Page 33 of Anywhere with You
I made eye contact with Fenske, peeking from under the chip basket. “May we have more chips, when you have a chance?”
“Sure,” he said and walked away, shaking his head.
Cara was grinning widely. “It looks fantastic on you.”
“Red is my color,” I said, finally removing the basket and setting it back on the table.
The chips and salsa may have been mediocre, but the margaritas were delicious, and when our enchiladas came, they were impressive, both in size and quality.
“This place is a hidden gem,” Cara said. “That’s what my Yelp review is going to say.”
“Oh, and our Mesmio review,” I reminded her.
“Oops,” she said, pulling out her phone and shooting a few seconds of video, including me drinking out of both our straws at once. Thankfully, she stopped recording before I dribbled margarita all over my shirt. She definitely wouldn’t have edited it out for me. I had a giant smear of ketchup on my chin in an earlier video, and it was still out there for the world to see.
Once the worst of Cara’s hunger was sated, she slowed down, watching me unabashedly lick grease off my fingers.
“Who was your first love?” she asked.
“This enchilada,” I said with my mouth full. “Who was yours?”
Cara took a long drink of her margarita. “Well, I was in seventh grade.”
“Oh, we’re starting really early, then.”
“Do you want to hear this or not? Her name was Melissa. She had these Elton John–style glasses.”
I laughed. “Oh my God. Was this the eighties?”
“Shut up. She also had a notebook that was covered, I mean absolutely covered, in Lisa Frank stickers.”
“Hot.”
Cara rolled her eyes and took another bite. After a minute, she said, “I followed her around like she was the Messiah for two years.”
“That’s a long time, at that age.”
“Did I mention she played guitar?”
I laughed so hard that I choked. “Oh no,” I said, when I could manage to speak. “Were you a groupie?”
Cara shrugged, piling a bit each of enchilada, refried beans, and Spanish rice onto a spoon. “Can you be a groupie for a twelve-year-old who only knows two songs?” She dipped her entire spoon in salsa before eating it. She might be a genius.
“Depends. Was one of them ‘Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door’?”
Cara’s mouth fell open. “How on earth could you know that?”
“It’s a classic beginner song. So you were obsessed with a musician. Happens to the best of us. What happened next?”
Cara gave a one-shoulder shrug. “I tried to learn guitar, but I gave up pretty quickly.”
“Right. The elbows.”
She laughed. “It’s weird how you remember the random things that come out of my mouth. Yes, the elbows. Where are they supposed to go? What is their role?”
I shook my head at her. “So no guitar. What happened then?”
“Oh, eventually we went to high school, and by then, I had a crush on someone new every week.”
