Page 6 of Her Crew

Then her eyes dart to the family a few tables down. They get up and abandon their trays on the table for some employee to clean up later. Her muscles tense and flex with an urge, and I suddenly realize what she does.

“You eat people’s leftovers?”

The shame on her face becomes mortification as she realizes how I put it together. She bites so hard on her lower lip that I worry she’ll make herself bleed. So I tell her something that might make her feel better.

“When I was hungry enough, I would lurk behind restaurants and eat food from the dumpster. I had no clue how old anything was or if it was bad. I just dove in and scavenged anything I could. And I got extremely sick from it twice. The worst part? I was so sick and so hungry that I ate my own vomit.”

Her eyes widen slightly before dropping completely from mine. This is the first time I’ve told anyone that story. I guess you are more willing to share when the person doesn’t even know your name.

I expect disgust to appear on her face, but aside from that moment of widening eyes, she remains stone-faced. A mutual embarrassment lingers between us, strolling back and forth.

“But you aren’t starving, are you?” I get the courage to ask.

She shakes her head. “I don’t let myself get hungry.”

“Why?”

“I compulsively eat because I want to look like this. I need to look like this.”

Compulsively eating? I haven’t heard of that in people like us. Poverty of this level goes hand in hand with being disgustingly thin.

The girl lowers her fork and begins fidgeting with her fingers.

“Dare I ask why you need to look like that?”

Her eyes jump to mine again. “No.”

Ah. She’s shut down. I guess it won’t hurt to learn some of her details, then.

“Can I ask your name?”

“You can ask all you want. Doesn’t mean I’ll tell you.” She picks up her fork and swirls it in the pasta without taking a bite.

“What’s your name, pup?”

“Tegan Massey,” she finally says.

“I’m Alec Yeager, but they call me Ace.”

“They?”

“My crew.”

“What does that even mean?” She brings the pasta to her lips, then lowers it. “What was with the clown-car act in the parking lot?”

“We’re magazine salesmen. We travel the country to make sales.”

She nods before taking a mouthful of food and pointing the empty tines at me. “I feel like you’re lying to me. Who reads magazines anymore?”

“Only our oldest clients.”

“You make money like that, though?”

I wrap my hand around my chin, trying to assess how much I should explain to this complete stranger I found scrounging in our van. I’m tempted to hide what we do, but fuck it.

“We sell ourselves, Tegan. We create sales from sob stories that tug at the heartstrings of the rich and privileged. The magazines are just a decoy. All you need is the ability to manipulate, a book for orders, and some magazines to make them believe we’re legit.”

“Are you legit?”