"Then listen to this," she said. "My father's restaurant is about to close, my mother has been working there for twenty years, and I can't even get a decent job to help her." The confession came out rougher than she intended, and she looked away before the driver could see her eyes filling. In the mirror, he did not offer a motivational speech or tell her that setbacks were opportunities in disguise. He waited until she was ready to continue, a small courtesy that made her willing to say more.
Her father's restaurant had been called Carter's Corner from the day he opened it, though there was no actual corner in the building's strange, narrow storefront. Thomas Carter had loved the name because he believed every neighborhood needed a place where a person could stop pretending to be successful for the length of a cup of coffee. For twenty-three years the restaurant had opened before dawn, feeding school custodians, bus drivers, nurses coming off night shifts, and children whose parents paid whenever payday arrived. After Thomas died, Lorraine had kept the lights on with Emma's help and a stubbornness that was admirable until the bills began arriving faster than the customers.
"What's the restaurant called?" the driver asked. "Carter's Corner in Brooklyn," Emma replied. "Nothing fancy." He repeated the name once, testing the sound of it. "Maybe nothing fancy is exactly what people need."
"Tell that to the landlord," she answered. The driver watched the traffic signal change. "The landlord is giving you trouble?" Emma looked at him through the rearview mirror and saw no sign of impatience, only interest. Perhaps that was why she told him more than she had told several of her closest friends.
A property investor named Victor Hail had purchased the building through a company whose name changed depending on which letter arrived. First came a rent increase that Lorraine believed violated the renewal terms of her lease, followed by inspection visits and a notice warning that all commercial tenants had to vacate by the end of the month. Hail claimed a redevelopment partner had offered a fortune for the block and that ordinary shops no longer represented its best use. Emma had read the notice four times and still could not tell which sentence gave him the right to turn her mother's life's work into a vacancy.
"Has anyone reviewed the contract?" the driver asked. Emma gave him a weary look. "A lawyer costs money. Money we don't have." The driver nodded slowly, and something thoughtful moved across his face. "Sometimes the most expensive problems begin with paperwork nobody reads carefully."
"You talk like a lawyer," Emma observed. "I drive a taxi," he answered. "I have plenty of time to think." It was the first statement he had made that felt like a deliberate step away from a question, but Emma was too exhausted to pursue it. She settled back as the cab turned toward the familiar storefronts of her neighborhood.
The restaurant came into view beneath a faded red awning with a repaired seam at one corner. Through the windows Emma could see Lorraine wiping a counter that was already clean, her shoulders squared against the worry she would never confess to customers. Beside the door stood a small chalkboard advertising chicken soup, corn muffins, and the day's pie, each price written in Emma's handwriting. The sight produced a fierce, protective ache in her chest.
"What's your name anyway?" Emma asked as the taxi stopped. "Noah." She waited a beat, expecting more. "Just Noah?" she asked. "Just Noah," he replied, holding her gaze in the mirror for a brief moment.