by Shae Ross
Ben looks across the table at Devi. “We’ll take the Japanese truck.”
Devi’s mouth opens and she gasps. Her shocked expression changes to rage. She looks as if she’s going to lunge over the table at Ben. He’s standing as still as the stone statue of our Spartan mascot on MSU’s campus, staring serenely ahead as if he’s also adopted our slang for time to kick some ass, “Sparty up.”
Devi told us how she let slip our plan to pick the Japanese food truck. She said Ben had assured her that’s not what the guys wanted anyhow. Looks like they changed their minds. She also told us about the flood of women texting Ben last night. She’s been as live as a wire all morning, and this move is not gonna help her to calm down any time soon.
A half hour later, Jillian and Robert are finishing their explanation of our mission for the day. Trott Ventures is in the process of unveiling a new franchise opportunity in the food service business and today we will be testing out two of the models. The franchise will offer a line of food service trucks of four ethnic varieties: Trixie’s Taco’s, Sam’s Sushi and Japanese Cuisine, Meena’s Middle Eastern, and Carlo’s Cuban Cabana.
Robert explained how the line of trucks are designed for start-up ‘Treps, allowing them to start a business they can run with relatively low cash reserves and minimal staffing. The business model anticipates the entrepreneurial owner can man the truck with a team of three. Trott Ventures expects that the line of food service trucks will complement their existing Trott to Market gas station convenience stores, and they intend to offer the ‘Treps space in their parking lots as part of the franchise package.
Today we’ll be manning the trucks as if we own them; prepping, cooking, and selling. The Trott family is looking for feedback on the challenges of running the truck.
The board dismisses us, and Devi snaps her head back to Ben. Her hands are fisted and tight against her sides, the intensity of her glare like blasting laser beam-burning holes in the side of his head. He ignores her as the guys filter out of the room.
Jett winks at me as he passes, and I give him a tight-lipped smile. I’m thinking some of Devi’s anger is coming from the little encounter she had with Ben’s cell phone last night.
“We’re going to sell enough tacos today to feed the Mexican army.” And while she’s cursing in Spanish, I see Robert motioning me out into the hallway. Great.
“What’s up?” I ask.
He takes my arm and leads me a couple steps. “I wanted to ask you something.”
Shit. I should have prepared myself for this—should have thought about my answer. My mind is scrambling.
“I’m forbidden from asking you out while the competition is going on, but the week is coming to a close.” He’s smiling at me as if he’s about to hand me a trophy. “I want to take you out after the competition ends.” I remain silent. “Think about it,” he says, dashing a hand through his hair and winking.
Oh, I’ve thought about it—thought about how he drinks too much, talks to my boobs, and laughs at inappropriate times. Out of the corner of my eye I see his hand coming up. Oh God. He’s gonna tuck my hair again.
“Ready, Ryan?” Jade says from behind me.
I hop back and turn, catching the scowl she’s directing at him. “Yep,” I say.
“Good luck, girls,” Robert says. I thank him without turning back and we head out.
We’re to meet in the underground parking garage of the Trott building in fifteen minutes for our half-hour instructional session on how to run the food truck. We stop in the ladies’ room to change into the uniforms Jillian handed us with a wicked smile before reminding us, “Don’t forget the hairnets.”
“We should have picked the cabana,” I whine as my gaze moves with disappointment over my Trixie’s uniform. It’s brown polyester with a smattering of turquoise and hot pink confetti falling over the shoulder. I pull the brown hairnet out of its plastic cover and stretch it over the white tips of my French manicure. Not happening, I say to myself, sliding it into the garbage hole between the sinks.
Devi comes out of her stall, and to add insult to injury, her curves are packed into the brown polyester tighter than the casing on a hot dog. She looks at the mirror and growls.
Jade actually looks cute in her uniform. Her doe eyes stare out from under her page-boy cap as she inspects herself.
“Well, let’s get this over with,” I say, holding the door open for them.
We stand lined up along with the Michigan men, listening to the refrigerator-shaped mechanic give us a crash course in driving our trucks. Well, hopefully not literally a crash course.
“Basically, these trucks are no different from your average drive. Just watch the sides when you turn and when you’re parking.” He holds up a greasy finger. “Always a good idea to have someone get out and guide you in, just to be safe.”
We spend the next half hour in our box trucks, learning how to prepare our deliverable, which in our case is tacos. Our ingredients can be combined to forty different versions. We decide that Jade will do the cooking while Devi mans the order window. I will go back and forth between the two, offering help where it’s most needed.
At ten a.m. sharp, we load up into our vehicles, ready to drive out of the garage. Devi moves up to the parking gate, and we wait for it to raise. The men pull Sam’s Sushi truck up to the gate beside us, and we stare each other down. Ben revs the engine of his truck and Devi flips him off. She is not happy with Ben today and I have a feeling there’s more to her anger than the fact that the guys chose the truck we wanted. The gate opens and she guns it. Thank God the Trott’s aren’t watching. “Are you ok? Want me to drive?” I ask her, bracing a hand against the dash board.
“I’m fine,” she says focused on the rear view mirror and easing up on the gas pedal.
I open my laptop. I have transferred all of the contacts I made at the Met event into a spreadsheet complete with name, title, company, contact information, and assistant’s name. I dial my first number.
“What are you doing?” Jade asks.
“Taking orders.”
A voice answers at the mayor’s office, and I reintroduce myself to his executive assistant. I explain our mission for the day and ask if we can cater lunch for their office. After a short hold, he comes back on the line with our first order: one hundred tacos!
Devi and Jade’s faces light up. “Wooo-hoooo!”
“Oh yeah!” I say, filling in the order on my spreadsheet and moving to the next name on the list. By the time we pull into our pre-arranged location across from Central Park, I have taken orders from eight offices that total 375 tacos. Yes!
“We may need to call for more stock,” Jade says. “We’re only equipped to sell a thousand units.”
I jump out of the box van and help Devi parallel park the brown beast. We scurry around, stabilizing the truck. The men have pulled into their designated position, just six blocks down from us, and I can see them setting up operations. My eye catches two parked pedicab drivers. They are stopped on the sidewalk in front of Central Park, standing on their pedals and chatting with one another.
“Hey, let’s see if we can hire those guys to make our deliveries.” I pull Devi along next to me. Their eyes light up as we approach, and the foreign words they are speaking to one another trail off.
“Privet,” Devi calls out with a big smile. Russian just happens to be one of the four languages she’s fluent in. She chats casually with them while I stand by, nod, and smile. Their eyes follow Devi’s finger as she points down the street to Sam’s Sushi truck. They laugh and nod.
“Ask them if they’ll do our deliveries,” I prod.
“They said yes. Ten dollars an hour plus they keep the tips. They’ll be back around ten forty-five for the first run.”
“Sweet!”
“Spasiba,” Devi says into their admiring smiles.
We start cooking immediately and our first catering delivery is out the door by eleven o’clock. I’ve spent some time making signs
on our fiesta-colored plates to attach to the pedicabs and tell them I’ll pay them ten percent of any order they solicit. They each return with a handful of orders from their own stock of local customers.
Street traffic is starting to show some interest. To encourage them, Devi moves out from behind the window with a small tray of tacos, offering free samples, while I help Jade with our next catering order. Devi’s strategy works, and she retreats to the order window. Soon we are scrambling to clear our line of the paper tickets hanging in front of us, and it’s all Jade can do to keep up with our foot traffic.
The Russians return with empty cabs, ready for the next catering delivery. I move to work next to Jade on the line and try to finish stuffing the remaining tacos for them.
Devi’s been having a ball carousing with the customers, striking up conversations with each of them as they step up to her service window. She’s queen of the “up-sell,” adding the words, “Oh, one more thing. You need a side of sour cream with that,” or “I’m sure you’d love some guac and chips.” No one is getting away from her without the add-on.
“Hey, I need three more loaded chicken tacos. Speed it up a little, girls!” Devi calls.
Jade stops and wipes the back of her hand over the perspiration on her temple. “Is she for real? I’m seriously considering adding some decoration to her hairnet,” she says, shaking a scoop of guacamole toward Devi.
“She’s drunk with power, just ignore her.” The scoop clangs back in the metal bin, and Jade starts to wrap foil around the taco in front of her.
“It’s like she thinks we’re taking a siesta under a palm tree back here.”
“I wonder how the guys are doing.”
“I think we’ve got them on this one,” Jade says. “They don’t look like the kind of guys who had to work at fast food joints to put themselves through college.”
“True dat,” Devi says.
“Word,” I say, hip-bumping her.
I finish the last of my forty-order tray and help load up the pedicab.
“What’s your name?” I ask my Russian assistant. He’s blond and thin with a smile that shows all of his misaligned teeth.
“Bob,” he answers. I turn to him with my hands on my hips and smile.
“Oh, come on. Bob? Really?” I say to him in a playful voice. He shrugs and climbs onto his bike.
“It’s anything you want it to be.” He winks and pedals away with the last of our catering orders. Victory comes with a side of salsa today.
Chapter Fourteen
Jett
“I think we’re gonna lose this one, boys,” I say to Ben and Vaughn.
“What makes you think that?” Vaughn asks.
“I’ve been watching the girls all day. They’ve got a fleet of pedicabs that keep coming back to their window. At first I thought they just wanted to hang around and flirt. I finally figured out they’re making lunch deliveries.”
“Ya think? Really? Who would they be delivering to? I mean, who do the girls know in New York?”
“Probably all those movers and shakers they met the first night at the Met when they left us to sober up in the Delta Sky Club at Metro.”
“Maybe it’s just as well. At least if they win today, Devi might warm back up to me tonight.”
“Do you want to win the competition or get laid, Ben?” He thinks about it longer than anyone should.
The day has been disastrous for us. Ben burned the fingertips on his right hand while reaching into the hot oil to pick out the tempura shrimp. Never having done much cooking, either, he didn’t realize oil doesn’t boil when it’s scalding hot. He proceeded to knock the oil basket from its cooker and ignite the grill on fire. We managed to get the fire under control with the extinguisher but ruined an entire counter full of sushi. The smoke rising from our service window scared off most of our customers, and the box truck now smells of charred eel and sour seaweed. Not our best performance.
Score Two for Team Ryan. The girls have evened up this game.
Three hours later we’re at the Monkey Kick having a much-needed brew. Now that the girls have evened up the scores, it all rests on tomorrow. My head aches. I gotta decide what I’m doing here. Do I want this job or not? Is it worth it to Ben and Vaughn? Letting myself touch Ryan was a mistake. I swear that photo booth session transported me to somewhere I can’t return from.
I see heads turning at the entrance of the Monkey Kick and a flash of honey-blond hair. The girls have arrived. Ben spies Devi looking his way. His bandaged fingers reach up into the air, beckoning her over. She flips him off and ignores us. That’s twice today; my boy’s on a roll.
“That hurts,” Ben says, holding his bandaged hand. “Can’t she see I’m injured?”
“They’ll come around after they’ve had a couple drinks,” I say.
I hide my smile behind a swig from the long neck I’m holding and refocus my gaze on Ryan. She’s standing on the entry mat, stomping water off calf-hugging black boots. I follow the line of her skirt over the curve of her hips. She arches as her coat slides off of her arms in a graceful fluid motion. There’s something about Ryan Rose that makes me want to watch every move she makes. My hands pulse with the memory of what those curves feel like: warm skin over small muscles, softness in all the right places.
I tighten my grip on the long neck. The arm of her shirt slides down a rounded shoulder, revealing the curve of her collarbone. Her hand crosses her body and her fingers rest against the long, delicate bone. When I look up at her she’s staring back. The corner of her mouth starts to rise. She tilts her head and hitches up the sleeve.
Devi grabs her hand and starts to pull her toward the bar. She shrugs in my direction and gives me a torn look. Shit. I’m guessing Devi’s anger toward Ben is going to keep Ryan by her side all night and away from mine. Guilt by association. Looks like it’s gonna be a long night.
Two hours later, the only thing that’s “come around” is a fleet of admirers, six deep and surrounding the girls directly across the bar from us. We are holding our own, flirting intermittently with the mixed crowd of college students and young professionals. Annoyingly, though, nothing catches our interest quite like the party the girls from Michigan State are having.
Ryan laughs and tosses her blond hair around her shoulders like a flag in the Big House half-time show. Her hand closes around another drink passed to her from some guy. I’m sure she doesn’t know him well enough to be taking drinks from him. And that’s at least one drink over the limit of what she should have considering her size. I tip my beer against my lips.
“Where’s she going?”
Ben is watching Devi as she crosses in front of us. She hops up on the stage at the end of the bar and steps toward the karaoke machine. This oughta be interesting. The music starts and her voice belts out the first bars of a song. Devi can sing and dance, and she’s bouncing and wiggling around the stage.
Ben takes another long, hard hit from his bottle and moves to a better vantage point, closer to the stage. He stares, mesmerized. She continues to reel him in, casting repeated pouty looks his way. It’s as if she’s singing the song just for Ben, except there’s a gaggle of Jersey men crowding around her legs, leering as she skips back and forth.
I get the distinct feeling she’s trying to make the big guy jealous, and from the tense expression on Ben’s face, it’s working. I look back at Ryan and wonder if that’s the game they all agreed on tonight.
Well, it probably serves us right. It was a low blow to swipe the sushi truck from them. As it turns out, it backfired on us.
My mind has been wandering back to Ryan all day. The feel of her skin on my fingertips, those black thigh highs against her pale skin…I wonder if she’s wearing them now. The fact that she’s had a swarm of guys circling around her all night is not sitting well with me. Shit, if I wanted to talk to her—and I do—I’d have to take a number.
I take another drink and watch Ben’s gaze shifting between Devi’s peanut gallery of m
en and her ass wiggling across the stage. He’s totally falling for it. He chugs another swallow of his beer and steps closer to the guy who just copped a feel of Devi’s calf.
“Hey.” I step up next to him, contemplating the best way to distract his mounting irritation with the show. Between me watching the guys circle Ryan, and Ben watching Devi bounce around, we’re gonna end up in a fight with someone if we don’t leave. “Do you want to get out of here?” I ask Ben.
He downs the rest of his beer and sets it on the bar. He looks conflicted as he considers my offer.
“Yeah, I think we’d better,” he concedes in a rasp, the disappointment in his voice palpable.
We find Vaughn in the back room chatting with Jade. “We’re heading out.”
He waves us on, and we move toward the door. A round of applause erupts, and Devi makes her way back to Ryan and their gaggle of admirers.
Just as I’m passing close to the girls, Ryan jumps in front of my path and smiles a Barbie-doll smile. As if it hasn’t been a bad enough day, now she wants to gloat. Well, I guess she deserves to have her fun. I cross my arms over my chest and stare back at her, ready to take what she’s dishing out.
“Hi, Jett,” she says in a flirty tone.
“Hi, Ryan,” I echo back.
“Are you coming over to help us celebrate our victory?” She bats long lashes.
No, I’m getting my friend out of this bar before he turns green and busts his jeans into shredded knickers. Looks to me like you and Devi don’t need any more men to help you celebrate,” I say, nodding toward the gallery.
She looks over her shoulder with wide eyes, mocking innocence, and then turns back to me. “Oh, you mean them. Well…” Her shoulders shrug. “I guess you’re right.” She smiles and dismisses me. “Have a good night, Jett. I know we will.”
“I would expect nothing less from the State party girls.” She casts me a quick glare, but I’m distracted by the exchange Devi is having with the stocky troll standing inches from her nose. She’s pointing her finger in the guy’s face, saying, “What did you just say to me?”