After that first time at the Korean spa, Ann knew that she had to feel the touch and hear the voice of Number 19 again. But it had taken her three months to save up that initial hundred and twenty-five dollars. If she wanted to go again, she would have to be more aggressive in placing money in her personal bank, an old pickle jar where she stuffed extra bills and change from her daily tips. She began collecting her neighbors’ empty soda cans and walking to a recycling shack near the local supermarket and waiting alongside homeless junkies to exchange cans for coins. Three weeks later she rolled the quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies on a TV tray. She came up with fifty dollars in change. With her fiveand one-dollar bills in tips, she had enough to cover the spa.

This time she was more bold in her questions. “You have a car?”

“Bus. Two stops to Hobart.”

Ann knew the bus line that traveled that route.

“What’s your name?”

“No name. Only number.”

Ann asked her questions while lying on the massage table. She noticed that the tear in Number 19’s underpants was getting larger and wondered why she didn’t use some of her tip money to buy a new pair. She ended up not asking her, but the question remained in her mind.

Before she left, the masseuse stared up at Ann’s face.

“Nice,” she said.

Ann furrowed her eyebrows.

Number 19 pointed to Ann’s eyes. “Very pretty.”

About two weeks later, Marie told her some bad news at work. “The bitch laid me off. Said I talk too much. I think it’s just an excuse because business has been so slow.” Marie ripped the apron from her waist and whirled the combination on her locker in the back room of the restaurant. “It’s just as well. I’m sick of L.A. I’m going back home.”

Ann couldn’t remember where home was, but it was some state shaped like a rectangle in the middle of the U.S.