“I need to hear from the workers,” Daniel said. “Not from whoever can make a phone call in the dark.”
Marcel stared at him for a long moment. “Nathan would have said that differently.”
“That’s fine. I’m not Nathan.”
The old man smiled, despite everything. “No. And that’s the part I hope you hold on to.”
Chapter Six C: Friday’s Empty Chairs
Friday evening, the community center room smelled of floor cleaner and poster paint. Daniel arrived with a thermos of tea and twelve folding chairs. He hadn’t expected everyone to come. He hadn’t expected how vulnerable the empty room would make him feel. When he put his father’s old pin on the windowsill, he worried that he was trying to summon a history that belonged to other people.
Imani arrived first, carrying her grandmother’s shopping bag because she’d come directly from the grocery store. Then Rafael, still wearing his kitchen shoes, and Tomas, who had borrowed a bicycle to get there. Nessa entered five minutes later with a roll of sketches beneath her arm. Lorna Quill appeared carrying a tray of cornbread. By seven, nineteen chairs were occupied and six people were standing.
Daniel introduced himself and began to explain what he’d learned about the original cooperative. Imani interrupted him.
“Can we talk about our checks first?”
The room went quiet. Daniel felt embarrassed, then relieved.
“Yes,” he said. “Of course.”
People began telling their stories. A woman named Margo had been promised a position as prep cook but was assigned to clean an event space for three unpaid hours. A kitchen porter named Dev had been told the uniform deposit was refundable, then learned his size was unavailable and replacements carried a separate charge. Rafael had been ordered to appear for a shift that vanished from the portal while he was riding the bus. Imani described trying to explain a bank receipt to a supervisor who never looked up from his screen.
Nessa pinned her kitchen diagram to the wall and showed where the design forced workers to carry hot pans across a passage used by dishwashers. She was careful to identify observations rather than imagine accidents. “This is fixable,” she said. “But nobody in management wants to be the person who says the opening should change.”
A man Daniel hadn’t seen before stood near the exit. He introduced himself as Gavin, a recruitment coordinator, and asked why people were speaking against a project that might bring hundreds of jobs.
“Nobody’s against jobs,” Rafael said. “We want the jobs to be real.”
Gavin said the fees were standard and training was voluntary. Imani asked whether someone who didn’t pay could be assigned a shift. He answered that the company’s processes were evolving. Laughter erupted, not because the situation was funny but because the phrase was so familiar.
