by M. J. Pullen
All she had to do now was get coffee, go to the warehouse, remember how to drive the food truck, pick up all the food single-handedly, drive into Kieran’s fading parking lot hash marks like threading a needle, and…pray everything went smoothly from there.
But first, coffee.
By ten in the morning, Marlowe was on her third cup and had accomplished more than half her list. She’d managed to load the food on the truck with a couple of wheeled hot boxes and the help of two caterers coming off an overnight event shift. The truck was still tricky to drive, and other drivers honked at her on the interstate for going ten miles under the speed limit, but she took it in stride. It was almost noon when she arrived at the Tipsy Trucker, only to find the parking lot—including those all-important hash marks where she was supposed to park—covered over by cars.
“Lunch time,” Marlowe murmured as she braked past the parking lot entrance. “I should’ve known.”
She slowed at a side street, biting her lip as she contemplated whether the space between the line of parked cars and the opposite side of the road was enough for her to maneuver. A horn blaring behind her made her jump and she gunned the accelerator, feeling the thrum of the truck’s engine swell alarmingly beneath her. She braked again, and the horn-blower behind her skidded around her into the left lane. Glancing out the window, Marlowe was surprised to see a middle-aged woman giving her the finger as she passed in her Corolla.
Hmmm… Next block, maybe.
Seven blocks later, she’d finally screwed up the courage to turn right—slowly—onto a wider, less populous side street, and headed back in the other direction toward the pub. Parallel parking was out of the question: the guys at the truck place had tried to teach her, but Marlowe remained terrified that she would mow down a parking meter. Or a pedestrian. Or someone’s living room.
After another half hour cruising slowly through Cabbagetown, Marlowe found a double spot she could pull into straight on, a couple of blocks from the Tipsy Trucker. It was early to start the ovens and the fryer, even though she was nearly jumping out of her skin to get started. The insulated coolers would keep the food cold for a couple of hours, so she locked up and walked to the bar to plan her next steps.
The Tipsy Trucker was busy for lunch, and it took Marlowe a moment to locate Kieran, facing away from the door at the back of the bar. “You’re early, princess,” he said over his shoulder, as Marlowe claimed one of two open barstools. “Set up isn’t for another three hours.”
She squeezed between a guy in a golf shirt with a geometric corporate logo, and two young women deep in animated conversation. A white woman with multi-colored dreadlocks and facial piercings laughed and fell against the arm of a black woman with high cheekbones and wild corkscrew curls. Marlowe felt a stab of longing for Tara and wondered what she and Calvin were doing in New York right now. They’d exchanged a few text messages and talked on the phone once since January, but Tara always sounded busy with her New York life.
“Just trying to get a head start,” Marlowe told Kieran, as he put an ice water in front of her. “It’s my first time serving here and I want to make a good impression.”
“Your food will be out in a jiff,” Kieran said to the women, who paused in their conversation to give him matching smiles. “Where’s your truck?”
Marlowe explained Life of Pie’s location as best she could, not knowing the names of all the streets she’d spent the last half hour cruising. “I guess maybe I overshot on the timing a bit.”
“You’re not planning to stay here and drink the whole time, are you?” He crossed his arms and gave her a tight-lipped smile, glancing over her shoulder at something behind her. “There’s no employee discount for the food truck owners.”
“No alcohol while I’m working,” she said. “Especially since I have to drive that monster back over here at some point. But I’ll take some food. How’s the corned beef and mash?”
Another glance over her shoulder. “I am Irish, if you hadn’t noticed.” Kieran smiled, but his playful outrage fell short of the flirtatious tone he’d used with her the other day. “I’ll get it right out.”
When he disappeared into the kitchen, Marlowe spun around on the barstool to look behind her. Through the crowd, she recognized the rotund form of Bobby, the proprietor of Crepes of Wrath, laughing and talking with a table full of women, most of whom looked familiar, along with a couple of guys. They all had plates and half-empty beer glasses in front of them. Apparently this was the Cotton Mill Food Truck staff meeting. And of course she hadn’t been invited. Why would she?
“Have they seen you yet?” Kieran asked behind her.
“I don’t think so,” Marlowe said. “Do they always meet here before the food truck night?”
“Pretty much. At least four or five of them.”
“They’re all drinking,” she mused. “Before it starts.”
“Well, it is four hours until opening, princess. I don’t think one beer is going to cause an industrial accident.”
Marlowe shook her head. “That’s not what I meant. I just…I’m so nervous, I can’t imagine doing anything to dull my senses right now. I wonder if I’ll ever be that relaxed.”
Across the room, Bobby must have felt her gaze, because he turned to meet her eye and his jovial smile faded. He leaned in toward the woman next to him—his wife Lynette, if Marlowe’s memory served—and whispered into her dark purple-red curls. The woman turned to look at Marlowe, raised her darkly painted eyebrows, and turned back to the table with a smirk.
“They know who I am, right? They’re talking about me.” She said this in hopes Kieran would reassure her with a contradiction, but no such luck.
“Yeah, they are. Sorry.” He grimaced. “They’re not so thrilled with me at the moment, if that helps.”
It didn’t help. “What happened to ‘they’ll come around’?”
“They’ll come around.”
“You said they would learn to love me.”
“I said that?” He ducked sideways as she flicked water at him from the top of her glass. “That doesn’t sound like me.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter,” she said, repeating her running mantra for the past two days. “All I can do is the best I can do.”
“That’s the spirit.” Kieran glanced at Bobby and his crew again. “And…maybe I’ll just wrap that sandwich to go, shall I?”
“You can’t let them intimidate you, honey.” Tara’s voice crackled over the speakerphone on the dashboard of the Life of Pie truck, where Marlowe had eaten her corned beef sandwich and cold mashed potatoes in miserable isolation. She had the truck running to keep everything cool, but hadn’t moved from her original spot.
“I’m not. At least, I’m trying not to.” Marlowe fought back a wave of anxious tears. “I just wish you were here with me, that’s all.”
“Oh, M, can we please not have this conversation again? You know it was so hard for me to make this choice. Calvin needs me up here.”
“I know,” Marlowe conceded. She should just be happy Tara had answered and had time to chat. “You just wouldn’t believe how frosty these people have been. They’re like the Food Truck Mafia. I don’t know if I can face them alone.”
“You won’t be alone—you’ll have Steven.” Tara’s voice crackled with a teasing smile.
“Oh, God. Don’t get me started on that. He’s driving me nuts already, and if he doesn’t come through with the staff… Are you sure you can’t get on a plane right now and come help? Just for today?”
“I wish I could.” Tara laughed. “Things are pretty complicated up here, too.”
“What, being engaged to a hotshot lawyer and living the dream in Manhattan is just miserable? Poor you.”
Tara laughed again, but it sounded forced.
“T, are you okay? I mean, I know we’ve had our differences, but if you need to talk…”
“Don’t be silly. Today is huge for you.” All the way from Manhattan, her friend’s voice coated he
r worried soul like warm honey. “Now. Go show those redneck fryer jockeys how it’s done.”
If Marlowe had any idea how many things would go wrong in the next few hours, she might have considered jumping on a plane herself, to take refuge with Tara, awkwardness be damned. Or at the very least, she would have taken Kieran up on the drink offer.
Instead, she dried her tears, dusted off her pride, and crawled back to her new workplace to get started.
8
“Is this twelve orders of pimiento balls?” Marlowe asked incredulously, holding up a greasy ticket. The Cotton Mill Food Truck Park had been open for just under an hour, and things were starting to pick up.
Chantelle, the beautiful but slightly vacant woman at the cash register, paused in her efforts to get the Life of Pie polo shirt centered on her cleavage and shrugged. “Don’t know. Natalie took that order. Before.”
Before she’d burned herself on the edge of the hot grill and Steven had taken her inside for first aid. Leaving Marlowe to man the grill, the fryers, and the pie oven with only Chantelle to assist her. And “assist” was a loose term.
“Okay,” Marlowe said, careful to keep her tone pleasant. “Can you take a look out the window and see if there’s a party big enough that twelve orders of pimiento cheese balls would be plausible?”
Another shrug from the lovely Chantelle. “How do I know what people eat? I wouldn’t let this fatty stuff past my lips for anything.” She glanced at Marlowe’s hips as though to imply that Marlowe would do well to implement the same rule. “Do you know how many carbs are in the pie crust alone?”
Over Chantelle’s shoulder, two women had been strolling up to the window with their dog, but at Chantelle’s words, glanced at each other and headed back in the other direction.
He’d promised to handle staffing. He’d fucking promised.
She’d asked for three people with restaurant experience and Steven had brought her Chantelle and Natalie, both of whom were walking Coppertone ads in their skimpy khaki shorts and impractically high shoes. Apparently they were hostesses at some club downtown, but neither of them knew the first thing about cooking. Or service that didn’t involve upselling to a lap dance.
Heading for the service window, Marlowe examined the ticket again. Where the customer’s name would go, Natalie had written “Hot Arab Guy” with a little heart. Fantastic. Marlowe could hardly call that out to ask him for clarification. After a quick scan of the crowd, she located an attractive guy in a baseball hat who might have fit the bill, standing in a little knot of four people. She decided to assume Natalie meant to write two orders of cheese balls and hope for the best. Note to self: institute numbering system for orders immediately.
Natalie returned twenty minutes later with Steven at her elbow, trailed closely by the production crew and their cameras. She sported a bandage on her finger thicker than Marlowe had ever seen in a kitchen, after years of cuts, scrapes, and burns. Steven helped the wounded girl onto the truck as if she had a broken leg instead of a first-degree burn on her pinky.
“Good news,” he announced. “Nat’s all bandaged up and ready to go back into battle.”
“I won’t let you down again, Marlowe,” Natalie said, which might have sounded sincerer if she’d been looking at Marlowe, rather than the camera, when she said it.
“I’m sure you won’t, dear,” Marlowe said through gritted teeth.
“How are sales?” Steven popped open the cash register. “What, only ten customers so far?”
“It’s early,” Marlowe said. “And honestly, for a soft launch, I’d be happy if we weren’t flooded with people this first time out.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. This is all about exposure. Making a splash, right, girls?”
Steven reached under the counter by the cash register for the postcards Marlowe had printed up, offering one free pie with the purchase of another. She’d planned to give them out to customers with their orders, to encourage repeat business via word of mouth. “Why don’t the ladies and I go hand these out? We’ll drum up some business.”
“Steven, someone needs to stay here and help me—”
“Don’t worry, I’ll be right back,” he called. “I won’t leave you stranded.”
“I have full confidence in you,” Marlowe muttered.
But Steven was already threading his way through the crowd, handing out postcards, surrounded by impossibly long legs.
An hour later, Marlowe nearly burst into tears when she looked out the window at two seemingly infinite groups of people: One single-file line at least thirty people long, all holding free pie postcards. And a less organized, less cheerful cluster of people who were still waiting for Marlowe to cook their food. By herself.
She was taking an order when a tall man leaned into the service window. “Excuse me!” He held one of her paper boat dishes so far over the counter Marlowe worried he was going to drop it into the beverage tub. “My wife ordered the chicken and collard greens kimchi. This one has black-eyed peas.”
“Sorry, sir,” Marlowe said. “The chicken comes with the black-eyed peas; the pulled pork has the kimchi inside.”
“But that’s not what she ordered. She doesn’t like peas.”
“I really am sorry,” Marlowe said. “The combinations are pre-made. I’d be happy to get her pulled pork with kimchi instead. It has more of a Korean barbecue flavor.”
“Excuse me, I’m ready to pay,” put in the lady at the register. “Can we use two of these coupons on one order?”
“Um…” Marlowe hesitated. “It is meant to be one coupon per order…”
The fryer timer began beeping to indicate the latest batch of pimiento balls were ready.
“That’s fine,” the lady said. “Can you break it into two orders then?”
“She hates pork.” The tall man was leaning in farther. Marlowe took the half-eaten pie to keep it from dropping on the floor of the truck and tossed it into the overflowing trash. “That’s why she ordered chicken. Can’t you make one for her the way she wants it?”
“All our pies are pre-made, sir. I’m sorry but I can’t make them to order.” She glanced meaningfully at the empty truck behind her as she pulled the fritters out of the grease. “As you can see, I’m a bit understaffed at the moment. Can I offer you something else? Pimiento balls? Vegetarian stew? Raspberry-peach pie?”
The ordering lady waved her credit card in Marlowe’s face. “If you could just run both drink orders on this, separately, we’ll use two coupons for the pies.”
“It’s okay. I’ll make it one order and give you both pies free.” Marlowe smiled tightly. “To thank you for your patience on our opening night.” She flicked a glance at the irate man, hoping the other customer would ally with her in sympathy.
“Fine.” Not sympathetic at all, the woman’s face was a tight line. “You really shouldn’t be handing these coupons out if you’re not planning to honor them.”
The oven timer began its unholy buzzing behind her, indicating the next trays of pies were ready to come out.
“I’ll just take my money back,” the tall man said. “We don’t care for stew. Or raspberries. They have seeds.”
There was a glint of light and Marlowe saw from a few feet away that the production crew had finally stopped following her beautiful staff around the food park and were now zooming in tight on Marlowe herself. She would not cry on camera. She was not going down like this.
“No problem!” she said cheerfully. “Let me just finish this transaction and I’ll be right with you to get your money back. Can I offer you something while you wait? Complimentary soda? Beer?”
“It’s illegal to give away beer,” came a deep Irish voice from the other side of the customer line. “As you well know, princess.”
“Oh, God. Kieran. What are you doing here?”
“I believe you have my balls,” he said.
“What?” She was dead. That was the only explanation. She’d died of heat exhaustion and this stupid food t
ruck was her coffin. She was going to eternity smelling like barbecue and burnt pie crust, and swooning whenever she heard an Irish accent.
Kieran nodded at the fry basket hanging over the hot vat. “I sent one of the waitresses over to order some of your famous cheese balls. When she didn’t come back, I thought I should send out a rescue party.”
“Oh, right, of course.” Marlowe wiped her brow on the shoulder of her shirt. “I’ll be right with you.”
“Yeah, get in line, buddy,” said the tall man. “You’d better believe this is going on my Yelp review.”
Kieran raised an eyebrow as he peered into the truck. “Need a hand, princess?”
“I’m sure my staff will be back any minute. They were just out—”
“Littering the streets with these bloody postcards?” He opened the door and hoisted himself into the truck. “Yeah, I wouldn’t say your Steven will be lending a hand anytime soon. He’s walking around with a beer in each hand and a girl on each arm, like he owns the place. What do you need?”
“I’m fine, really,” Marlowe lied, not sure why it was so important that Kieran—of all people—not see her in over her head.
“’Course you are.” Kieran washed his hands at the small sink by the door. “I’ll just pitch in for a minute. For fun. God knows there’s nothing I’d rather do on my own break than cook someone else’s food.”
“Kieran. I can’t let you—”
“Quiet. You handle the orders, I’ll catch you up.” He grabbed the oven mitts and took the rather well-done pies out of the oven. “It won’t do any of us good if you’ve got one star on Yelp your first day outta the gate. Right, sir?” He winked at the tall man, who had backed out of the window slightly.
“Finally, someone who understands the restaurant business,” the man said, huffing.
Biting down her feelings, Marlowe finished the lady’s transaction, and then handed the man a cash refund and two cold bottles of water to him. He went away shaking his head, but appeased.
