“The blue one eats coins,” said the woman.
“It takes coins,” said Sal. “That’s how it works.”
“It took four. It owes me a wash.”
Sal lifted the lid. A green towel lay on top of a heap of white shirts. The drum was dry.
“Did you push it?”
“Of course I pushed it.”
“The coin slide.”
“I pushed the coin slide.”
He pushed it. It went halfway and stopped.
“There,” she said.
Sal pulled it back. One coin stood edgewise in the slot. He got his pocketknife out, then put it away again. Too wide. From behind the counter he brought a little screwdriver with a yellow handle.
The woman watched him work.
“I had one of those,” she said.
“Machines?”
“Screwdrivers. My son borrowed it.”
Sal worked the tip behind the coin.
“How long ago?”
“Long enough that it’s his.”
The coin fell into his palm. Not a coin: a thin steel disc with a hole in the middle.
“This yours?”
“No.”
“Somebody’s washer.”
She looked down into the drum.
“The other kind,” Sal said.
“I know the other kind.”
He set the disc on the counter and pushed the slide again. This time it went all the way in. Water struck the bottom of the drum with a sound that made them both look.
“There you are.”
“It still took four coins.”
“It takes four.”
“Then I’ve paid eight.”
Sal opened the cash drawer. She put out her hand before he had counted.
After she went back to her chair, he carried the steel disc to the bin. He paused, tried its hole on the shaft of the screwdriver, then removed it. He threw it away.
The woman opened a paperback. Halfway through the fill cycle she stood, lifted the lid, and took the green towel out.
“That’ll run,” she said.
Sal nodded.
She carried it to the sink by the door. He went to the counter and put the screwdriver back where he would find it.