The lunch lady of hollow ridge playthrough

Turn 21 of 32

Clean the kitchen spotless after lunch and feel the pride of it. then Spend the afternoon watching southern shows with the other Tammys

The dishes run and the twelve of you fall into the cleaning like a hymn you all know the verses to. Counters wiped down in long even strokes, griddle scraped and oiled, the serving line polished until the stainless steel shines back at you — twelve round soft women in cat-eye glasses, moving down the line in step. Floors swept, then mopped in overlapping passes, nobody crossing nobody, the wheel of it turning smooth. When the last of you sets the mop back in the bucket, the kitchen is spotless, and the pride that swells up is shared all the way around, warm as the oven.

'Look at that now,' Tammy says, hands on her hips, taking in the whole shining room. 'Ain't a spot on her.'

'Better than when we found it,' you say, and the table of you laughs, because it's true, and it's yours, this kitchen, and it's good.

The afternoon goes to the lounge, same as it ever does. The channel is deep in its southern run — a baking show where a wide woman in a gingham apron makes a caramel cake while telling about her mama's kitchen, and twelve identical women watch with twelve identical soft smiles, hands folded on bellies, slippers up on the ottoman. Somebody brought the little dishes of crackers and cheese sauce out again, portioned the same, and you pass yours down the row so Tammy can have first pick of the whole crackers before you take what's left, and she does the same right back when the next dish comes around.

Between shows the talk is small and sweet — the crusts question from lunch, whether the fourth-graders prefer the sandwiches cut diagonal or straight, how fair the portions came out. 'Diagonal,' six of you say together, and the laugh that follows is one laugh in twelve chests.

The clock ticks on at 8:30, the building hums warm and clean behind you, and Tammy is content.