Page 52 of Even After Sunset

“Because. You just can’t!”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Can you just…” she pushes past me and grabs the three jars of spreads. “It’s Meryl’s recipe, okay? You can’t just mess with people’s recipes.”

“It’s Nutella on a chocolate chip cookie, Jackie. Relax.”

She whirls back to face me, her eyes round as saucers. Teeth clenched. “Relax?” she bites back. “Do you even have any idea what a big deal Meryl is?” She doesn’t wait for me to answer, and schools me instead: “Because in the cooking world, she is like an A-list celebrity. She’s one of the most respected chefs in the country, and I’m lucky she even let me use her recipe! The fact that I canbasically sell Meryl Pemrose’s cookies—at music festivals—is a huge deal. And you’re totally disrespecting that.”

Nowmyeyes go round.

“Okay… Just—” I let out a laugh. “Whoa.”

“Don’t look at me like that,” she snaps.

My eyebrows must raise about two full inches and I hold up the half-eaten cookie, as evidence of how ridiculous she’s being.

“You think it’s disrespecting Meryl tosmear a bit of Nutella on this cookie?”

“Yeah, actually. I do.”

“Wow. Okay…” I shake my head. “Well, then you’re nuts.”

“Actually, it’s called ‘having standards’. And values. And giving a crap about other people.”

“Actually,” I smirk. “It’s a fucking chocolate chip cookie.”

She’s being ridiculous. Also, she isfuming. She gets defensive as hell when it comes to Meryl and Richard—like she owes them the entire fucking world, and screw what she wants or what anyone else has to say that might topple them off the sky-high pedestal she’s put them on.

“You know what? Never mind. It’s fine.” She marches over to the window, wedging her tiny body in front of mine in an attempt to assert her authority. “I’ll take over from here, thanks. Since it’s obviously too much to ask for you to show some basic respect.”

I stand there for a second, frozen. Because…what the hell?

I can’t believe she is seriously this angry about me spreading Nutella or peanut butter or whatever on a few cookies she’s selling from a food truck. Hell, it’s not even a real food truck—it’s a camper disguised as a food truck. More specifically, it’s a camper disguised as a giant slab of butter disguised as a food truck. Three layers removed from the real deal.

“Um, sorry… Is this a bad time?” a large guy calls from the takeout window.

“What?” Jacki whirls around. “Oh… I’m so sorry. No. Not at all. Um, what can I get you?”

It’s my own stupid fault for trying to help her; because of course I could never live up to her standards — even manning a fucking takeoutwindow.Of course,she’d have to find some fault in how I’m doing this, so she’d have something else about me to step in and fix.

I imagine her slapping one of her green stickies on my forehead:“Nice to look at, but needs improvement.”

While she takes the man’s order, I pick up my backpack by the table and grab a flannel shirt too, and then I’m out the door before Jackie’s even finished bagging the guy’s cookies. Maybe I’ll still be able to find those two girls from earlier. Because right about now, a threesome sounds pretty sweet. Another thing for Jackie to judge me for.

Well, technically three things, I guess. But who the hell’s counting anymore?

I’m already half in the bag when I remember that I have to go back for my check-in call with Richard.

Yeah, I did end up finding the two girls from the takeout window earlier. And no, we didn’t end up having a threesome. I’ve been hanging out with them though, and a few of their friends who all drove down from Portland for the festival. They’re not swimming in money like the crew I hung out with the other night, but they do have liquor. I finished the bottle of rye I took with me from the camper less than fifteen minutes after I left. So I buy a quart of vodka off one of the girls, which eats up most of the money I made the other night. But I’ll get paid again once I help load later tonight. It’s not a lot, but it’s better than nothing and I’ll take whatever I can get at this point. And at least now I can enjoy my night knowing I’m gonna get a decent night’s sleep.

I’m off alone with Tammy when I remember my check-in call. Tammy is one of the girls who came to buy cookies earlier — the one with brown shoulder-length hair and, ironically, the less flirty of the two. We split from the group because she couldn’t believe I’ve never tried a chocolate whoopie pie and was determined to get me one. Apparently, it’s going to change my life.

Spoiler alert: it doesn’t.

She watches me eagerly the whole time, and it’s weirding me out to be under observation while I’m eating. The cookie is huge, but I stuff half of it in my mouth because I really don’t want to be late for my call now that I’ve realized it’s almost nine fifty-five.

“Amazing, right?” Tammy asks, her eyes wide with glee, like she just gifted me the answer sheet to an end-of-year chem test.

---