'Clocking in, boss': the shift-start through Marathe's eyes

texture · 14 Nov YDAU, evening

• When: 14 Nov YDAU, start of her night shift, at the close of Marathe's Ennet House intake interview.
• What: Leaning her upper half through the office doorway — "'Clocking in, boss,' the young girl stated in the flat nasality of Boston U.S.A." — Johnette takes the night's orders in a rapid-fire exchange that is a compact portrait of her competence: let the people in from the shed when they come for Mrs. Lopate; screen Clenette H.'s donated cartridges from E.T.A. during Dream Duty, per the vetting formula she recites like a rehearsed lesson — "'No skin, no substances, light drinking only,' the young girl said in the manner of reviewing the rehearsal of something learned" — with the dry aside that "The natives'll be grateful, for once"; and "keep Emil and Wade from tormenting David K." Marathe — who has been weighing whether to snap his interviewer's neck — registers a young girl with missing teeth, a diaper-pin glittering in one nostril, and a ring of a different type on every finger, and decides firmly against any neck-snapping, because of bodies leaning with suddenness into offices unexpectedly. When the door closes, the woman in authority delivers the book's verdict on her to a stranger: "One's under the weather, but Johnette's—you'll like Johnette. Johnette's a keeper."