Saint Anything(21)

I was pretty now? And then we were both blushing.

“I wasn’t aiming at her,” he said, clearly embarrassed. To me he said, “Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” I said.

“Although I can see that as the beginning to a great love story,” Layla said.

“Here we go,” Irv groaned, eating half a hamburger patty in one bite.

This Layla ignored, pulling a knee up to her chest. “Seriously. Can’t you just see it? ‘He threw a grape at me on a sunny day, and I just knew it was love.’”

“That,” Mac said, spitting out a seed, “is the stupidest one yet.”

“Which is really saying something,” Irv added.

She made a face, wrinkling her nose, then said to me, “These boys have no sense of romance. I, on the other hand, am a connoisseur.”

“You call yourself a connoisseur of everything,” her brother pointed out.

“Not everything. Just candy, French fries, and love.” She smiled at me. “All the important stuff. Seriously, though, I know the start to a good love story when I hear it. I should. I’ve read hundreds of them.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Really?” On his bench, Mac sighed audibly.

“Oh, yeah. It’s, like, my thing.” She peeled the second egg. “Romance and instruction manuals.”

“But not romance instruction manuals,” Eric, who I hadn’t even thought was listening, added.

“Seriously, though,” Layla continued, “I love reading about how to do things. Even if it’s something that, like, I will never do in a million years, like weave a rug or grout a floor.”

“Wow,” I said.

“I know. I’m, like, a process addict or something.” She ate the egg, chewing thoughtfully, then swallowed and added, “Or, you know, a connoisseur.”

Truth: I was having trouble keeping up. Not just with this conversation, but the people actually having it. I’d spent so much time alone lately that I’d forgotten what it was like to be relaxed in another person’s company. I liked it.

After that first lunch, I began eating with them every day. Once the bell rang, I’d get something to eat from the food trucks, then cross the grass to either join whoever was already there or stake out the benches until they arrived. Foodwise, every day it was the same. Mac and Irving brought their lunches. Eric was partial to a fruit punch and buttery grilled cheese from the cafeteria. And Layla looked for fries.

She hadn’t been kidding about the connoisseur thing. This girl took her frites seriously. It wasn’t enough for them to be potatoes and fried, all that most people, myself included, really cared about. Oh, no. There were specifications. Required seasonings. Rules about everything from temperature and packaging to whether the ketchup was from a packet or a bottle. (This last one had subrules and addendums, as well.) Going to look for fries with Layla was like tagging along with my mom while she perused office supplies, requiring both patience and a substantial time commitment. By the time Layla got what she wanted, I was often finished with my entire lunch, if not already hungry again.

“What’s most important is the shape,” she explained to me the first time I joined her on this quest. “They should be long, not stubby. Decent width, but not thicker than a finger. Only the most basic seasoning, nothing crazy. And served hot.”

“But not too hot?” I asked as she leaned into the window of the DoubleBurger truck and sniffed.

“No such thing,” she replied. “Hot fries cool down. Cold fries never warm up. Let’s keep walking; I’m not liking the grease smell here today.”

The guy behind the counter just looked at her as she turned, continuing on. I gave him an apologetic shrug and followed. “What about fast food ones?” I asked. “They’re pretty much all the same, right?”

She stopped dead in her tracks. I almost crashed into her. “Sydney,” she said, turning to face me. “That is not true. The next time I do a Trifecta, you’re coming. I’ll show you how wrong you are.”

“A Trifecta?”

“That’s when I get fries from the Big Three,” she explained. She held up her fingers, counting off. “Littles, Bradbury Burger, and Pamlico Grill. None of them are perfect. But if you mix them together, it’s like the paradise of fries. It’s time-consuming, so I only do it on special occasions or when I’m super depressed.”

Hearing this, I had that feeling again, like the conversation was a pack of wild horses pounding out ahead of me, leaving nothing but dust behind. Trifecta? Depression? Grease smell? She was already talking again.

“These trucks aren’t the best for fries, because mobile fryers just taste different from ones in brick-and-mortar stores. But they do have some cool flavors you can’t get in the traditional places. There’s one place that I really like . . . Oh, they’re here today! Come on.”

In my pocket, I felt my phone buzz. I pulled it out and glanced at the screen. JENN, it said, with a picture of her from her last birthday party, a cheap plastic tiara on her head. I reached for the IGNORE button, feeling a pang of guilt. But not enough to not press it. I’d call her later.

Layla, meanwhile, had walked up to a truck I’d never tried before called Bim Bim Slim’s, which sold some kind of Asian-Creole fusion. The smells coming from it were like nothing I’d ever experienced before. She didn’t even glance at the menu.