Page 80 of Loaded

“Something’s bothering you.”

There’s no menu—not at places like this. They have a dozen or so courses and everyone gets them. It’s a special kind of arrogance to assume that your food is so good that everyone will like all of it, but that’s part of the whole ambiance at the triple Michelin starred places.

“Come on,” I press. “What’s wrong?” She went from excitedly telling me about the song she’s been working on to shutting up like a clam.

She waits for the waitress to disappear, and then she looks both ways like we’re planning some kind of covert operation. “It’s not that I’m upset—it just feels strange, sitting here as a customer.”

She’s stinking adorable. “Well, get used to it.”

Her eyes narrow. “Why?”

“I plan to take you out every single chance I get, to places like this as often as you want.”

She rolls her eyes.

“I mean it,” I say. “And once your songs are famous, you’ll be the one taking me.”

“Famous?” She snorts. “I’d have been delighted with jingles.”

“Your song launched Jake’s career. True or false?”

She shakes her head. “Jake’s face launched Jake’s career. His physique. His timing and his expressions. That song. . .” She shrugs. “It was a step stool.”

“But that’s all you need, really,” I say. “You need one break, and you have to be smart enough to take it when it comes.” I brace my arms on the table and lean a little closer. “So tell me you’re entering that contest with the song you’ve been working on.”

She sits back. “I don’t know.”

“What’s holding you back?”

“I looked it up—if I make it to the finals, I have to perform my own song. . .not just a jingle. An actual performance, and it’s going to be live-streamed.”

That’s a hard one. I even get some of her reticence now. I haven’t pressed to know more about her grandfather, but clearly there’s some baggage there. I just can’t tell how much of her concerns are because she has never been taught to believe in herself and how much is just because she doesn’t enjoy things like this.

“I can do it,” she says. “I mean, I can probably do it, but the problem is that the further I go, the more they’ll want me to do it. And that’s not even the only. . .”

The waitress brings our first course.

I’m happy, because Bea looks delighted. Even if it’s barely more than a single bite of some kind of fruit tart, artfully shaped like a butterfly, she loves it.

So I love it.

But I also want to know what she was going to say.

“You said that’s not the only reason. . . you were worried about the contest?” I feel like an interrogator, but I doubt she’d come back to it. I can’t help her if I don’t know what’s standing in her way.

“Writing jingles may seem meaningless,” she whispers, “but it’s also safe.”

Safe? “You mean. . .legally safe?”

She smiles.

And the waitress brings our second course—some kind of foamy green soup that tastes like summer. It’s really pretty good for foam in a mushroom-shaped cup.

“The cup is edible,” the waitress says with a smirk.

“Wonderful.” I pop it into my mouth. “How many courses did you say there were?”

“Fourteen.”

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