Synesthesia: Chapter Twenty-Six

serial fiction

Image: Snappr, Unsplash

We found ourselves a table shaded with a large purple umbrella in the outdoor food court and set our bags down. Jacob bounced off excitedly toward McDonald’s, dragging Amber along behind him. Hokas and I changed into our new footwear while we waited with the bags for them to return. Feeling self-conscious about the state of my toes, I decided to keep my socks on under my new sandals.

I kept catching Hokas staring at me, and it was starting to make me very uncomfortable. I caught the sadness scent of freshly baked bread, but I couldn’t decide if it was coming from him or from the Subway next to us.

“Do you think I’m a bad person?” Hokas finally asked, in a puff of vinegar and buttered movie popcorn.

I turned toward him fully and looked at him. His bald head shone with what I could only guess was a mixture of sweat and oil, little tufts of brown hair poking out here and there like cactuses in the Sonoran desert. His thin lips quivered almost imperceptibly under his sharp, beakish nose.

“I don’t know if I’m the right person to make that judgment,” I said finally, choosing my words carefully. “But if you really did to that woman what Amber says you did, that was wrong.”

As I said this last sentence, I felt a hot surge of shame and embarrassment roll up my spine, though I couldn’t have explained why.

I started to open my mouth to say something else when a red plastic tray with a Happy Meal box on it landed on the table in front of me with a slap.

“Go get something to eat,” said Amber, slapping a second tray down next to the first. Jacob settled into the chair next to mine and delightedly fished a plastic toy out of his Happy Meal box.

“Here,” Amber added, handing me a fifty-dollar bill.

I grabbed the bill and shoved it into the front pocket of my jeans, looking around nervously to see if anyone had witnessed the flashing of cash.

Hokas was already up and on his highlighter-yellow-with-red-striped feet, bouncing on the balls of his feet like he was preparing to run a race.

I took my time standing up and looking around the food court. There was a place serving Philly cheesesteaks, a pizza place offering pizza by the enormous slice, and a Taco Bell. I considered the Taco Bell for a few seconds before heading toward the Philly cheesesteak restaurant. Hokas followed behind me like an excited chihuahua. He stank of cinnamon, or maybe that was just the Cinnabon on the other side of the food court.

It’s really hard to tell sometimes which smells are emotions and which are objects in the physical world.

We got to the cheesesteak place, cleverly named Phil’s Filling Phillies. Before I even had a chance to look at the menu, Hokas was already ordering.

“Can you do, like, just a meat plate? Like a paleo plate? Peppers and onions are okay. But like, no bread or cheese. Or…” His eyes slid hungrily across the oversized, zoomed-in photos of cheesesteaks on the walls behind the counter. “Maybe just a little cheese is okay.”

The cashier, who looked like she was maybe sixteen years old, started giving off a scent like wet dog.

“Uh, let me ask my manager,” she whimpered, shrinking away from the counter and disappearing into the back of the restaurant.

Hoka guy and I stood there awkwardly, facing the empty spot where the cashier had been standing until the idea of a “paleo plate” had scared her away. My stomach grumbled in annoyance at being made to wait.

After a couple of minutes, a fat blond man in his thirties waddled out of the back of the restaurant and up to the cash register, followed by the cowering teenager.

“You want a cheesesteak with no bread and no cheese?” he asked me, half-scowling. The sweat stains in the armpits of his short-sleeved white button-up shirt gave off the smell of wood smoke.

“No, not me,” I said hurriedly.

Hokas jumped in front of me and raised his hand as if he were in a classroom.

“Well, see, some cheese is okay,” he said. “Is it grass-fed?”

The blond man stared uncomprehendingly, wet dog blending into the wood smoke.

I nudged Hokas with my elbow.

“Dude, just say you want a cheesesteak with no bread,” I said quietly, trying to be discreet.

He turned to me and gave me a sad look, like I was asking him to accept the cosmetic amputation of two of his toes.

“Alright,” he said, turning back to the blond man. He drew in a deep breath and held his chin up high. “A cheesesteak with no bread.” His voice broke slightly as he spoke, and I couldn’t help but think he looked like a man going to the gallows.

“And for you, sir?” the blond man asked me, after punching something into the cash register in front of him.

“Just a regular cheesesteak,” I said. “Uh, please.”

The man punched something else into the cash register, announced the total, and took the crumpled bill I retrieved from my pocket and handed to him.

I shoved the change back into the same pocket, and we waited in silence for our food.

A few minutes later, we were back at the table with the purple umbrella, one cheesesteak and one cheesesteak with no bread sitting on trays in front of us.

Jacob was pushing his McNuggets around the table as if they were cars, making engine noises between bites of french fries.

“I still need to pick up a few things,” Amber announced, sipping a milkshake. “Can you give me the keys so I can go out to the car for some more cash?”

I remembered with horror the way she’d walked into the diner back in Tucson with a grocery bag full of cash.

“Absolutely not,” I said automatically.

Amber seethed at me in a fury that stank of hotel soap.

“We can all go out together,” I said, picking up my cheesesteak. “But first, I want to eat.”

The scent of bread hit me again, hard, before I could even take a bite.

I turned and looked at Hokas.

He was staring down at the pile of meat, cheese, onions, and peppers in front of him, looking like he was about to cry.

“For fuck’s sake!” I said in exasperation. “Are you really that upset about your cheese not being grass-fed?”

Hokas looked up at me, his eyes watery with unreleased tears.

“No,” he said in a high-pitched whine. “I just really miss Roberta.”