I peeked around the corner from behind my portable at work to make sure no one was walking around out there—they'll sneak out for a smoke sometimes, the ones still addicted that way.

And once in a while I'll walk up on some woman wiping tears, too. Or someone having a fight on the phone that they don't want any co-workers to hear.

But the coast was clear so I ducked back behind the building and said, "Ronnie's made some kind of little fountains for art installations that sound a lot like what we're looking for. Knows all about the hydraulics or...whatever—you remember Ronnie Bird, right? From the gathering?"

AJ came back all happy with, "He'd do that for us?"

The "us" in that question made me pretty happy, too. Made me want to put on that ring I'd been keeping on a long chain around my neck at work or about to be around relatives. No way I was going to flaunt it on a finger just yet. But I had it with me all the time...

"He sculpts these really realistic looking rocks out of that insulation foam stuff you squirt out of a can—I'll send pictures. They're light as air. Perfect for what we want to do."

"So, how much do you think he'll charge?"

"I think he'll be insulted if I ask."

"But you will ask, okay?"

I heard footsteps on the chunky gravel that surrounded all the buildings so I said, "We'll talk later—you're not up futzing around the kitchen, are you?"

"I made something that'll really sell. It's this--"

"AJ, will you please stay still for a few—shoot, I gotta go."

I poked the phone icon right quick just as Clary got almost within earshot.

I had to come around that corner with a very determined look on my face.

Seemed to work because she paused, frowned a little and said, "Oh, God what now?"

I did have some work news to offer up. "They didn't get enough qualified applicants for cafeteria jobs. So my girls all got re-hired. They'll start in July, too. Extra month's pay."

Clary did this hand clappy thing like a little kid and said, "I think I may get hired, too!"

"Really?!"

She ran up and grabbed both my biceps. "Not here! At that big new Lutheran school over in Riley near all the subdivisions. I have an interview!"

I let her do her little happy dance and then asked, "And you know somebody who knows somebody, right?"

She winked and said, "My sister's husband is the pastor's right-hand man, so..."

I pinched her cheek playfully. "You were supposed to follow me, though."

She frowned and said, "I don't like those corporate people. They have dead eyes. Even when they smile at you."

That was so Old Whitman of her, to see and be wary of that. We said what we meant and let our faces say the same thing. But these newcomers' eyes contradicted their mouths a lot.

It's why many of us still shopped and ate and hung out at the older places that had survived the influx. Where they'd call out our names and ask us how the kids were doing and really mean it.

My fam had tried the new farmers' markets and a few newbie garage sales and come back empty-handed both because they didn't know anything about most of the things being sold there and also because the people selling it seemed so uneasy serving them.

Wasn't so much racial as social. They knew how people in The Quarters felt about them. So I think seeing a bunch of us strolling through made them anxious. Thinking we were there to protest or something.

Back in the portable, Clary bustled over to the coffee maker at once. "You'll need a cup for your meeting with that dietician they hyped up so much."

"That's for sure. I hate sitting through these long-ass PowerPoints. Fill up that big stainless thing you bought me. That'll get me through the whole afternoon."

She was just screwing the top on when the new interim assistant superintendent, Lois Lewandowski, arrived to escort me to the meeting.

Her family went 'way back in Riley. Which was the town our old "rival" district had been named for—the new combined one would be Whitman-Riley Consolidated, by the way.

I figured they were thinking she could be a kind of "liaison" between us and them. I'm lousy at that kind of political chess game stuff. Another reason I didn't win the food game out in Cali.

We wound up in one of the little conference rooms in the main building where a woman who looked to be fresh out of college was sitting at the long table with her hands folded like the proverbial teacher's pet.

I just turned 26 myself, mind you, but she made me feel old. With her rosy cheeks and perky, pageant winner smile.

Lois beamed over at her and said, "Brooke, this is Eboni, our district's Director of Food Services. And Eboni, this is Brooke Shields, who has a very exciting proposal we'd like you to see."

I tried to keep a straight face when I heard her name—you know the other Brooke Shields, right? The one who looked like a friggin' supermodel when she was, like...three years old?

She probably really was a pageant winner...

She smiled like she'd won lots of contests in her time. "I think some of this will sound very familiar to you. But I'd love to get some input from someone with real experience."

Lois sat back, arms folded, and said, "Well, I'm looking forward to seeing someone finally put a Smartboard to good use. This is exciting!"

Not gonna lie, I got a little knot in my stomach as Brooke started making that Smartboard live up to its name. Most of the Whitman faculty and other staff used those things just to stream videos. If they used them at all.

But this girl had created animated charts and graphs and videos and cute characters that popped up and wiggled when she touched a word in the text.

We even used little controllers to guess the top five things students liked and didn't like about our current menus to see how their answers lined up with national stats.

And something dawned on me as I watched Lois smiling so contentedly while Brooke played with that thing. I was done. That was the real "lesson" I was meant to learn that day.

I'd been hired to appease the newcomers with my degree and Cali culinary experience. And I spoke enough "foodie," as a 20-something, to keep them content for a couple of years.

But the affluent young parents in the new subdivisions would want staff that could actually use the technology we'd spent thousands of dollars on, only to let it go mostly unused.

Brooke was just what they needed. And truth be told, I...didn't want to be what they needed.

As I watched her flitting around that board I felt that all down in my bones like the voice of God, like Mama Sadie would say.

So, after she'd finally sat down and folded those hands again, I decided to offer up a dollop of rude reality, for appearances' sake.

"I love the menu suggestions. I think everyone would like to find healthier alternatives the kids would actually eat. The sticking point is having to take bids when we want to change vendors. The same ones always seem to win because they can offer us more bang for the buck."

She cocked her head a little and said, "Tell me more about that." Still smiling. Because she had to pretend my little caveat actually mattered...

"Well, sometimes the state and the board are more concerned with cost and convenience than anything else. That's partly why I was never able to buy from local farms. The big food service companies are very persuasive. They can make their services seem foolproof and cost effective."

"Do the stakeholders get a chance to weigh in?"

This girl knew the lingo, too. At the administrative level, parents and others affected by our decisions are called "stakeholders," to remind us, ostensibly, that they're the ones who'll suffer if we fuck up.

"Well, push come to shove, they vote against every bond issue we propose that would help us improve those meals. They say if the food was good enough for them, it's good enough for their kids."

"The population is changing," Lois said. "Which is partly why EdCo—our advisors—have been accepting proposals."

I nodded and said, "And they've accepted Brooke's."

Brooke looked over at Lois. Whose smile tightened a lot. "I think it's safe to say it's...at or near the top of the short list. You'll be asked to help make the final decision."

The Smartboard Whisperer said, "But this is just the kind of thing we all need to bear in mind going forward. That and how you managed to work around the obstacles."

I kept nodding and smiling a nice relaxed and almost...relieved smile. And started composing a resignation letter in my head while she and Lois kept tap dancing around the truth.

I also shot off a text to Aunt Jennie right quick. Asking the elder women to stop by Mama's house and help me decide what my next move should be.

And I could see, when I smiled even more serenely after sending that text, that Brooke hadn't completely suppressed her own "woman's intuition" yet. There was something almost like fear in those eyes as she clicked and made all the fun stuff disappear from the board.

Cause I wasn't gone yet. And I knew the territory like she knew that Smartboard. So, there might be a few strings I could still pull—sharp cookie like that never lets her guard down all the way.

I just kept on smiling to let her stew in her own juice for a few more minutes. Feeling a little bit like the proverbial cat that ate the canary. For a little while longer at least...

***

I got a huge kick out of the younger relations giving AJ those smiles they put on when they spot a new man at church on Sunday. They'd all brought a cake or a pie or something, too, trying to show off.

AJ was "woke" enough to use his acting skills to be charming in a businesslike way. So they'd think this was all about his grandparents and not about him having their baby girl Eboni open like 7/11...

So, as he sat down—we'd made sure he arrived on his own and a few minutes after the ladies--he accepted a little combo plate from Cousin Bennie very graciously. Made little appreciative noises as he sampled each little piece.

And then started things off by saying, "The grandparents will be very happy we met today. They've wanted to talk to you about this but...well, you know their English is still pretty shaky, so..."

"They can make it clear at that cash register, though," Cousin Velma let him know.

And I looked down and prayed she wouldn't do one of her imitations of his grandmother...

But Cousin Bennie said, "Damn, you grew up nice," right on time.

And Aunt Bessie, one of the eldest of the eldest, changed the subject right quick with, "I was sorry to hear about your mother, baby. She was a brave little woman."

"She was that," AJ said. "And she remembered you very fondly 'til the very end. You gave her something for the pain when the doctors couldn't help--you're Bessie, right?"

Our little root doctor, Aunt Bessie was. Knew all the old herbal remedies for everything.

She grinned and said, "Used to get her female medicine from me every month before y'all moved away."

"Okay, we don't need to be that specific," I warned.

"Well, she suffered so," Bessie said. "I had a feelin' it was serious even 'way back then."

"She said that, too," AJ told her. And I felt like it wasn't just to get me to back off her. It sounded true. "Our family doesn't like to talk about illness or pain—they call it whining. So I think she really looked forward to seeing you every month."

"We couldn't even talk to each other all that well, but she would have her little note you wrote for her so I'd know what she needed. You have her eyes, too. Those sweet eyes she had."

"So we know who to thank, huh?" Bennie said.

And I jumped in with a smirky, "Could we get on with this, please? The man's got a life."

Aunt Jennie folded arms over that big bosom and said, "She tells us you gon' give her that chicken to sell at the...whatever this thing is they havin'. And what was the other thing you wanted to do?"

"The grandparents are going to let her use the buffet room for a sort of...special service we think the new people will be pretty intrigued by. If it goes well, they'll have it once or twice a week, maybe. Like how they do dim sum and Korean dishes on Sundays."

"They're worried about keeping up, too?" Velma asked. "I thought they was doin' just fine."

"So far," AJ said. "But sooner or later someone new is going to start doing it like they do it back East. We need to stay out in front of that."

"And I need to start getting serious about cooking again in case they lay me off," I said. "Having something like that every week would get my name out there. And bring in some money."

"But we're not ones to leave a job unless we know we got a better one waitin'," Jennie said.

She'd taken us right where I'd wanted to go. I wanted them to pick all my ideas apart so I could feel, in my bones again, whether I was really ready or not.

So, I said, "Auntie Jennie, I saw the writing on the wall, today. Or...on the Smartboard, actually. They hired me to placate the newbies for a hot minute with my diploma and a resume that showed them the famous restaurants I'd worked in and the stars I'd cooked for, the few there were. But this woman I saw today is the real deal. You put her up in front at a board meeting, she'll charm the pants off the parents and talk the kinda talk that make the educators sit up and take notice, too. I am not the person they need in this brave new world they're building."

I could feel that man yearning to take hold of my hand or rub my back or something; impressed me that I could feel his feels that much. But it scared me that the women might be feeling his feelings, too. Cause we were dealing with some highly intuitive sistas...

And Renee, the cousin who'd inspired that phone tree trick, said, "I know you need to let that other little place go, but Mama Sadie's house is one o' those big ones they built back in the day. So heatin' and coolin' and all them regular electric and water bills and whatnot—it's got plumbin' problems and Lord knows what all else, too. You gon' need more than two or three days at Ahn's to pay for all that."

"She left me money from the sale o' the diner. And I'll get some kind of severance, if--"

"No, you won't," Jennie grunted. "Fact, you won't even get no kind of unemployment if you just walk away."

"I was about to say that, Jennie."

"If you...declined the summer job, do you think they'd finally admit whether you were really going to have a job this fall or not?" AJ asked.

There was a little ripple of something or other as the women caught on to the fact that he knew about the summer job since he's arrived after my little introductory speech where I'd filled them in about all that. But of course, if I'd been talking to his family it wasn't too weird...

And Velma said, "That's a good idea right there! Make 'em put up or shut up."

"Their kind don't like us backin' 'em into corners," Jennie said. I wondered if he knew what she meant by "their kind," but I let it slide...

And Bennie tossed a hand and said, "Well, if you need some extra hands for that Food Fest thing, you can have these two here."

I almost cried when the other ladies all chimed in with her on that part.

But then Bennie winked at AJ and said, "So we can steal that chicken recipe!"

Which got a hearty laugh.

So, I just sat back and said, "So I should just see what happens at the festival first? Before I decide whether to let Wally step in?"

"You should let Wally get you out there just for this summer, like, on the weekends," Velma said. "So you don't outright quit and wind up empty-handed."

But Aunt Bessie "tsk'd" and said, "She got a big old family she can lean on. We can't let 'em be mistreatin' her like that. She can have what little I leave, if it comes to that. I'm livin' on borrowed time, me.

I reached over to take her hand. "Don't talk like that, okay, Bessie?"

"Well, my husband and children went on ahead without me," she said. "I got to leave it to somebody. And I don't wanna leave this world worryin' about them people doin' you like that."

AJ smiled and said, "Could I be adopted into this family some kind of way or what?"

And Bessie crowed, "Oooo, I could have me a good lookin' boy—one can cook, too!"

Boy, you could hear those ladies laughing all the way into Whitman, probably, behind that remark.

And then AJ smiled real big and said, "Did some cooking today, in fact—something I think her customers might like. Hang on!"

And the man went out to the car and came back with a cooler and held it out to me. And I opened it...and gaped as I pulled up this crazy looking "something or other on a stick."

"Gamja dogs," he said. "Corn dogs with—"

"French fries on the outside? Dang," Bennie said, snatching that thing out of my hand.

And when she bit into that thing her eyes got almost as big as the dog. "Daaaaaamn, son! This is some serious shit right here—y'all taste this!"

All I got was the last little half-sized one at the bottom of the pile after those crazy bitches came rushing at me.

But one bite told me that man had hit the jackpot again.