Page 28 of Levi

The dryer buzzes. I fold his clothes on top of the machine. Worn t-shirts, socks matched into pairs. Four minutes, start to finish. The jeans take longer. They come out warm, worn soft at the knees and the seat, faded pale down the front of the thighs where years of him have rubbed the denim thin, broken in to the exact shape of the man. I fold them with more attention than anyone folds a stranger’s jeans, and I notice myself doing it. Everything he has here fits in one load. A sixty-thousand-dollar rental and one load of laundry. How does that make sense?

At four-thirty I slide the terrace glass open. I told him the door would be open when he returned. I keep my word, even to a guy who pays me back in damage. I lock up behind me and drive to the apartment.

The front door is propped on my kitchen chair again. Inside, every door stands flat to its wall.

He’s exactly where I expected. On the floor of the second bedroom, in the gap between the flyer boxes and the wall, the cashmere throw he still drags around, pulled to his chin. Six feet of Tennessee mountains folded into eighteen inches of floor. Asleep in a room full of yard signs. Breathing slow and deep. For a split-second, I consider letting him sleep a little longer. Then I remember the washing machine.

I call out from the hallway. “Levi. It’s five.”

His eyes open without a single flinch this time. He sees me, sits up, and the cashmere comes with him. He looks better than he did when I dropped him off this morning. I don’t ask what a floor has that a sofa doesn’t.

“Five already.” It comes out thick with sleep. “House survive the crew?”

“The house survived the crew. Your laundry’s another conversation.”

“My laundry? Did everything get washed?”

“We’ll talk in the car.”

On my way out I pick up the kitchen chair and set it back at the table. He comes down the stairs behind me with the duffel.

“You put dishwasher pods in the washing machine this morning,” I tell him when he gets into the SUV. “The laundry room flooded.”

“The pods were under the sink,” he says, no apology in it. “Pods are pods.”

“No, they’re not. The washing machine detergent was in the cabinet above the machine. There’s a picture of a washing machine on the bottle.”

“Huh. I must’ve missed the tour of the soap aisle.”

“The washing machine detergent sat eight inches away. You crossed the kitchen and went under the sink to find the one wrong box in the place.”

“I found the candy-colored ones. That’s a packaging problem if they all look the same.”

I don’t say a word.

He sighs loudly. “Alright, I’ll be sure to read the pictures next time,” he finally says in that deep Tennessee twang that almost makes me want to forgive him.

That’s the problem with the twang. It comes out deep and rolls right past my judgment. He either has no idea he’s doing it or he knows exactly.

“There won’t be a next time. The right soap’s on top of the machine now. Label out. Today’s damage might run into the thousands if water seeped into the floor.”

He shrugs. “Put it on the tab.”

“What makes you think there’s a tab?”

He throws me a quick glance. “A man with your shoes always keeps a tab.”

I let that one go because it’s accurate.

“Your sandwiches went in the trash this morning. They sat out all night. They spoiled. They weren’t safe for you to eat.”

He looks at the window. “Right,” he says, to the glass more than to me. He doesn’t explain. “Did the pie survive?”

“Yes. The pie is in the refrigerator.”

He turns and smiles at me. “Then I’ve got enough food for supper.”

“Pie isn’t a meal.”