Laurent is doing the exact same thing back.
"You have four pasta wheels," Julien says to Santos, still on this apparently.
"I do," Santos says. "You want to see them?"
"Oui," Julien says, immediately.
Anna and I exchange a glance. Two professional chefs, same kitchen, approximately thirty seconds of acquaintance between them. We both know what happens next.
"Six hours minimum," she says.
"At least," I agree.
Once everyone is settled, Lily down after the long journey, the chefs are still in the kitchen four hours later. Bastien reorganized the spice closet. He denies it, but Anna says he is definitely guilty. Sofia is asleep, Tomas and Matteo are in the study working as usual.
I'm in the living room with Anna, finally getting to talk to her alone. I haven't seen my sister in a long time, and she looks not only healthy but really happy too.
I'm glad.
She reaches into her jacket pocket and takes out a key.
Old, slightly worn, on a plain ring. I know what it opens before she says a word. I know it the way you know things that have been part of you for a long time, the weight and shape of something that cost you everything and then was taken and then was simply gone.
My taco truck.
"I'm not going to cry," I tell Anna.
"You absolutely are."
She tells me what I already suspected: Ricardo has disappeared off the face of the earth. It doesn't matter, because I have everything that really matters to me, including my taco truck, even if it is sitting in Cedar Ridge.
Ricardo is probably part of some pack, just like Chiara is with her pack. They're the type of people that always end up on theirfeet. They will probably find happiness for a while, hopefully forever, as I have.
Anna says she'll look after it while I decide what to do with it.
I have no idea. I'm not about to sell it. I don't need the money, but I hate the idea of it just sitting there doing nothing. I'll figure it out.
I always do.
Two weeks after Anna leaves, my phone rings.
The number is not saved but the area code is Los Angeles, and there is only one person from Los Angeles who has had this number for years and never used it.
"Dani," I say.
A pause. "How did you know it was me?”
"Because you said if you ever actually called it would be an emergency. Is it an emergency."
Another pause, one with a longer story behind it than she is ready to tell in the first thirty seconds.
"I don't know yet," she says.
Dani Torres was one of my regulars. Not the once-a-month kind or the special occasion kind. The real kind. She showed up on a Tuesday when it was raining and nobody else was there and ate two fish tacos standing on the sidewalk without complaining about the weather. Standing order: carne asada, extra pico, the hot sauce I made from scratch that I never wrote down because I knew it in my hands. She tipped well and asked questions about the truck, and one afternoon while I was closing up she told me she wanted to run away and never come back.
I told her I understood that feeling.
I gave her my number and told her if she ever needed a starting point, to call.