“It’s quality testing. There’s a distinction.” I locate the testing portions—Danny always does testingportions before opening, small batches for flavor check—and hold one up. “These are literally made to be eaten before service. I’m just streamlining the process.”
She looks at the batch. She looks at me.
She comes behind the counter.
I hand her the first piece and she eats it without ceremony. I watch the pure delight brighten her expression.
“That’s very good,” she says.
“Danny’s been doing this stall for twelve years. He’s had time to get it right.” I eat my own piece. “Every stall on this row has a signature thing. Danny’s is the potato, specifically the herb crust. Tristan’s is obviously everything, but the honey-salt dough is the headline. Jenny, two stalls down, does a cold sesame noodle situation that sounds wrong for a carnival and is in fact transcendent.”
“You’ve eaten everything on the row?”
“Every year, first morning before opening. It’s a tradition.”
She looks at me. “You do that alone?”
“Usually. Pack’s not big on morning carnival shenanigans.” I pop the container closed and return everything to where it was. “Jack’s unofficial quality audit. I leave notes.”
“You leave notes?”
“Constructive feedback. Danny’s been doing the perfect potato for twelve years because I told him on year two that the herb balance was off.” I hold the counterpanel up for her to exit. “You’re welcome, Danny.”
She slips under the panel, and she’s close when she does it. Closer than necessary, the setup is tight but not that tight, and she knows it and I know it and neither of us names it.
We do the whole row.
We stop at each stall and I talk her through the signature item and the vendor and the history. She eats without reluctance, which I’ve noticed is how she eats when she’s stopped monitoring herself, and she asks good questions. I answer them and she answers the questions I ask in return. Somewhere around Jenny’s cold sesame noodles—which I am correct about, they’re transcendent, she makes that delighted face for a full two seconds—she stops censoring herself and just says what she wants to.
We talk about food first, which is easy. She has opinions. They’re good opinions, highly specific and based on experience rather than rumor. She’s had food from enough places that when she says something is good I believe her because she’s got the comparison base.
Then we talk about carnivals. She’s been to more than she made it sound earlier. A night market in a city she doesn’t name. A river festival somewhere that clearly meant something to her. A pier carnival when she was a kid that had a fortuneteller she visited three times.
“What did she tell you?” I ask.
“First time, something generic. Second time, something that seemed generic and turned out to be accurate enough to be uncomfortable.” She pauses. “Third time, she told me I was going to spend a long time looking for the right place to land.”
I look at her.
“I was nine,” she says, with the tone of someone who has thoroughly processed this and has no remaining feelings about it.
“And?” I urge.
“And she wasn’t wrong, which is annoying.” She finishes the noodles and sets the container down. “I don’t believe in fortunetellers.”
“But?”
“But I’ve been moving for a long time,” she says. And then she stops, the way she does, the sentence just going out like a light before it finishes.
I let it go, because I’ve learned to.
“How long?” I ask, casually, not loading it.
“Since I was about nineteen.” She looks at the stall row. “It’s not dramatic. I just didn’t have a reason to stay anywhere.”
“Until?”
She looks at me. “I didn’t say until.”
