The counter edge bit into Georgia's thighs through the thin cotton of his skirt. No apron. Hazel's order had been waiting for him when he clocked in at five-forty, written on a slip of paper tucked under the register drawer: Counter. No apron. All shift. He'd read it twice, folded it into quarters, and tucked it into the waistband of his skirt where it pressed against his hip like a second heartbeat.

The morning light came through the plate-glass window in a long yellow blade. It caught the damp spot on his skirt — yesterday's spill, or something else — and traced its outline against the blue cotton. He'd tried to blot it in the bathroom before his shift. Cold water. Paper towel. It had dried in a shape that didn't quite read as syrup.

Ruby sat in her booth. Third from the end. Same booth she always took, the one with the split in the vinyl that caught the hem of her wrap skirt when she slid in. She had a coffee cup in front of her and both hands wrapped around it, and she hadn't touched it since he'd poured it ten minutes ago.

She was looking at his skirt.

Not at him. At the spot. The light moved when Georgia shifted his weight, and the spot moved with it, and Ruby's eyes tracked it the way a cat tracks a moth.

"You're gonna want to stand still," she said. "Every time you move, it catches the light different."

"It's syrup."

"Mm." Ruby lifted her coffee and finally drank. She set it down without looking away. "From yesterday."

Georgia's hand found the coffee pot on the burner behind him. It was warm. He'd brewed it at five-forty-five, and it had been sitting long enough that the bottom of the pot had gone dark and thick. He wrapped his fingers around the handle anyway, because it gave his hand something to do that wasn't touching the spot on his skirt.

"You got here early," he said.

"I got here when Hazel opened the door." Ruby's voice carried across the empty diner without effort. "She didn't say two words to me. Walked past my booth like I was a coat rack and went straight to the back."

"She does that."

"She does that." Ruby turned her cup a quarter-turn on the saucer. "She also left the storage closet unlocked last night. After she made such a fuss about it."

The coffee pot handle warmed under Georgia's palm. He didn't say anything.

"You know what I think?" Ruby leaned back against the vinyl. The flower in her hair caught the light — small, red, pinned above her left ear like a warning. "I think she's got something she wants to say to you and she doesn't know how to say it. So she's gonna make you stand out here all morning with your dick showing through your skirt and hope you figure it out."

"That's not—"

"That's exactly what it is." Ruby smiled. It was a slow smile, the kind that took its time arriving. "You want me to tell you what I think the appointment is?"

Georgia's fingers tightened on the pot handle. The bell over the door had not chimed. The diner was empty except for Ruby and the hum of the cooler and the smell of bacon grease that never quite left the griddle no matter how many times the night man scraped it.

"There's no appointment," he said.

"There's always an appointment." Ruby picked up her coffee again. "Hazel doesn't write things down unless she means them."

The bell chimed.

Georgia turned — coffee pot still in his hand, skirt still damp, the folded slip of paper still pressed against his hip — and the morning light moved off the spot and onto the door.

The person who came in was not a customer.

He was tall, taller than Georgia, with shoulders that didn't know what to do with themselves. He wore a floral dress, pale yellow with small blue flowers, cut in a style that was two seasons out of date and one size too big. The hem fell just above his knees, and beneath it, where the light from the window caught the fabric, there was a soft curve of skin and the unmistakable shape of a penis — uncut, the foreskin a soft fold that the thin cotton couldn't quite hide.

He stopped three steps inside the door. His hands were at his sides. His face was pink from the ears down.

"I'm looking for Hazel," he said. His voice was higher than Georgia expected. Quiet. "Hazel Reyes."

Ruby set her cup down. She didn't say anything. She just watched — the same way she'd watched the spot on Georgia's skirt, with the patience of someone who had already decided what she was going to do about it.

The clipboard tap came from the back hall before Hazel did. Once. Sharp. The way she tapped it when she wanted the floor to know she was coming.

Hazel came around the corner in her red skirt and white blouse, clipboard against her hip, black bob swinging as she walked. She looked at the newcomer the way she looked at a table that hadn't been bussed — not angry, just aware, filing it away.

"You're early," she said.

"I didn't know what time—"

"You're early. That's fine. Sit down." Hazel gestured at the counter with the clipboard. "Georgia. Coffee for the gentleman."

Georgia didn't move. His hand was still wrapped around the pot. The spot on his skirt was still there, and the newcomer's hem was still catching the light, and Ruby was still watching both of them from her booth with her coffee cup held at chest level like a spectator at a fight.

"Georgia."

He poured. The cup rattled against the saucer when he set it down. The newcomer sat on the stool nearest the door — the one with the wobble, the one nobody took unless the counter was full — and wrapped both hands around the cup without drinking.

"I'm Samantha," he said. To Georgia. Not to Hazel. "Samantha Regents."

"Georgia."

"I know." Samantha's eyes flicked down — to the skirt, to the spot, to the way the hem of Georgia's dress sat against his thighs. Then back up. "Hazel told me about you."

"She did."

"She said you'd know what to do."

Hazel's clipboard tapped the counter. Once. Right next to Samantha's saucer. "Georgia. Step into the back with me."

"I'm on the counter—"

"You're on the counter at seven. It's six-fifteen." Hazel turned and walked toward the back hall without waiting. The clipboard swung at her hip. "Now."

Georgia looked at Samantha. Samantha looked at his coffee. Ruby looked at both of them, and when Georgia caught her eye, she raised her cup in a small salute — the kind you gave a man walking to the gallows.

The back hall was narrow and smelled like bleach. Hazel stopped halfway down, in the spot where the light from the kitchen door cut across the linoleum in a long yellow rectangle. She turned. Her face was the same face she wore when the fryer was down — flat, careful, already three moves ahead.

"His name is Samuel Regents," she said. "He's been coming in here for a week. Sits in the corner booth. Orders pie. Doesn't eat it."

"I've never seen him."

"You've been in the closet." Hazel's voice didn't change. "He came in yesterday while you were in the back with Ruby. Dolly served him. He asked her — " She stopped. Tapped the clipboard against her thigh. "He asked her if the waitress in the blue dress was a boy or a girl."

Georgia's mouth went dry.

"Dolly told him the truth. She's like that." Hazel's eyes were on the kitchen door, not on him. "He came back this morning. He sat in his car in the parking lot for twenty minutes before he came in. I watched him from the window."

"Boss—"

"He's like you." Hazel said it without emphasis. Just a fact. "He's been dressing in his mother's clothes since he was fourteen. He's never told anyone. He's twenty-three years old and he's never been with a girl and he's never been with a boy and he thinks there's something wrong with him because his — " She stopped again. The clipboard tapped. "Because he's not cut." She lifted Samantha’s skirt, showing his uncircumcised cock.

Georgia leaned against the wall. The linoleum was cold through the thin soles of his stilettos.

"You want me to talk to him," he said.

"I want you to take him to Dr. Whitfield."

The kitchen door swung open. A dishwasher — one Georgia didn't recognize, new, one of the night men — came through with a rack of glasses and didn't look at either of them. Hazel waited until the door swung shut behind him.

"Dr. Whitfield does it on Tuesdays," she said. "Cash. No questions. He's done it for — " She paused. "He's done it before."

"Hazel."

"You're the only one he'll listen to." Her eyes came back to him. Brown, steady, and something underneath them that Georgia had never seen before — not the boss, not the taskmaster, something smaller. "You know what it's like to walk in here in a skirt. He doesn't. Not yet. He's been sitting in his car for twenty minutes trying to work up the nerve to order a cup of coffee."

"That's not the same as — " Georgia stopped. The folded slip of paper pressed against his hip. Counter. No apron. All shift. "You planned this."

"I plan everything." Hazel's voice was flat again. "The counter's part of it. He needs to see someone doing it. Not hiding. Not in an apron."

"You're using me."

"I'm using both of you." She said it without apology. "He needs to see it's possible. You need to remember it's possible. And I need — " She stopped. The clipboard tapped once, twice. "I need the two of you out of my diner for two hours so I can have a conversation with Ruby Maynard about a letter that's gone missing from my storage closet."

Georgia's stomach dropped.

"She told you."

"She didn't tell me anything." Hazel turned and started back down the hall. "She doesn't have to. I've been running this floor for four years. I know when someone's holding something." She stopped at the corner. "Take him to Whitfield. Be back by eight. And Georgia — " She looked back over her shoulder. The kitchen light caught the side of her face, and for a second she looked twenty-two instead of forty. "Wear the apron when you get back. This is the only morning you get."

She was gone before he could answer.

Georgia stood in the hall for a long moment. The bleach smell. The hum of the cooler. The dishwasher rack clattering somewhere in the back. Then he walked out to the counter, where Samantha Regents was still sitting on the wobble stool with both hands around a cup of coffee he hadn't drunk, and Ruby was still in her booth, watching, and the morning light had moved off the damp spot on Georgia's skirt and onto the floor.

"Samantha."

The boy looked up. His eyes were brown. His hands were shaking, just slightly, and the coffee surface in his cup trembled with them.

"Yeah?"

"Finish your coffee." Georgia untied the knot at his waist — the apron string he wasn't supposed to be wearing anyway, the one he'd put on out of habit and Hazel hadn't made him take off yet. He folded it once, twice, and set it on the counter next to the register. "We've got an appointment."

Samantha's hands went still. He looked at the folded apron. Then at Georgia. Then at the door.

"What kind of appointment?"

"The kind where you stop sitting in your car for twenty minutes." Georgia picked up the coffee pot and topped off Samantha's cup without being asked. "Drink. Then we go."

Ruby laughed from her booth. Low. Warm. It carried across the empty diner like the first crack of thunder before a storm.

"Well," she said. "Ain't that something."

Georgia didn't look at her. He set the pot back on the burner and straightened the hem of his skirt — the spot was still there, faint but visible, and he didn't try to hide it. Samantha watched him do it. Watched the way he moved, the way the skirt fell, the way the stilettos clicked on the tile when he shifted his weight.

"You're not gonna — " Samantha stopped. Started again. "You're not gonna tell anyone? About me?"

"I'm gonna take you to a doctor who's gonna cut your dick," Georgia said. "That's the only thing I'm gonna do."

Samantha's face went red. Then white. Then red again.

"I don't — I didn't — "

"You came in here in your mother's dress with your cock showing through the hem." Georgia's voice was flat. Not cruel. Just tired. "You've been coming in here for a week and sitting in the corner booth and ordering pie you don't eat. You think nobody noticed?"

Samantha looked down at his cup. His knuckles were white around it.

"I thought I was hiding it," he said. Quiet. "The — the way it looks. Under the dress."

"You're not." Georgia picked up the folded apron and tucked it under the register, out of sight. "That's why we're going."

Ruby stood up from her booth. She left her coffee on the table, half-drunk, and walked toward the door with the slow saunter that made the whole diner feel smaller. When she passed Georgia, she stopped. Close enough that he could smell her — coffee and something floral and something underneath that was just her.

"Two hours," she said. Quiet. Just for him. "That's how long Hazel thinks she's got."

"Ruby—"

"Don't." She smiled at him. Then at Samantha. Then she pushed open the door and the bell chimed and the morning light came in and she was gone.

Samantha set down his cup. He stood up. The stool wobbled under him, and he caught the counter edge with one hand, and Georgia saw it — the way his hem lifted when he stood, the soft uncut curve beneath the floral cotton, the way he didn't try to pull it down.

"Okay," Samantha said. "Okay. Let's go."

Georgia grabbed his coat from the hook by the register. It was thin — not warm enough for the morning, but enough to cover the spot on his skirt until they got to the car. He shrugged it on and buttoned it once, at the waist, and when he looked up, Samantha was watching him with something that wasn't quite fear and wasn't quite hope.

"You ever been to a doctor before?" Georgia asked.

"For a checkup. When I was a kid."

"This isn't a checkup." Georgia pushed open the door. The bell chimed. The cold morning air hit his bare legs and he didn't flinch. "Come on."

Samantha followed him out. The door swung shut behind them, and through the plate-glass window, Georgia could see the diner — empty, yellow-lit, the coffee pot still steaming on the burner, the folded apron hidden under the register, the damp spot on the floor where his skirt had dripped. Ruby's half-drunk coffee sat on the table in her booth like a promise.

Two hours, she'd said.

Georgia got into the car and started the engine.