She stood up, her knees making a loud cracking sound, and walked through a heavy grey door into the back room.

I stood at the counter for twenty minutes, watching the minute hand on the wall clock tick toward twelve-thirty.

A man in a dirt-stained safety vest came in, leaned against the far wall, and started scrolling on his phone.

When Martha returned, she carried a thick, blue plastic binder with a metal latch.

She dropped it on the counter with a heavy thud that kicked up a small cloud of paper dust.

“You can look at it here,” she said, sliding a yellow notepad and a stubby pencil toward me.