Page 9 of Alex

Making sure I don’t set off any alarms, I quickly sneak around the parking lot trying to find a car with the door open. I find an old Camry with the back doors open and I slide in. I have to lie down because the Rolling Cobras have already made it to the parking lot and are looking for me. I cover myself with a dark blanket the person has on their back seat and hope it’s enough to camouflage myself.

As I’m worried about being caught the most amazing smell of spices and citrus fruit hits my nose and my mouth begins to water. It smells like a home cooked meal.

“I know, I know, I’ll just pick up the oil and cornmeal and come right back.” A woman yells out.

“Please don’t be this car. Please don’t be this car. Please don’t—”

*Chirp*

“Fuck,” I mutter to myself.

The driver’s side door opens, and a woman sits in the front seat. She doesn’t look behind her, but I know the minute she does, she’s going to scream. If she screams, that’s it for me. I use the blanket and wrap it around my hand to make it look like I have a weapon and press it to her side.

She jumps in fright and just as she opens her mouth to scream, I reach up and clamp my free hand over her mouth. “If you scream, I’ll kill you. Do what I say, and everything will be fine.”

Hot tears hit my hand and I look up into the rearview mirror to see fear in her eyes.

“Don’t be afraid. I don’t want to hurt you. Just keep quiet, okay?” Making sure to keep her gaze, I admit this to her. She nods her head and I let go of her mouth.

“What…whh... what do you want?” She whispers shakily.

“Just drive. You see those guys searching cars. They’re looking for me. Drive me out of here and I’ll let you go.”

She looks around at the Rolling Cobras who have now split up and are still searching the cars. She looks back at me and then back to them before she starts her old Camry up and slowly starts to drive out of her space.

She’s going too slow.

I’m too visible.

I try to hunker back down but it’s too late.

Just as she drives onto the lane that goes to the exit, one of the Rolling Cobra’s looks inside the car and makes eye contact with me.

I’m fucked. No, we’re fucked.

Laura

“Oye! Ayuda me!" I yell out as I try to pull the large barrel of flour out from under the small sink on the food truck and get stuck in the process. I love working on the food truck but everything is so small in space that it's almost a full-body workout getting the truck ready for the day. Drivin' Sol is a project my best friend was so excited about. She talked for years about how she wanted to be a chef and work for herself. Finally, she got a loan and bought an old truck, transformed it into Drivin’ Sol, and started the business. Choosing me to be her sous chef. I was perfect to help her. Everything was absolutely wonderful until about three months after she bought the food truck. It was then she realized she no longer wanted to be a chef.

Now I'm stuck with a college student trying to make ends meet as my sous chef and a job I can never take a day off from. I can't complain much. I love to cook. I've been cooking since I was four with my mother back in Puerto Rico. Something about feeding people has always made me happy.

"Sorry, Laura, I didn’t see you down there. Are you all right?" Marisa asks as she helps me pull the large bag out.

"Yeah, I’m fine. I wish we had more space." I grumble.

“You could always talk to Sara and get her to renovate the food truck. I mean, this is hers after all." Marisa says, right as she goes back to the small prep area and starts to chop up the chives.

“Please! Like she would dump any more money into this hunk of junk." I laugh and turn to the other small work area. The radio is right overhead and I reach up to turn it on. Immediately, I hear an old salsa song by Celia Cruz and I get into my zone. The work moves fast as Marisa and I cook and dance with each other in the small space. The location we’re at this morning is full of kids and their parents for the peewee soccer tournament. By the time twelve hits we're going to have a large crowd. These games always put a nice chunk of change in our pockets.

"Mira! Laura, cuidado!" Marisa screams out just as I turn around. My hip bumps into the small table and a huge jug of oil falls to the ground. The container cracks and the oil goes flying everywhere.

"Shit! Get the flour!" I yelp and we both lunge to get huge scoops of flour out of the barrel and dump it on the floor to stop the oil as best we can. It only takes twenty seconds for the both of us to look like we've been rolling around in the white powder and the entire inside of the food truck to be a mess.

I look up at the clock on the wall and realize it's only an hour before the kids start coming this way. We don't have much time and we can't cook like this. "We need to get this cleaned up."

"Yeah, that's a problem but it's not the big problem," Marisa says as she grabs a broom and starts sweeping up the oil-saturated flour.

"What? What’s the big problem?" I ask suddenly looking around for the fire I'm sure we're going to have to put out.

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