The laundromat stays open because the landlord lives upstairs and likes the sound of water. This is not the official reason. The official reason is a laminated sign by the door that says OPEN 24 HOURS in red vinyl letters, two of which have started to peel.
At three in the morning, Marisol folds a mint-green fitted sheet into itself. She does it the way her mother taught her: corner into corner until the rounded parts cup each other and the flat parts lie flat. Most people can fold a fitted sheet if you show them once. Most people don’t want to.
There are two front-loaders along the back wall. The one on the left is broken. A taped note says SORRY. The note has been there since February. It is now April. The other one is running. Inside it a black hooded sweatshirt and a pair of jeans tumble against the glass in a rhythm you can set your watch to, if you have a watch, which she doesn’t.
The person whose clothes are in the working washer is in the bathroom. She hasn’t seen him come out. She’s not worried. People in the bathroom at three in the morning are rarely a problem. People at three in the morning generally have somewhere very particular to be, and the place is almost always small.
A moth flies in through the open door. It circles the fluorescent tube above the folding table twice and then gives up and lands on the wall beside the change machine. It is not a large moth. Its wings are the color of wet cardboard. Marisol watches it without moving.
The dryer behind her makes the sound dryers make when a button is hitting the drum — not a coin, a button, the plastic four-hole kind. She knows the sound. It doesn’t need fixing. It will stop on its own when the button works its way back into a pocket.
The man comes out of the bathroom. He is wearing socks and a t-shirt and a towel around his waist. He nods at her the way strangers nod in rooms they both understand. He walks past her and stops in front of the working washer and watches his jeans go around. She folds a pillowcase.
They stand like that for a while. Not talking. The washer spins. The moth stays on the wall. Outside, a car goes by, and then another, and then for a long time nothing.
When the washer unlocks with its click, the man opens the door and takes out his jeans and his sweatshirt and carries them wet to a dryer. He feeds it four quarters. He sits on the orange plastic chair by the window and waits.
Marisol finishes folding. She puts the stack in her bag. She walks past him on her way out and he nods again. At the door she turns and looks at the moth, which has not moved.
The landlord, upstairs, is asleep. The water keeps running.