Without another word, Lauren turned on her heels and went back to her work. Sylvie wanted to do the same. More than anything she wanted to be present at the Whitney. To focus all her attention on her booth. But all she could think about was the horrible truth festering in her chest.
A manin a white linen shirt and matching fedora pulled an unlit cigar out of his mouth. “What’s a modern Cuban sandwich?” He pointed at the menu Lauren had handwritten onto a board resting against the front of her booth.
Lauren smiled. “Pork belly, fig jam, and a red cabbage slaw pressed on Cuban bread.”
The man put the cigar back in his mouth. He turned it round and round as if considering his thoughts on her ingredients.
“So nothing like a Cuban sandwich,” he replied flatly.
Lauren’s smile didn’t falter. “It was made by a Cuban. Technically, anything I make is a Cuban sandwich.”
The dad joke earned a chuckle from the man who had seemed hellbent on disliking her food. From the moment the festival opened that afternoon, Lauren had encountered two kinds of people. They were either eager to try her take on traditional mainstays, or they were openly skeptical about her creations. It was mostly the former, considering it was a food festival, but every so often she got someone like Fedora frowning at her menu.
When she couldn’t convince someone to try something new, she directed them to King of Pastries next door. She’d expected Sylvie to whirl around and accuse her of some kind of ploy, maybe a bait-and-switch scheme to give people food poisoning and blame it on her . . . something devious only Sylvie could concoct. But she never did.
Now, near sunset, Lauren was really starting to worry about Sylvie. It wasn’t like her to be so quiet. So sedate. They’d been working next to each other for over eight hours and Sylvie hadn’t even so much as called her a traitor once. It was completely unlike her.
Busy, and with several hours left before they started wrapping up at midnight, Lauren pushed thoughts of Sylvie aside. If she wanted to be upset about something, that was her problem. It was probably something unhinged anyway. Unhinged was Sylvie’s default setting.