The first two hours of operations went by quickly and without incident. Juniper was relieved she could focus on chatting with the customers, which was her favorite part anyway. Even when wait times got longer than she would have liked, they were still wildly better than when it was her alone. And with her friendly, unstressed conversation, patrons didn’t seem to mind anyway.
“Wren, Wanchese, your order is up,” Juniper beamed from the service window.
“Is that Rowan Birdsong in that truck?” Wren asked as she approached.
“Yes ma’am, it is.” She leaned through the service window next to Juniper.
Wren gave Juniper a knowing look. Juniper felt her cheeks heat up, but she nodded her head in silent confirmation.
“Ooh, Amber and Alyssa are going to besomad.”
Rowan furrowed her brows, and her lips downturned into a perplexed frown. “Amber and Alyssa?”
“Stop gossiping, Wren,” Anita called out.
Wren rolled her eyes and dropped her voice to a whisper so low even Juniper could barely hear it over the sounds of the crowd and drumming and singing.
“How can she claim her hearing’s bad and then somehow hear what I’m saying over all this noise?”
Juniper raised an eyebrow. “It’s very selective.” She leaned further out the window. “She hears what she wants to hear, don’t let her tell you otherwise.”
Juniper leaned back in the window and caught the wayRowan still looked confused. She sighed. “I’ll tell you later.”
Thankfully changing the subject, Wren called out to Rowan, “What do you know about chili and frybread?”
“What I’ve learned in the last… six hours? I don’t know,” she looked toward Juniper, “Junie, time doesn’t exist in this food truck.”
Juniper shrugged. “Told ya.”
Wanchese leaned up to join the conversation. In his very matter of fact way, he reminded them, “I ordered an Indian taco.”
Chuckling, Juniper pushed Rowan back through the window to work on her nephew’s order. Juniper continued chatting with Wren until Sam called her attention.
“Junie, look what we did.”
Juniper casually turned toward them but double blinked when she realized what she was looking at. “No fucking way. I turn around for less than a minute, and this is what you guys come up with?”
Rowan and Sam shrugged as they looked down at the plate they jointly held like it was some sort of prize-winning elementary school science experiment.
“Explain.”
Rowan looked at Sam and back to Juniper. “Well, we thought it would be fun to make Wanchese a kid-sized Indian taco.”
Sam interjected, “And make fun decorations on it.”
On a half-size disc of frybread that Rowan had made, Sam had used the toppings to decorate it with a smiley face. It had cheese for eyes, tomatoes for a nose, and the most egregious part of all, was a line of taco meat for a lopsided smile.
Juniper burst out laughing. “Wren, Wren, please,” she waved her cousin in closer, “look at this Frankenstein frybread they made.”
Sam and Rowan walked the plate to the window for Wren and Wanchese’s inspection. Wren joined in on the laughter, but Wanchese reached up to take the plate.
“No, Nuqisus, we’ll make you a new one.” Juniper stilllaughed.
“Auntie, I like this one. You should make a kids' menu.”
Sam pointed to Juniper with a pair of tongs as he waited for the next batch of frybread to finish in the fryers. “He’s got a point, Junie. And who’s ever going to say no to this kid?”
“My mama says no all the time.”
