Something about the way Hal had said her name, warning and plaintive all at once, wouldn’t let her move on. The woman clearly saw her, got her, understood what she had to offer. And she didn’t appear stupid. The disconnect drove Quinn insane. Maybe that’s what bothered her most today, since her rage had fallen just below boiling, the plan to slam the door now came with a host of contingencies, so many contingencies, she wasn’t totally certain there would be any door slamming at all. Because ultimately, while Hal might be a hotheaded, frat boi, grease monkey . . . Quinn was not. She knew a good thing when she saw one, and the so-called line at Cheesy Does It had gone on for hours. Every customer left happy, taking pictures of their food to share on social media, and many times even coming back for more.
“Hey, big sister.”
“Hello, baby brother.”
Ian grinned at her as he passed through the living room on the way to the kitchen. The response was more generous than she’d gotten for the same greeting ten years ago, but then again ten years ago he hadn’t been six foot tall and able to comfortably rest his chin on her head.
She followed him, dropping her keys and briefcase as she went, but not releasing her iPhone.
“Rough day?” he asked, opening the fridge.
“Rough week.”
“Wanna talk about it?”
“Not really.”
He pulled out a tub of margarine and a package of American cheese. “Want a grilled cheese?”
“Is that some sort of a joke?” she snapped.
He furrowed his brow. “Um, if so, I don’t get the punch line.”
“Sorry.”
“So, no?”
“No. I mean, yes.” She exhaled. “I do not want a grilled cheese.”
He shrugged and flipped on the gas burner beneath a small skillet. She watched him work. He’d hit the bulk of his growth spurt since graduating from high school and was still easing into his limbs. He still had the façade of man paired with the awkwardness of a boy. His movements were jarring to watch, especially compared to the fluidity she’d witnessed in Hal.
Hal.
Of course everything came back to her. And the thing is, she could’ve been satisfyingly smug and spiteful about that if the woman hadn’t been everything her reputation purported and more. Charismatic, talented, cocky, approachable—well, at least right up until the door slamming part. “Damn her.”
“Who?”
“What?”
“Who are you damning?” He cringed. “Oh God, do you have a girlfriend?”
“No. Why? And don’t make that face when you say ‘girlfriend.’”
He dropped a piece of buttered bread into the skillet. “Sorry, it’s just your girlfriends are usually, well . . . never mind. What do I know about girlfriends, right?”
“Right.” She let him off the hook because she didn’t think she wanted to hear the end of that sentence any more than he’d wanted to say it. Her relationships were few and far between, so they wouldn’t likely have to broach the subject again anytime soon.
He layered on the cheese and capped off the sandwich. They both watched it long enough to see the cheese begin to melt.
“What do you know about the food-truck scene?”
“Not much. The cool kids dig it. They go hunting for them. They’re into the woman whose magazine you’ve been carrying around. She’s like some rock star of cooking or something.”
Quinn pursed her lips. “She’s not that great.”
He shrugged and flipped the sandwich. “You’ve met her?”
“Briefly. What else do you know about her?”
“Nothing. I don’t exactly run with the in crowd.”
Her chest ached. His first year at UB had been better than high school, but Ian still oozed social awkwardness. Friends were few, and romantic prospects seemed nowhere on the horizon.
“But I could Internet stalk her for you,” he offered.
No wonder the kid couldn’t get a date. “I don’t think that’s necessary. I already know everything I need to.” She heard the door of Hal’s truck slam again. “Or most everything, anyway.”
“And this . . . not girlfriend thing, does she know about you?” He slid the sandwich onto a plate and used the butter knife to cut it in half. “Or is it like when I had a crush on Lisa Knapp, but she didn’t even know I was alive?”
“First of all, not a crush. Second of all, no she knows nothing about me.” She took a second to think about what Hal really knew. “Or she knows the wrong things about me.”
He took a bite of the grilled cheese and watched her as he chewed.
“I may have come on a little strong.”
Ian widened his eyes in mock disbelief. “What, you?”
“Okay, a lot strong . . . twice . . . in one night.”
“Twice in one night? We’re still talking the platonic sense, right?”
“Yes! I may have cut in line, sort of, but not really. Then she had me wait a long time to talk to her.”
“Uh-oh.”
“And then I sort of rushed through a really great offer for her.”
“Was the offer even better for you?”
“Maybe.”
Ian rolled his eyes. “Did it involve you being the boss of her?”
“Maybe, just a little bit.”
“Did you give her any time to think about it?”
“Three minutes . . . while I was talking.”
“Quinn . . .”
“Okay, okay.” Why did he have to put everything into such a harsh light? “I can see where she might have gotten the wrong idea, but she didn’t have to be rude.”
“How was she rude?”
“She said, and I quote ‘I get that you probably don’t hear this word often. It’s just ‘no.’”
“Well then, she didn’t get totally the wrong idea about you.”
Quinn eyed him seriously.
“What? You aren’t used to hearing the word ‘no.’”
She scowled then snatched his sandwich off the plate and took a bite.
“And clearly you’re not good at accepting defeat, either. When are you going back to see her again?”
She thought about it a moment as she chewed. The sandwich wasn’t bad, but it was no Hippy Dippy. At least she could get another one of those when she went back to Cheesy Does It. Somehow his assuming that she’d see Hal again gave her the freedom to do the same. “Why don’t you do some of that Internet stalking you mentioned and find out where she’ll be tomorrow at lunch.”
“On one condition,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“You buy me a grilled cheese to make up for the one you just stole.”
“Deal,” she said resolutely, but she made no promises not to eat that one too.
Hal bobbed her head to the bass beat behind Bruno Mars’ version of “Uptown Funk.” They were serving Heard Of Buffalo? sandwiches like they were the cure to cancer. The Spree story had spread across Buffalo via Facebook, Twitter, and print media. Their feeds had nearly doubled in followers, and this morning’s update about their location in Delaware Park had been shared over a hundred times.
They’d seen the bump in press and prepared for a rush, or so she’d thought. They’d prepped double their usual amount of the Buffalo chicken wing dip that made up the filling of their signature dish, but as she looked in the crockpots behind her, she realized they had enough left for only about thirty servings. There had to be at least that many people in line now with more than an hour left to go.
“What do you want to do, Chef?” Sully asked, as if reading her mind.
“I don’t know yet.”
“What can I get for you?” Sully called out to a young man in a Bills cap. She jotted down the order before turning back to Hal and asking. “What would Jesus do?”
“Jesus could make bread multiply. I can’t work the same kind of miracle with Buffalo wing dip.”
She squirted another healthy dose of vegetable oil on the griddle. The k
ey to serving the heavy filling of her signature dish was getting both sides of the bread extra crisp.
“I could run and prep some more. We’ve got all the ingredients back at the apartment.”
“First you want me to be Jesus, now you want me to be Ganesh. I don’t have the extra set of hands I’d need to handle this line on my own.”
Sully had her I-told-you-so face on.
“I know, I know. We need to hire a third person for the summer.” She slid a completed sandwich over to the serving window. They were both pros at working and talking at the same time. They’d cooked together so long, it wasn’t unusual for them to have multiple dishes and multiple conversations going at the same time. “We’re going to have to shut the Heard of Buffalo? down.”
Sully raised her dark eyebrows.
“I don’t like it either.” Hal responded to the unspoken.
A lot of food truck drivers thrived on exclusivity. They purposefully did limited runs under the guise of not having enough space or resources to accommodate the crowd. Of course, preparing only for a small crowd made it look like they’d been overrun due to their massive popularity when in reality they were manipulating the supply to make it look like they’d generated extra demand. Hal believed the smoke and mirrors would catch up with them eventually. People didn’t like being played, and they might be willing to wait in a long line a couple of times to try something new, but as soon as they did finally get to try that dish, their expectations would be so high, they couldn’t possibly be met. Whereas someone who got great food when they wanted it was much more likely to come back and bring their friends.
Her food was good enough to keep people coming back, good enough to make its own hype. She had plenty of personal reasons for not wanting to turn people away hungry, but she reasoned that the lengths she went to in order to feed everyone stemmed mostly from good business. She wanted to give people what they wanted. Still, all of the miracles she’d ever worked with food were in the area of quality, not quantity.
“We’ve probably got another half an hour left in us. Maybe we’ll get a rush of vegetarians.”
“I think in this crowd you’re more likely got get a rush of vagitarians,” Sully quipped. “Get it?”
Hal shook her head and went back to toasting the bread. Sully had a flare for the dramatic and the juvenile. They’d seen an uptick in queer customers, but they’d seen an increase in all customers. She may have heard more flirty comments than usual over the last few days, but women certainly weren’t knocking down the door, and the one who had held her attention for more than a minute wasn’t looking for love.
“Are you thinking about her again?” Sully asked between orders.
“Who?”
“Blond Banker.”
“No.”
“Maybe you should.”
She sighed. “We’ve been over this, Sully.”
“I think we’re about to go over it again.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s in line.”
Hal scanned the crowd automatically and immediately locked eyes with the cool blues of Quinn Banning. She was dressed down compared to the skirt and heels she’d worn the other night, but she still stood out in the blue-collar crowd. The woman oozed class in tan linen pants and a white oxford open at the neck. She looked like she belonged in the Hamptons, not in a food-truck line in Buffalo. Hal clamped down on a mix of emotions—anger, attraction, curiosity. They would all have to wait.
She slid another sandwich to Sully and grabbed the next ticket. This one wanted a Sloppy First. Hal was silently thankful for the person not wanting a Heard of Buffalo? as she ladled a scoop of sloppy-joe meat on a slice of beer bread, then smothered it in smoked Gouda. Sully would take over from there, keeping an eye out for when the sandwich needed to be flipped then served. The next ticket listed an order for a Heard of Buffalo? It wasn’t uncommon to run out of ingredients by the end of the day, and they always made do, but today they’d have to make do a little earlier.
They continued taking orders and sending them down the griddle. She tried not to think about the dwindling supplies or the order coming down the line from a beautiful blond banker, but the tension tightening her shoulders suggested she wasn’t quite succeeding.
“What can I get for you?” Sully called out for an order. Hal could almost never hear the answers over the music, the hum of the motor, and the sizzle of the grill. Maybe Quinn would come and go quietly without Hal ever realizing she was there. And if she didn’t, if she chose to interrupt right now, Hal would not feel guilty about putting her in her place—not that she felt guilty last time. The woman had been pushy, presumptuous, and rude.
And entitled.
Hal couldn’t stand entitlement.
Any harshness in her dismissal was warranted.
No, she didn’t regret slamming the door at all. She snatched the next ticket with a little extra gusto but faltered as she read, “One Hippy Dippy and one Heard of Buffalo? for her tall, nerdy friend.”
Of course she wanted another of their healthiest sandwich. She wouldn’t want to try anything new. At least tall, nerdy friend wanted something with a little more heat. Was tall, nerdy friend a man or a woman?
Didn’t matter.
She pulled out the rye bread and coated it lightly with olive oil, then had to go over to the cooling bin to get arugula. They hadn’t had a very health conscious crowd so far. On her way back she scanned the last of the running crockpots to see how much chicken wing dip she had left.
“Can you cover it?” Sully asked as if she had eyes in the back of her head.
“Looks like tall, nerdy friend gets the last one.”
“Are you kidding me? Our last one of the day goes to the pencil-pushing boyfriend?”
So, a man friend. Well, she’d certainly read that one wrong. “Yeah, first come, first served.”
She scooped out all of the dip onto the toasted bread, then scraped the crockpot empty only to come up a little light. She slapped another piece of bread on the top and slid it across the griddle. “It’s shy, Sully. Don’t charge her.”
“So what you’re saying is, I need to go back out there and tell the woman who wrote me off as riffraff last time that I couldn’t get her order right, so it’s on me?”
“Yeah, when you put things that way . . .” Hal sighed. “Give ’em here.”
Sully flipped both sandwiches off the griddle and into cardboard shells before handing them over.
“Line up the next few while I handle this.”
Instead of waiting for a reply, she hopped out of the truck. This wasn’t going to be fun. Quinn would surely see their failure to properly fill her order as further sign of her superiority. Or maybe she’d think they did it just to piss her off. Either way, the exchange wouldn’t be pretty, but as much as she hated to admit it, she’d gotten herself in this mess. She needed to make things right.
“Order up, one Heard of Buffalo? and one Hippy Dippy.”
Quinn jumped at the sound of Hal’s voice, once again so surprisingly close. She hadn’t been prepared to talk with her yet. She’d spent all morning going through various scenarios, from being ignored to being thrown out. She’d thought about just getting her food and leaving just to prove she could follow rules, but then again, maybe it would be better to show she could wait patiently for Hal to finish all her work before approaching and offering her most sane-sounding apology. Now all of her careful contingency planning was wiped out by another unexpected personal appearance.
“I waited in line,” she said brusquely. Not a brilliant opening, but it’s what came out.
Hal smiled faintly, her brown eyes wary but not unfriendly. “She can be taught.”
Quinn smiled through gritted teeth, “I guess I deserved that, but I didn’t expect a personal delivery.”
“You didn’t earn one. Your, uh, boyfriend here ordered a Heard Of Buffalo?, and it’s our last one for the day, which is why it’s a little light on the filling.” She ext
ended the sandwich to him, then fished seven dollars out of the front pocket of her chef’s jacket. “It’s also free.”
Ian took the sandwich but tried to refuse the refund. “This looks great to me.”
“No, really, we don’t skimp on our customers.” Hal offered the money again, and this time Quinn took it.
“Thank you. That’s admirable, but the change is mine. After the amazing sandwich you made me on Tuesday, I wanted to share your work with my little brother.”
Hal’s eyes widened, and she turned back to scan Ian’s features one more time before her smile returned. “Now that you mention it, you two do have the same chin. He got all the height, though.”
“You’re one to talk about height,” Quinn said, standing up straighter to emphasize the two or three inches she had on her. “You seem much taller in the truck.”
“It’s all in the swagger. Which reminds me, I need to get back to it.” Her social demeanor faded back into her more neutral business expression. “I’m sorry for not being able to fill your order to the standards we’ve set for ourselves at Cheesy Does It.”
Quinn glanced behind her and the long non-line of customers. “Are you going to give a personal apology to all the people still waiting in vain?”
“If I could, I would. But that would only prolong their wait.” A muscle twitched in Hal’s jaw. “We have magnetic ‘sold out’ signs to cover up items on the big menu.”
“That’s going to turn a lot of people away hungry and angry.”
“Thank you for that brilliant business observation.”
“If you’d prepared adequately you—”
“Prepared adequately?” Hal snapped. “Are you joking? You know nothing about how I prepared.”
“No need to get angry. I was merely noting that if you’d brought more ingredients—”
“You were merely butting into my business again, and I don’t need it. There’s a limited amount of space in the truck. We prep things at home to save room and only carry as much as past experience suggests we’ll need.”
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