The Taco Truck – Part 2: Last Orders

The last customer left at three. Santiago wiped down the griddle and switched off the spit, and the street fell silent, with only the tick of cooling steel and a cat prowling the gutter.

He made her a plate of everything: chicken in black mole, a cheese tortilla, a taco of charred cactus with lime. They sat on upturned crates at the back of the truck eating with their fingers, grease on their wrists, laughing at nothing.

"This is the best meal of my life," said Priya.

"You said that about the first one."

"The first one was a prelude."

He passed her a cold bottle of lime soda and watched her drink. His face in the bulb-light looked tired and happy, and unguarded.

"Can I ask you something?" said Priya.

"Yes."

"Why won't you let anyone write about you?"

"Because," said Santiago, "then they come with phones. And the food becomes content." He rubbed his neck. "I wanted it to stay mine."

"And me?"

"You asked about my grandmother first," he said. "Not the pork."

Priya set down her bottle. Her pulse thumped. "I fly home on Sunday."

"I know."

"May I kiss you, Santiago?"

"Yes," he said. "And if you say stop, you must wash all the dishes."

"There are two hundred."

"Yes."

"Then I'm going to be here a long while."

She leaned across and kissed him, tasting lime and smoke, her fingers curling in his greasy apron strings. He kissed her slowly, a hand cupping her cheek, the streetlamp humming over them and the city asleep.

When they parted, both of them were smiling.

"Green?" he asked.

"Green," said Priya. "Very green."

On Sunday, she did not write a word about the truck. She wrote a different story, about a man who cooked for strangers at midnight, and left it unfinished on purpose, so she'd have to come back.

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