Page 20 of One Adult, Please

"Do you have a better route?"

"No. I have this route and my feelings about this route and I'm bringing both."

"Stay behind me. Move when I move. Stop when I stop. If we encounter one of them, don't swing the oar."

"Why not?"

"Because you'll hit yourself in the head again."

"That's hurtful and also probably accurate. What do I do instead?"

"You run. Back the way we came. Tunnel door, lock it, wait for me."

"What if you don't come back?"

"I'll come back."

I believe him. Joel from Operations will come back because Joel from Operations has a building to maintain, a filtration system to babysit, and, apparently, a woman with a friendship paddle who can't be trusted near ceilings.

"Okay," I say. "Let's go. First the adventure part, then the churro cart. That's the order of operations. Adventure, then churros. I need you to commit to the churro cart. I need verbal confirmation that the churro cart is part of the long-term plan."

He looks at me for a long time. Behind us, a fish bumps the acrylic and neither of us flinches because we're locked in a negotiation about fried dough and this is serious business.

"The churro cart is part of the long-term plan," he says, and I swear the corner of his mouth moves. A smile standing in the lobby filling out the paperwork.

"Thank you," I say. "That's all I needed."

He turns to the door. Wrench in one hand. Two loaded tote bags over his shoulder, packed with an efficiency that makes my tote bag look like a yard sale had a seizure.

Joel opens the door and holds it and I walk through and I don't trip.

"If I die in the adventure part, tell my mom I died near food. Lie if you have to. Put a churro in my hand for continuity."

"You're not going to die."

He walks faster. I walk faster. We move through the corridor toward the boundary between the territory we've claimed and the territory that's still full of wrong people and whatever else is waiting in a zone built for adventures that nobody asked for.

I grip the friendship paddle, square my shoulders, and take a breath.

Let's go find the adventure part.

And, ideally, not become part of it.

7

QUEUE JUMPING IS PROHIBITED

GRACE

The lattice pathway is a suggestion of a hallway with the structural conviction of a promise made by someone who was already leaving.

The pergola stretches ahead in a long, gentle curve, connecting the fish part to the adventure part with a canopy of wooden slats and lattice walls that let in approximately eighty percent of the outside, which means the outside can also see approximately eighty percent of us. Decorative vines are threaded through the lattice in a way that was probably charming a few days ago and now feels like the park tried to hide us with a salad.

Joel moves first, two loaded totes slung across his body and the wrench in his hand. He has two hand signals: the flat palm that means stop and the wave that means go.

I follow. My shoes squeak on the concrete. My tote bag rustles. The stabby fork, strapped to the outside, catches a vine and I have to stop and untangle it.

"Sorry. The stabby fork got vine'd."