One Page

Tavi arrived with someone beside her and stopped when she saw my notebook open between Oren and me.

“Is this still a good time?” she asked.

The question was directed at me. The other girl kept her hands on the strap of her bag and waited. I could have closed the notebook. The cover was close enough to touch, which made the option feel more dramatic than it deserved.

“Sit down,” I said. “We’re listening to one sound.”

Tavi’s mouth tipped into a quick smile. “This is Sella. She keeps records too.”

Sella pulled out the empty chair. “Mostly of things that need fixing.”

She sat, careful not to bump the table. Oren shifted his lunch tray to make room. Tavi did the same with her history notes, which had been threatening to colonize the whole table since Tuesday.

I turned the notebook so the open page faced me again. The first entries were visible: Tavi’s note and Oren’s writing beside mine. Sella glanced at them, then looked away before I had to ask her to.

“What do you record?” I asked.

“Small problems before they become large ones.” She unhooked a slim folder from her bag. “Loose hinges. Chair feet. A drawer that needs to be lifted to close. I forget which room has what, so I write it down.”

“That’s a useful list,” Tavi said.

“It’s not very exciting.” Sella opened the folder and showed us a page of neat, short notes. No drawings, no extra comments. A room, an object, a problem. The most recent line read: *West study, back window latch—sticks when cold.*

I understood the appeal. There was comfort in a record that didn’t expect anything from you except accuracy.

“Which sound did you want to share?” I asked.

Sella looked at the notebook. “I noticed the chair.”

The chair beneath her gave a slight scrape as she shifted her weight. She leaned forward, lifted one corner of the seat just enough to move it, then set it down. The back left foot rasped twice across the floor before the chair settled.

“There,” she said. “It does that every time. The felt pad’s coming loose.”

I had heard it before. I’d filed it with the general noise of lunch and forgotten it as soon as it stopped. Sella had heard the two rough scrapes and remembered which corner made them.

Oren looked down at the chair leg. “You can feel it catch through the seat.”

Sella tested it once more, carefully. “Yes. That’s how I knew it wasn’t just the floor.”