I Did Not Break My Pace

The guard has a name on his badge but I stopped reading it weeks ago. This morning he turned his whole shoulder into me before I cleared the revolving door, and the bruise he found on me sent a flare up my neck that I had to swallow in front of the doorman with the white gloves. I did not flinch. I want that on the record even if no one will ever check it. He called me "the help" to a tenant on the fourth floor at one in the afternoon, loud enough for me to hear on my way past with four hundred in my tote. Four hundred cash I counted in someone's back bedroom while a woman watched me from a doorway with her arms folded like a jury.

The hostess prefers Jolene. She said it to Jolene's face, with me standing right there, and Jolene did not blink. "We trained together." Three words, smooth as a finished hem. We did not train together. I have never seen Jolene in a classroom. I have seen her on the app, undercutting me by fifteen dollars, taking the Saturday morning slots, posting the same three locations I post. She said it the way you say something true enough to be believed, and I pinned the hem and I did not break my pace. I want to remember that I did not break my pace.