Page 69 of The Seven Year Slip

James said as they came over, “I hope you don’t have what I think you have in that brown bag, Miguel.”

“Pffff, absolutely not. Want one?” Miguel added to me, sliding to sit down beside me, and offered me the contents of the bag. I took out a chip, and it looked to be coated in sugar.

I tasted one. Definitely brown sugar. “Oh, that’s good. What is that?”

James arched an eyebrow at Miguel, and took one himself. “Miguel’s actual specialty,” he told me. “Tortilla chips tossed in cinnamon sugar and something else. Still haven’t figured it out.”

Migueltsked. “Not even Isa knows it.”

The dessert chips were lovely and sweet, and had a nice greasy crunch to them. They were quite perfect after the fajitas. I ate another one. “Cayenne pepper?” I guessed.

Taking a handful of them from the bag, Isa said, “He’ll nevertell you—whether you’re right or wrong. My bet is dehydrated sriracha.”

“Doesn’t have the right kick for sriracha,” James mused.

Miguel just looked happy that no one could guess it. “Why’s it matter? Do you want to takeallof my secrets?”

“Might help with his cookbook,” Isa said. “God knows he can’t do breads.”

“I’m notbadat them,” James replied indignantly, “and chips aren’t bread.”

She laughed and scrubbed his hair. “Says the guy who almost failed Intro to Breadstwice.”

“And,” Miguel added, looking at me, “he wears it like a badge of honor.” Then he reached over and pulled James’s hair back from behind his ear to show me the tattoo there. The whisk I’d seen before, now faded, the lines a little blurry.

James made a disgruntled noise and slapped Miguel’s hand away. “Yeah, don’t give away all my secrets.”

“Pffff” Miguel waved his hand at James, and leaned into me. “You know how he got that tattoo?”

“It’s fucking hilarious,” Isa added, slinging an arm around James’s shoulder.

“Don’t listen to them,” James pleaded to me, his hand brushing across mine, too light and lingering not to be purposeful. “They’ll tell you nothing but lies. They’re liars.”

“Speakingof Intro to Breads... first day at CIA. The three of us were the oldest people there,” Miguel said, and James shook his head.

“Oh, no, not that story.”

“It’s a good story!” Miguel rebutted, and leaned toward me. “Anyway, this guy gets called on by the chef teaching us, and we’re all elbow deep in dough, right?”

“I hate this story so much,” James groaned, pulling his hand down his face in agony.

“He was asked—Isa, what was he asked?”

She took another chip from the bag. “He was asked what he was doing.”

“I was following directions,” James mumbled.

“Hesays—to this super-stodgy chef, by the way—‘What does it look like I’m doing? I’m beatin’ it.’ Elbow deep in dough. Flour on his face. Yeast spilled across the counter. Using—what the fuck were you using? A woodenspoon? He was pure chaos.”

Isa cackled. “And the teacher just looked at him and said, ‘Whisk, youwhiskit.’ ”

James pointed out, “To be fair, I’d never seen a Danish whisk in my life. Then Isa decided that we’d all go out drinking that night and wound up at a tattoo shop and”—he shrugged—“that’s it. That’s the story.”

To which Miguel and Isa both showed me the utensils behind their left ears, too—a spatula and a ladle.

“Well, now I feel left out,” I said. “I want a cooking utensil behind my ear. Which one would I be?”

Isa took another handful of chips from the bag. “Nah, you’re not a cooking utensil. You’d be... hmm.”

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