That I understood.
I clapped my hands together.
“Okay. Let’s go get me a friend.”
FOURTEEN
GRANT
She was like watching a time lapse of a plant grow. Sprouts and twigs and vines all searching for the sun.
In the end,it was all rather cute. We’d gotten our sandwiches and taken a table close to where Claire was finishing up eating. I’d hidden the ketchup on our table and told Flowers to go ask her new potential friend if we could borrow hers.
She resisted. I insisted. Finally, she went.
Somehow Flowers had managed to keep the conversation going beyond justcan we borrow your ketchup,and by the time she came back to our table she was beaming.
Claire gathered up her garbage to throw away, but as she walked by our table she waved and said, “Tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow is great,” Flowers replied.
I took a bite of my sandwich and felt a smidge of satisfaction for a job well done. Flowers was right. This was a good idea. She needed a friend her age. Someone she could hang out with. Go to bars and clubs with. A wingman.
Someone she could share secrets with.
Did Flowers have any secrets? That wasn’t possible, was it? Surely, she’d told me everything. I knew about her past. I was the largest part of her present. There were days I felt there was nothing about her I didn’t know, which made me entirely uncomfortable.
And also, felt good at the same time.
I watched her take a bite of her salad and thought to myself:
She doesn’t really like salad.
“Why did you order a salad?”
“Hmm?” she asked, around a forkful of lettuce.
“Why did you order that? I can tell you don’t really like it.”
“Right,” she snorted. “Because who likes salad? I ordered it because I really wanted a chili dog, but I’m on hot dog restriction.”
Don’t ask!This is how it starts.
“Hot dog restriction?”
“Yeah, it’s a thing. Ever since I started working for you and could afford whatever groceries I wanted, I decided it was time to find out what I really liked. I mean, in the state home you ate whatever they provided. On the streets, it was about what you could scrounge up in a day. When I worked at the diner, we could only take approved leftovers home, which was a lot of tuna fish salad. I don’t think I can look at a tuna fish salad sandwich again. Once I had the funds to shop for myself, I went on this whole exploration of food to find out what I enjoyed.”
“Fascinating. And what did you discover?”
She winced. “That’s kind of the bad part. I discovered I really only like the bad stuff.”
“Bad stuff?”
“Hot dogs. Mac & cheese. Steaks. Cheese of any kind. Hamburgers. Chocolate, but that’s obvious. You know what I don’t like?”
I shook my head.
She pointed at her plate. “Salad. Vegetables. I mean, I tried every kind. Everyone goes on and on about how delicious asparagus is. Are you kidding me? And brussel sprouts? They’re only edible if you, like, dunk them in ranch dressing.”
