Page 78 of Wild Catch
“Take our table,” the original guy says to me, and he’s the one who stops me. “We were almost done anyway.”
“I couldn’t—” He cuts me off.
“No seriously, we’re good.” The dude grins. “We’re actually running late to hit the club.”
“Then uh, thanks.”
After much shuffling, which includes them collecting all the debris on the tables and pulling them apart again, Rose and I finally take seats across from each other. She dumps her purse on her lap and scoots closer. “Thank you for your face,” she says out of the blue.
“Huh?”
“It’s what got us the table.”
I lean back on the flimsy plastic chair and somehow manage to say, “You’re welcome,babe.”
Her eyes narrow slightly but for a long moment, she doesn’t say anything. All she does is stare at me like this is how she makes a living, forcing me to be more self conscious about my facial expression than usual.
But no matter how well I mask, there’s no erasing the shitty night we’ve gone through. Or that it’s all my fault.
“I’m sorry—” I start saying, my chest deflating after releasing the apology that I had bottled up.
But she interrupts with, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I did tell you.” I scratch my head. “My parents are horrible people and I didn’t want you to?—”
“Not that.” She waves her hand. “About your birthday. Is it really today?”
I jump a little like I just got zapped by electricity. “I—Yes. It is.”
Rose leans over the table, eyes bulging. “Are you freaking…” She trails off, switching to a string of Spanish I can’t dream to comprehend. After shaking her head hard, she returns to using the one language we have in common. “Don’t you think your girlfriend should know when your birthday is?”
“Is that really what matters out of everything that was said tonight?”
“Yes!” She’s vehement about it too. “Who cares about the other crap? This is the one thing that really mattered today and I didn’t even know.” She drops her face in her hands. “I should’ve looked you up on Wikipedia.”
Speaking of, I could probably be the picture on the Wikipedia entry forconfusion. “Rose, it’s not a big deal. I don’t care about my birthday.”
“Well, I do. Birthdays are a big deal to me.” She presses her lips tight.
Right then, a guy wearing a T-shirt that matches the decoration of the food truck approaches, his arms loaded up with what looks like baskets and baskets of food. He seems jittery, like he’s permanently in a hurry. Tossing a quick greeting at us, he starts placing the plastic baskets on the little table. Rose and I have to make room for him to fit everything. A moment later he returns with two plastic cups filled with an iced brown drink that I don’t recognize. It’s thicker than tea and has no gas bubbles.
I don’t know where to even start. Each basket has a different dish that I don’t recognize, and I know that different cuisines have different eating protocols. I cave and ask, “How do I eat?”
“This one you’ll need fork and knife for,” she points at the big thing that looks like a sandwich but clearly isn’t. “The rest you eat with your hands, or if you don’t want to get them greasy you can use a napkin like I do.”
She picks up a stuffed round thing and wraps it in a bunch of napkins before taking an enormous bite out of it. Her cheeks bulge like a squirrel’s as she eats and it’s…
Adorable.
I forcefully clear my throat and go for the plastic fork and knife in the basket of the sandwich-look-alike. Cutting up a piece reveals more food inside than any sandwich I’ve seen in my life, and when I put the morsel in my mouth I’m punched by way more flavors than I expected. And they’re all overwhelmingly so delicious that I am healed.
A moan tears out of my throat.
Rose pauses from munching. After a moment she smirks and speaks with her mouth full, “Good, isn’t it?”
“Amazing,” I return, also with my mouth full.
There’s no need for conversation after that. I appreciate that Rose doesn’t judge me for scarfing down food like a ravenous beast, and that she’s actually doing the same. What seemed like a lot of food dwindles down to nothing, and all I have left is to sip from the sweet, lemony brown drink to wash down all the fried food. This is way better than the overpriced steak we were going to eat back at the fancy place, and I don’t care if I pay consequences for eating fried stuff tomorrow. I’ll consider this my cheat day for the month.
