The Joke I Still Say Alone

"Count the drawer, boss," I say to the register, in the fake radio voice Mara used to do every night before we closed. Nobody laughs. Nobody's supposed to. She quit in March, took the day job with actual weekends, and I kept the joke going anyway, all by myself, four nights a week.

I don't remember when it stopped being for her and started being for the empty store. I do the walk-through with the same flashlight click she taught me, twice on the freezer door, once on the ice machine because it sticks. I say her line at the counter. I laugh at my own delivery like she still would.

Tonight I caught myself doing her half too. The part where she'd groan and say oh my god you're doing this again, in her voice, out of my mouth, to nobody, at 2am, over a lottery drawer with forty one dollars in it.

I stood there with the cash tray in my hand and thought about texting her that. Hey, weird thing, I still do our bit. Then I thought about how long it's been since either of us started a conversation that wasn't just replying to the other's story.

I locked the drawer. I didn't send anything. I said the line again anyway, quieter, like leaving it running costs nothing.