Page 36 of How To Plot a Payback

“Did you make these?” I hold up a pretzel to the woman.

“Yes, ma’am,” she says in a tight voice. Her hands, which have tucked the cheddar back in place on the board, look taut and ready to spring behind the curtain, where no doubt a bucketful of pretzels waits for the refilling.

I swivel around to face Finn fully, still holding out the pretzel, only to discover he’s looking at me strangely, as though both shocked that I’ve given a smart answer and somehow also repulsed by it.

“Can you . . . would you . . . tell them this?” he says, looking incredibly uncomfortable as he asks for the favor. “That you sprang from my idea?”

I shrug. “They haven’t connected the dots? Sure. It’s not like I’m vying for your job,” I say with a laugh. Which, surprisingly, makes him pale slightly.

“No. They see it more like I’m the guy who came in with the terrible idea to break up the couple, and you’re the one who did the opposite quite brilliantly.”

“Thank you,” I say. “I am pretty proud of how the improv bit turned out.”

“But again, all because I suggested the idea first,” he throws in, as though he fully expects I’ve forgotten what I just said ten seconds ago.

I scoop the pretzel in hummus and take another bite. And honestly (and in a teeny tiny way possibly because with those dogs, it’s been days since I’ve had a proper meal) it tastes better than anything I’ve eaten in years. I don’t even need to go down the rest of the line. I could just pull up a chair right here, shovel the whole supply of pretzels onto my plate, and eat happily. “Have you tried these? They’re incredible.” I swivel around to the woman. “Would you consider emailing me the recipe?”

I look back to Finn and find he is looking at the pretzel I am holding out for him as though I’ve just asked him to try clams—which are, for the record, the worst, and anyone who says otherwise no doubt has been swindled into believing so against their will by this culture that insists exotic things are good. They aren’t good. What’s good is a box of macaroni and cheese. And these pretzels.

“No,” he says simply. “So.” His eyes tick over to the writers. “You were saying you were going to pop over . . .”

“And tell them my improv moment came by your doing, yes. Really, though,” I add, thrusting an entire pretzel into my mouth and speaking through a mouthful, “this may very well be the best thing I’ve tasted in all my life.”

His brow furrows as he watches me until I swallow.

“That is,” he responds, unamused, “a dramatic overstatement.”

“It’s changed my life,” I say, reaching for another.

“You should probably reserve those statements for genuinely big moments.”

“It’s better than a mince pie on Boxing Day.”

At this he halts. I hear him clear his throat.

“Nothing,” he says quite seriously, “is better than a mince pie on Boxing Day.”

He says it as though I just said I thought it was a good idea to kill off the queen.

I pause and then smile. “How would you know? You haven’t tried it,” I say, holding out a pretzel.

There’s one long pause between us.

A silence. A challenge.

And then with an expression that may well have been him crying out, For the honor of our beloved country, and may God save the queen, he snatches the pretzel from my hand and pops it in his mouth.

The woman in the corner, for the record, is quietly wringing her hands.

The juggler, in my periphery, has moved off and is making way for two men on skates carrying a curious amount of propane.

“It is not,” he says after several chews, “better than mince pie on Boxing Day.”

I swivel to the caterer. “Don’t believe him.”

“I’ll have you know I have actually judged a mince pie competition—”

My brow arches. “Which one?”