Left pocket of the gray jacket: nothing.

Right pocket: a receipt, folded twice, soft the way paper goes when it’s been in a pocket and then sat on.

I unfolded it standing in front of the machine with the lid open and the water running.

THE BLUE ORCHID MOTOR INN. An address on Route 9, about twenty minutes north.

A phone number with a website underneath it that I would look up later and wish I hadn’t.

ROOM 207.

CHECK-IN 12:36 PM. CHECK-OUT 2:21 PM.

And then, on its own line, in a slightly different font, the way it is on the laminated card they keep at the desk:

RATE: 2-HR.

The washing machine kept filling.

I remember that very clearly.

I stood there long enough for it to finish filling and start to agitate, and the whole time the paper was in my hand, and my brain was doing the thing brains do, which is offer you eleven explanations in four seconds and reject all of them.

A client meeting.

In a motel.