Elena had put a chair in the room.
It was a folding one from the kitchen downstairs, with a seat covered in blue plastic and a small rust mark where the back joined the frame. She held the door for Mara, then moved it closer to the table so she could get in.
“You can have the bed,” she said. “This one makes a noise.”
Mara sat on the chair. It complained at once, a long creak that ended in a click.
“It's all right.”
Elena sat on the bed. Between them the lamp lit a plate with two cookies and the paper Mara had brought. Anna's plain written proposal lay on top of Mara's sheet of figures. She had checked the names and numbers, then sent the same available version to the other women. None had replied with an answer. Bev had said she would take it to her appointment; Jo had asked for time to read it with her own adviser.
Elena picked it up. Mara watched her turn the pages.
Outside the door somebody went past carrying dishes. They knocked against one another, followed by a hissed apology nobody in the room needed. Mara took one of the cookies, broke it in half and ate the half that scattered least. Elena read on. She was wearing the shirt that had taken so long to dry. The shoulder lay flat against her, faintly creased where it had hung over the door.
When she finished she put the paper beside the lamp, keeping one hand on it.
“I've got someone to go through it with,” she said. “Friday.”
Mara nodded.
“I want to consider it.”
“All right.”
Elena looked down at the figures again. The chair moved beneath Mara when she shifted her weight. She tried putting her feet in a different place; it only made another sound.
“Why that much?” Elena asked.
“Twenty? That's what I said on Sunday. A fifth.”
“I know what a fifth is.”
Mara looked at her.
Elena lifted the paper slightly. “I mean this. Doing it yourself.”
“The others don't agree. Bev doesn't. I can't keep saying yes for her.”
Elena nodded slowly. She took the remaining cookie and held it in her hand, not eating.
“I don't know what I should have had,” she said. “I keep going back to Saturday. What I said. Then I go back further. All those mornings putting the money down. I want it to be one answer.”
Mara stayed quiet. The way Elena had said it let her remember the pleasure of being asked for two dollars and finding them in the bottom of a bag, not knowing the years would someday have to be taken apart like this.
“I said I'd stop,” Elena said.
“We were angry.”
“I still said it.”
Mara looked at the plate. Her broken half waited beside a small scatter of crumbs.
“You can take the time,” she said.
Elena folded the pages together, then unfolded them and laid them flat so the crease wouldn't hold. She finally ate the cookie.
“I'll tell you after I've talked to her.”
Mara nodded again. She had wanted a larger response on the phone, and still wanted one now, a look that would tell her what room she had arrived in. Elena was drinking tea, putting the paper somewhere it would remain easy to find.
“How was bowling?” she asked.
Mara laughed before answering. “Iris told you?”
“She said you were competitive.”
“I was trying to get better.”
“Did you?”
“Depends where you start counting.”
Elena smiled. Mara told her about the first ball, the noise it made and Iris's head on the table. It grew worse in the telling, her thumb refusing to let go, her whole arm briefly trying to follow it down the lane. Elena laughed so hard she had to put her cup down.
“Don't start,” Mara said, and did the arm again.
The chair creaked. Elena put a hand beneath it as though she could prevent a fall by holding the air. Mara held still. For a moment neither breathed. Then the chair settled, they looked at one another and began laughing again.
Mara could feel the old invitation to stay until the laughter wore out, then begin something else to keep it going. She took her cup instead and asked if the drawers were still coming.
“Saturday afternoon,” Elena said. “She confirmed it. You can bring the things after your meal, if that works.”
“It's your meal too.”
Elena looked at her. “I'm not coming.”
Mara kept the cup in both hands.
“I've thought about it,” Elena said. “I want them to have a nice evening. I don't want to sit there next to Dan while people talk about how everything turned out well for us.”
“You could sit with someone else.”
Elena shook her head. Mara could see her own fingers wrapped around the cup, the little pale place where the thumb pressed hardest.
“All right,” she said.
“I'll let Simon know. And Doreen.”
“They'll miss you.”
“I'll see them. Not like that.”
She got up and went to the window. It had begun raining, small drops shining in the lamplight as they struck the glass. Elena checked that the latch was closed, then pushed the curtain aside far enough to look down at the street.
“You don't have to leave early because of me,” she said, still looking out. “Sunday would do if you want.”
Mara saw the back of the shirt, the seam beneath the collar she'd fastened for Elena at work so many times. It was Wednesday. Saturday had food on a list, Jules's sister counted, Iris and Nell saying two. Daniel would be wearing the shirt Leo had brought her to mend. She could tell him now that Elena wasn't coming; she would tell him. She knew what evening he would hope to make of the answer.
“Afterward's fine,” she said. “I'd like to bring them.”
Elena turned. “Nine?”
“Nine.”
“I go to bed before ten. I like getting up early here.”
“I remember.”
“It's freezing down there before anyone gets up. I sit in the kitchen in this.” She pulled her sleeve over her hand. “Like I'm camping.”
Mara finished the half cookie from the plate. It had gone soft where it touched the edge of her cup. Elena picked up the crumbs with a damp fingertip and carried the plate to the table beneath the lamp.
“Coat, book, nightgown,” she said. “And whatever else I put in that bag.”
“I'll bring all of it.”
“Thanks.”
She looked around for somewhere to put Mara's cup. The two women reached for it at once. Mara let go; Elena caught it, spilled a little tea down the side and made an annoyed sound entirely directed at herself.
“I thought it was empty.”
Mara handed her a tissue from her bag. She wiped the cup, then the table. The proposal stayed dry beneath her other hand.
Downstairs the kitchen was busy. A woman Mara hadn't seen before stood at the stove stirring something that smelled of garlic. Elena returned the cups to the sink and asked whether there was room in the refrigerator for a small carton. The woman said yes, move whatever was in the way, then remembered a container she didn't want tipped and turned to show her.
Mara waited by the door. The man with the suitcase was at the table, repairing his charger with a piece of tape. He looked up, smiled vaguely and went back to it.
“Good night,” Mara said when Elena came over.
Elena touched her elbow. “Drive carefully.”
Mara buttoned her coat, thanked her and stepped out into the rain.