“Excuse us,” the board chair said. “I guess it’s time for us to sit.” The board made their way to their seats at a table at the front of the room.
The meeting started with minutes from the previous meeting and a brief announcement from the Social Committee. Kia hung back by the door, waiting to be called up.
“Now, we’d like to introduce our guest of honor,” the board chair said. “As you know from our past few meetings, there’s been interest in selling the Bois. I know we all recognize that the taxes and liability insurance on a property like that are expensive. With the funds from the sale, we could pay off the association’s debts incurred by the unfortunate landslide two years ago. As you know, we owe the city for subsidence abatement work they did for us. And a sale could also prevent our dues from going up for several years. But—” The board chair held up his hand as though someone had protested, which they hadn’t. “Previously, we’ve foregrounded preserving the Bois as a green space, but interest in that cause has dwindled, and Ms. Kia Jackson… why don’t you tell us why you think we should sell the Bois to you and your investors.”
The crowd gave a polite round of applause. Time for Kia todo what she did best: charm. She had enough charm to get into the White House without a hall pass. Kia took a deep breath and took her place in front of the board’s table and behind the cooking station.
A month ago she was changing a flat tire on Old Girl—the name of her restored Gulf Stream RV—in Niobrara County, Wyoming, on her way to the Denver Fresh ’n’ Foodie Festival. Then Gretchen was on the phone.You know that idea you had for a food truck pod? I’ve found land you can buy, and you’ll have the money you need soon. Food trucks are hot. Wait six months and everyone will be onto boba and Brazilian steak.She’d thought they were making conversation.You won the American Fare Award, Gretchen had said, like an afterthought.American Fare will call you today.Before Kia could take that in, Gretchen had told her to make her move now or regret it for the rest of her life.Here are the numbers for six investors. Charm them the way you do, and get them to give you the money.Gretchen had been a passionless girlfriend; she was a passionate business partner.
Kia took out her phone and projected a slideshow onto the screen to the side of the table.
“This is Me’shell. She’s actually on her way to Portland right now. She sent this picture yesterday.”
The image showed a food truck parked in front of a motel, the wordsTHE TROPICANAglowing incongruously against a backdrop of craggy mountains. A few lumps of snow still lined the parking lot. A dark-skinned Black woman stood with her arms crossed, cold and determined. Next to her stood a teenage girl in a green sweater.
“Me’Shell cooks the best fish fry I’ve ever tasted. Her daughter there, Crystal, she’s trans, and the places they’ve lived before this haven’t been friendly. They needed to get out, but they didn’thave money, and they didn’t have a place to set up Me’Shell’s food truck. Me’Shell and Crystal encouraged me to really visualize Taste the Love Land. What if I created a place where talented food truck owners from around the country could set up? Bring new cuisine. Build community. Belong. I told Me’Shell about it one night while we were sitting by the water just watching the moon on the Everglades.”
They’d actually met at a Waffle House because the Everglades was full of snakes large enough to eat Kia, and she was not going to die by being swallowed whole by a creature with ten thousand vertebrae. Sitting in the moonlit Everglades made a better story to present to the neighborhood association.
“Me’Shell said if I started Taste the Love Land—that’s what I want to call the food truck pod—she’d pack up her truck and her car and start driving that night. Well, I didn’t make a move that night, but when I won the American Fare Award—”
Another round of applause.
“—and investors got interested…” Kia gave the audience her best smile and moved to the next slide.
The next slide showed three white men in crew cuts and Army T-shirts, the youngest man in a wheelchair.
“This is Chet the Third, Chet Junior, and Chet Senior. I know, cute right? They go by Chet, Chaz, and Gramps. They’re a cooking family. Always ran a food truck. They’re a military family too. Three generations of service. When Chet Junior got injured, they wanted to find ways to make culinary work more accessible. It’s almost impossible to find work as a chef if you’re paraplegic, but it doesn’t have to be like that. The way Chaz explains it, if everyone had four arms and you only had two, folks would say,How could he possibly do the job?Well, heck yeah, Chet Junior can do the job! Best barbecue. No cap.”
Next, she had a chef who’d lost his restaurant in Houston when his neighborhood gentrified. Then a pair of sisters who’d started a food truck while they were unhoused, sleeping on the floor of the truck and dreaming of a city that would appreciate their eccentric fusions.
Kia’s heart rate slowed as she advanced through the slides. These people were the reason why she’d drunk nothing but black coffee with coriander and mint syrup for days and was nearing dehydration.
“I’m fortunate.” Kia started winding down her speech. “I’ve accomplished a lot, and that’s because of talent and hard work. But the thing is… there are a lot of people who are talented and hardworking and don’t get where they want to be, not because they’re not worthy, not because they don’t deserve it. They don’t have what I have in buckets—”
The end of that sentence was supposed to beluck. She was going to follow that with,I’ve been blessed to have a great family with enough resources to support my dreams etc., etc. But not everyone has that, and so I want to build a place for people who are talented and hardworking but who haven’t had my privileges, etc.
She didn’t get to finish her sentence. The wordluckdied on her lips as someone crashed through the door at the back of the grange hall, muddy and out of breath as though she’d just run from a bear. (Or python. It could happen. They were everywhere.)
“Stop!” the woman gasped. “You can’t sell the Bois!”
chapter 4
Everyone in thegrange turned and stared at Sullivan. Rows and rows of Oakwood Heights residents, many of them customers who’d eaten at Mirepoix, looked at her with mild horror. Understandable since mud soaked her jeans up to the knees and the rain had turned her hair into slippery ringlets all falling in her eyes.
Sullivan had been on the roof when Miss Brenda had called up, her voice hoarse,Agnes’s nephew Patrick just sent her a text saying that Barb Preeters is at the association meeting, and she says they’re selling the Bois.
Sheer luck had saved Sullivan from breaking a leg in her haste to get down the fire escape.
Only then had Sullivan checked her watch. She’d lost track of time, the threat of a roof collapsing on beloved Miss Brenda’s restaurant had distracted her. It shouldn’t have mattered. The association vote was a formality. The Bois had always been green space. The Oakwood Greenbelt Land Trust would be buying it in a few years. No one had talked about selling.
She’d been half an hour late when she started running toward the meeting. For once she wished she’d driven.
She’d tried to find her phone, hoping a glance at the agenda would show her that Agnus’s nephew Patrick was wrong about Barb Preeters. There was no way things could get lost in that game of telephone, right? But in fact, nothing had gotten lost.
Sullivan had searched frantically for the email with the meeting agenda on her phone. The phone had kept slipping out of her muddy fingers, like a dream where you tried to run and you couldn’t. But she finally got a hold of it and opened the attachment. There was the usual approval of last month’s minutes and presentation of committee reports. Following that wasTaste the Love Land, discussion and questionsfollowed byVote to sell the Bois to Taste the Love Land Food Truck Paradise Inc.She clicked the link to last month’s minutes. Her hand shook and not just from the rain that had started falling but because the association was talking about selling the Bois, and no one had told her.
Not one of the customers who’d eaten at her restaurant had thought to mention it when they came in to celebrate their birthdays or anniversaries. She’d stayed open on Christmas, Thanksgiving, and New Year’s to give people a place to celebrate, and no one had said,Isn’t Alice Sullivan raising money to make the Bois a permanent green space? Shouldn’t we let her know the association is talking about selling?She felt betrayed. Her grandfather’s dream, her peaceful backyard, the namesake land of her restaurant, and all the lobster mushrooms, yellow violets, baby racoons, and the rare tree snake. She’d seen it only a few times, and every time had been magic. Now all of that would be tilled under for a bunch of food trucks.
