As we slid in, Zan pulled off the headband she used to keep her hair back. Her hair was plastered to the top of her head and several strands stuck to her forehead. But where it’d been free of the band, her hair was thick, black and glossy. I always wondered how it was that I seemed to be the only person who noticed how beautiful Zan was, even though she never wore a speck of makeup. I guessed most people didn’t look too carefully at the girl who ran the egg cakes cart.

I groaned when Zan set her tattered copy of the New York State Driver’s Manual on the table. “You don’t own a car. I don’t own a car. We don’t know anyone who owns a car.” I thought of Uncle and his precious Mercedes. “No one who would ever let you practice in it anyway.”

She shoved the book in my direction. “Doesn’t matter. Come on, test me.”

“Why don’t you become an accountant or something?”

Zan raised her eyebrow at me. In high school, Zan and I had been poor students. I had so much trouble with letters and Zan couldn’t do math. We’d tried to help each other but that’d been like the blind leading the blind. “I’m going to get my commercial driver’s license and I’ll be waving at you from one big truck someday.”

I’d heard it before. I didn’t want Zan to waste her time. I knew she wanted out and somehow she’d grasped onto this idea of becoming a truck driver. She was in that egg cakes cart, rain, snow or shine. Her mom ran the one on Mott Street, and when Zan left high school, her mother had bought a second cart with their life savings so that Zan could operate it on Canal Street. “I just don’t see how you’ll ever—”

Dampness shone in her eyes. “I will.”

I placed my hand over hers. “You’re right. One step at a time.” I flipped the book open and read aloud, “Under normal conditions, a safe following distance . . .”

We both looked up when the door opened again. A group of Asian college kids streamed in, and to make things worse, I picked out Grace Yuan and Winston, my ex-boyfriend. Grace saw me and lifted her hand in an awkward half-wave, then dropped it again. She looked away. Grace and I had been best friends long ago, when we were little girls. Ma’s mother, my grandmother, had been a Yuan too, a distant relative of theirs, so our families had always been friendly. I loved Grace’s grandmother and called her Godmother. Grace was a year younger than I was. The funny thing was that it was after I got left back in fifth grade and we were finally in the same class that she started ignoring me.

Zan quickly set her book upright to partially hide our faces. I said, “It won’t work, but thanks. This means I’ll have to go back to my dishes anyway.”

She pressed her lips together. “They’re going to hang out with their cheap orders for hours and you’ll have to wait until they’re done showing off to each other before you can go home. Just because they’ve been out partying and have nothing else to do.”

“It’s a part of the job. Hey!” I suddenly realized I hadn’t told Zan my big news about the studio. I quickly sketched it out for her and she scrambled over to my side of the booth and hugged me.

“I’m so happy for you!” Her face glowed. “You’re going to be fantastic.”

“I’m scared.”

“You can do much more than you think, Charlie. I know you.”

I gave her a quick squeeze, then caught the manager giving me the evil eye. “I have to go.” The group of cool kids was staring at us as well. Grace was sitting so close to Winston that her long curls brushed against his fraternity T-shirt. I knew their romantic relationship had ended years ago but it still stung to see them together. His mouth opened, as if he were going to call something out to me, then he shut it again.

Zan said, “Come by the cart when you can. I’ll miss stopping by to see you here.” She went past the group with her head high, and none of them said anything to her, not even Grace or Winston. It was as if Zan didn’t exist. I hated them for that.

I stomped inside and started scrubbing some pots I’d left to soak. A few minutes later, I heard someone come in to use the bathroom. It was so grimy, most customers avoided it if they could. Probably one of those kids needed to throw up after drinking too much.

“So how are you doing, Charlie?”

I whirled around. Winston was leaning against the door jamb, tall and lanky. I said, “That’s dirty. I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

He straightened up, brushed off his shoulder.

I took a breath. “I’m fine. Did you come to use the bathroom? It’s right there.”

“Yeah, yeah. See you, then.” He ducked into the tiny bathroom.

I turned back to the sink and made myself ignore him when he left. Winston and I had been friends since seventh grade. The Winston I’d cared about had been a short, scrawny kid with bad skin who used to laugh so hard at some dumb joke, he’d bend over double. In the months after Ma died, Winston and I spent more and more time together. One afternoon when we were fifteen, his ma was working at the bank and we were at his apartment alone. He kissed me. We hid our new relationship from our families, of course, because even though Pa had never spoken to me about dating, I knew it was forbidden. But being with Winston seemed so natural. It never occurred to me that anything could change, until a year later. That was when Winston shot up by a foot, his skin cleared, and Grace and her friends gathered him into their crowd. He seemed to date every cool girl in the school after that, but it’d hurt twice as much when he and Grace were together.

Rationally, I understood. He’d been a teenage boy and suddenly, the prettiest girls in the school were fawning over him. Grace was petite and vivacious, all laughter and bubbles. But I’d been left dumb and gasping like a fish at market, and the memory of that feeling still seared. Somehow I never saw these things coming. Hiding my love life from Pa, I’d dated a few different guys since, and even went steady with someone for a while, but no one could compare to the way I’d felt about Winston.

Pa poked his head into my area. “Was that your old friend Winston?”

I kept my head bent over the sink full of dishes. “Yep.”

“Why you not invite him over sometime?”

“Sure, Pa. Sometime.”

—

Zan, perched on our couch, was watching Lisa and me circle our small apartment with our cheap butterfly nets, trying to catch flies. Zan unexpectedly had this Saturday afternoon free because one of the wheels on her cart had broken off at lunchtime and it was being fixed. I’d convinced her to come with me to the tai chi class I attended but Pa wanted us to rid the apartment of flies first. He had occasional Saturdays off, and when he was home, he liked to improve things. The problem was that our place was so cluttered with papers and piled-up boxes that the flies had millions of hiding places. We’d turned off the fans to lure the flies into the open, which meant the apartment was sweltering.

Lisa was tiptoeing up to a fly that had landed on a stack of clothing. She swung her net and the fly took off.

“Why don’t you just whack them with a newspaper, like everyone else does?” Zan asked, fanning herself with a piece of paper.

“No,” Pa said, cradling his pillow in his hands. He was balanced on one of our folding chairs. He stayed focused on the mosquito on the ceiling. “Life is precious.”

Zan snorted. Her father was a butcher at the live poultry place on Canal Street.

I said, “Be careful, Pa.”

With a quick movement, he flipped his pillow hard toward the ceiling. It bounced off and he caught it again. Peering at it, he said, “Got it. Filled with blood too. Need to wash the pillowcase now.”

Zan said, “But you just killed that insect!”

Pa sighed as he climbed off of the chair. “I know. In a court run by mosquitos, they would probably find me guilty. They are only taking a little blood after all. No reason to kill another living creature. But they’re biting my daughters. I cannot stand it.”