen.

Mina came back at three seven, carrying the empty carrier and a small receipt from the print shop. She had already been paid. The manager had written Tuesday and Thursday? on the back.

Mr. Yun read it. “I’ll call her Monday.”

“She knows six is the minimum,” Mina said. “I gave her the two choices.”

Sora could see the question mark on the back of the receipt. She left it there and checked the cooker. A little rice remained; the stack of bills under the register had not moved.

At three twenty-two, Luis signed his time sheet and left. Mr. Yun checked the cooker, then scraped out enough rice for two small bowls.

“You and Mina can eat before you go,” he told Sora.

Mina reached for her pocket. “How much?”

Mr. Yun started to wave the question away. Sora set her key beside the register.

“Ring us up,” she said. “I want the staff price.”

“You’re still staff for today,” he said.

“Exactly.”

He rang up both bowls. Mina paid for hers with the money from the print shop; Sora paid for hers. They sat at the navy counter while Mr. Yun went back to the sink. There was one lime chopstick sleeve left in the holder. Mina gave it to Sora and took a pair of chopsticks loose from the drawer.

The rice was hot enough that Sora had to lift a bite and wait. Across the counter, Mr. Yun ran water into the cooker and began working at the crust.

Mina turned over the print shop receipt and read the question again. “I’ll call her Monday too,” she said. “After she talks to him.”

Sora nodded. She finished her rice, folded the empty bowl into its lid and put it in the bin. Mr. Yun came out to the register, drying his hands on a towel. Sora slid her key toward him. He closed his fingers around it.

“Your transfer,” Mina said, looking at the clock. “Do you have to go?”

“Not until Monday.”

Mina pulled out the stool beside her. Sora sat back down while Mina finished eating.