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I tap the pen against the page.

What doesn’t need me to touch every single piece of it?

I don’t know. I write it down anyway.

What doesn’t grow with my hours?

Somebody knocks.

One knuckle. Once. Not hard. And I don’t even think about it. I don’t flinch. I don’t go still. I know I didn’t lock the door.

“Come in,” I say.

And then I hear what I said. I just told Rafferty Waleska to come in.

The door opens a few inches. He looks in. He’s in a gray T-shirt and the same sweatpants from the dorm, barefoot, with his hair still wet from a shower.

He sees the notebook in my lap.

“Busy?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll come back.”

And he starts to close the door just like that. He doesn’t argue or ask what I’m doing.

“No,” I say. “Come in.”

He stops and opens it again. He comes in and doesn’t close it all the way behind him. He sits on the foot of the bed on the corner as far from me as the bed goes.

“What are you doing?” he asks, looking at the page.

I show him.

“Cap?”

“Cap,” I say.

“What does that mean?”

And I tell him. I don’t mean to tell him all of it. But I start, and then I can’t stop, the way I couldn’t stop on his couch at Thanksgiving. I turn the notebook around so he can see the list. I go down it with the end of the pen. Source, clean, photograph, list, pack, ship, store.

“If I keep doing eBay,” I say, “I can make more money. I can. December was the best month I’ve ever had. But every time I make more, I have to do more. I have to find more stuff and clean more stuff and walk more stuff to the post office. It all comes through me. There’s only one of me.”

“Hire somebody,” he says.

I stop. He’s looking at the page, not at me, with his elbows on his knees.

“Okay,” I say slowly. “Then I’m paying somebody. Every week. Whether I sell anything or not.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s terrifying.”

“Yeah,” he says. “But then it isn’t all you.”

I look at him for a second. Then I turn the notebook back around and write it down.