Page 15 of Turn

“It wasn’t.”

“Well, I know that now.”

“So where did it go?”

Cassie glanced at the silver wastebasket. Then her face brightened and she darted over there to begin pawing through the trash. “It was only about an hour ago,” she said.

“Huh?” I was still trying to process the fact that this girl was rummaging through the garbage.

Cassie found the discarded burrito and triumphantly held it up. “See? It’s still kind of cold.” She offered it to me with a radiant smile.

I was sure at some point in my life I’d eaten something worse than a floppy burrito that had been hanging out in the trash. But I didn’t feel like doing it now.

“Thanks,” I said. “But you can put it back in the garbage where you found it.”

Cassie’s smile fell away. She tossed the unlucky burrito into the garbage can where it sat sadly atop a pile of used paper cups.

She chewed her lip. “I feel bad.”

“Don’t,” I replied.

I stuck a dollar in the vending machine and chose a bag of potato chips.

“I have plenty of extra granola if you’d like some,” she offered.

I sat down at the table. A headache was blossoming somewhere deep in my skull. I wondered if it was caused by the effort required not to stare at Cassie’s perky tits and tight ass.

“Curtis,” she said gently and I looked up.

“I’m really sorry.” She did look pretty distressed.

This event might be one of a thousand small things that would make a fragile girl like her dissolve into tears. I didn’t want her to cry. It was just a burrito for fuck’s sake.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said and shoved a handful of potato chips in my mouth before burying my face in my phone. There was really nothing I needed to see there but I wanted to get the message across that this little interaction should be over. Otherwise I might get too comfortable talking to her and I didn’t have that luxury.

Cassie sighed and left the break room. I finished off the potato chips and wondered if I should go out to the lobby and say something else to her, a more enthusiastic ‘Hey, it’s okay that you threw my lunch away,’ kind of comment. I thought about it for a few minutes while finishing my inadequate meal.

But when I ventured out the lobby Cassie wasn’t there. Instead her father was standing in front of the reception desk with a frown.

“Have you seen Cassie?” he asked me.

“A little while ago,” I said.

Cord looked around. “I thought I told her if she needed to leave she had to wait until someone could cover the front desk.”

“Maybe she’s in the bathroom,” I suggested.

Cassie wasn’t in the bathroom. She was suddenly rushing through the doors of Scratch looking flushed and breathless. Her skirt had hitched up a few inches and I felt like an irredeemable pig for noticing her sleek bare thighs in the presence of her father.

“Sorry,” she gasped. “I ran as fast as I could.”

Cord was confused. “Ran where?”

Cassie held up a paper bag, looked at me and said, “Hot dog,” as if that explained everything.

It didn’t.

“You wanted a hot dog?” Cord said.

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