HungryforMore




To see into a man’s soul, watch what he eats.

—JAMES LACHANCE, The Meal of a Lifetime

Chapter 15


Two hours later, Amy and Troy walked home, heads down against the cold. She planned on dropping the boy off at the apartment, then going to Madame Prizzo’s.
She also planned on never going back to Les Fleurs. After Stu had ushered her out of the fridge and given her about a hundred tissues, one after the other, she had pulled herself together. She tried to explain to Stu that it wasn’t James, that it was something else, something James reminded her of. Stu just nodded and handed her tissues and said that James was an asshole but he’d come around.
As if she wanted him to ever come around again.
It was so unlike her to break down, especially over ancient history. Since Maddie had left her, she’d been so fragile.
So there. She wasn’t upset over James. He was nothing. A man. Just someone who triggered deeper emotions.
She and Troy waited at a corner for the light to change. It seemed as if the whole town was depressed, brown and gray. Even the snowflakes that had started to descend around them were gloomy and heavy, melting to nothing the instant they landed, like kamikaze snowflakes.
“That dude Scottie can use his stars to kill a business faster than an E. coli outbreak,” Troy said into the silence. He sounded worried.
Amy looked up at the cloud-darkened sky. “Who cares about a stupid critic?” Or a stupid chef.
Troy kicked a hunk of ice. “James has two stars.” The kid said it like he was saying James could fly.
“That doesn’t sound so hot to me,” Amy huffed. Not as good as me, naked, in his bed. God, she was such a fool. They hadn’t ever gotten anywhere near a bed. What they had was almost-tawdry-couch sex and almost-sneaky-three-minute workplace sex. She was going to throw away her whole life for that? When had she become such an idiot? Why had she thought their fleeting encounters might count for anything even remotely resembling a relationship?
Maybe because she never had anything remotely resembling a relationship? How could she? Always on the move. One scam to the next. The key was to keep moving. To never stop long enough to be tricked into loving someone, to let them leave you first.
The light changed, and they hurried across the street, anxious to get out of the way of the aggressive SUVs that seemed to enjoy splashing them with filthy slush.
“John-John says that a man should have two balls and two stars,” Troy said. He thought she really cared about James’s stupid stars. “Anything less is deformed. Anything more is a freakish bonus. See, most places don’t even get in the guide. Then like a hundred get in but without a single star. A bunch get one. A dozen get two. Maybe twenty places on this coast get three. Four is almost impossible unless you’re in France. Five is, like, maybe two places in the world.”
“I like my stars better. I get zillions every night just opening the curtain.” She looked again to the sky. Nothing but clouds.
“That’s why you’re always broke.” Troy stuffed his chin deeper into the collar of his too-thin coat. “My mom, too.”
“You’re mad at me, too, aren’t you?” Amy asked, incredulous. She let people under her skin and what happened? They turned on her. “You think I screwed up tonight. Well how was I supposed to know that fat blob of a human, Scottie Jones, was a big shot?”
Troy shoved his hands deeper into his pockets. “You brought him. Everyone said. It was that guy Bob who was pissed at you that made him come. I knew you were bad luck.” He punted a hunk of ice out of his way, and it smashed into a telephone pole and exploded into a million pieces. Troy upped his pace.
She picked up her own pace, her heels sliding perilously on the icy sidewalk. “The place is always packed. Why would people stop coming just because one guy said they should?” And why was she defending herself to a petulant kid who right now sounded like mini-James?
“Those fancy foodies are like lemmings. They’ll go over a cliff if the critics say the foie gras is better at the bottom. They’re too dumb to know for themselves.”
The streets got quieter and darker as they neared Troy’s place. People on the street moved by them more slowly, as if they didn’t have anywhere they particularly wanted to go, despite the deep nighttime chill.
“What do you care about James, anyway?” She stopped in front of an all-night diner and turned to challenge Troy. Cabs idled on the curb as their drivers drank coffee behind the diner’s dingy window.
Troy’s voice became hard and his eyes flashed. “Because James is the only person around here who gets it.”
“Gets what?” The intensity in the boy’s eyes alarmed her.
“James always puts his restaurant first. Always! He doesn’t give in to women or drugs or”—the boy’s voice ratcheted up an octave—“stupid Gypsy mumbo jumbo.”

The boy worshipped James . Of course. How had she missed that? Poor kid without a dad. With a flaky missing mom. Troy was mad at her because she had brought out the awful truth: You messed with James’s restaurant, and he dropped you like a stone. She and the boy were in the same boat—falling for a guy who put you, if you were lucky, a distant second and third to a stubby, pale idiot who ate too much.
Which sucked if you wanted James to be your lover. Or your dad.
Her thoughts flashed back to James, furious at her over Scottie Jones. To Sammy getting fired in the prep kitchen. Even to Bob, crossing an invisible line in the dining room. James stood by his restaurant. They weren’t a team; it was his place, and that was what mattered. It was best to learn that fast and move on.
She leaned in close to Troy, her nose almost touching his. “That restaurant is a gadje job serving uptight gadje. If people eating there are really so dumb that they have to listen to a little jerk named Scottie tell them what to put in their mouths, what’s the difference between fortune-telling and fine dining? It’s all a show to make people feel important and coddled, theater to ease their souls. James and his restaurant aren’t any more solid than what we have. Don’t dis your roots, Troy. That restaurant and James aren’t the be-all and end-all. They’re nothing.”
Troy spun away from her and started walking again.
She watched him go. Life among the gadje. It never worked. Troy would have to realize that. Just like she’d have to accept that as long as James loved his restaurant, he’d never truly love her.
Not that she would ever truly love him.
Sheesh. What was she going on about? Love?
It was good that she saw James for who he really was. Good for her and good that she could tell the kid before he got hurt.
Anyway, she had her own show to pull together. She glanced at the dark night sky. She had a Gypsy to visit. Madame Prizzo was waiting.
She watched Troy’s back, his shoulders hunched against the cold.
This was all good. They were Rom, and they had to stick together. She and Troy and Madame Prizzo and even Roni when she came back. They might not have a fancy restaurant, but they had their own power, and they never turned their backs on each other. That was the Gypsy code. Con a gadje, sure. But Gypsies were a huge, extended family.
Forget James and Les Fleurs. She caught up with Troy and walked him silently the rest of the way home.