Hero Stalker

Part Fifty-One

Annabelle sent me a text message asking I'd read her essay yet. I ignored her. I'd discovered Harpy's secret lair and defeated a supervillain. For the first time in days, I felt I'd accomplished something worth being proud of. Reading her article would only bring me back down.

First thing I did at the store was grabbing my set of emergency clothing. I'd talked Saito into letting me hide a button-down and a skirt in his chef's locker after the first time Valerie threw food at me. My muscles relaxed as soon as I pulled my leotard back on.

The wooden frame for the giant sushi roll had already been assembled. I whistled when I walked into the kitchen and saw it. Ten feet high and twelve across, you could have fit my entire twenty-first birthday party in there. All six guests and both twelve-packs of Coors. Saito had already banished half the chefs to our WashingtonHarbor location to free up space. Now, he'd ordered two more chefs to push their stations together, and rolled a meter-wide mat of seaweed where their workspace had been.

"We're going to have to paper-mache it onto the frame," he warned me. Two of his assistants were preparing glue in an industrial mixer. "It's not going to be edible. And since we have two separate rings to stack, we'll need to add an extra layer after installation."

"Well, it's going to be full of air, so I doubt people could have eaten it anyway," I said.

"Shit." Brendon buried his face in his hands. "I knew we should have gotten the edible glue. It's all my fault. Are the Centurions gonna come after us if we screw up the order?"

"The Centurions don't care," I said. "It's a centerpiece." And a stupid one at that.

"If they don't care, can we use styrofoam for the rice?" Sue ducked in the open garage door, hauling two sacks of rice on her shoulders. "Save me a lot of back pain."

"We can't use styrofoam. Valerie won't like it. We have standards. Keep hauling."

Sue dropped the rice and glared at me. "Who put you in charge?"

"Valerie did."

"I'm a chef. You're just an assistant. What do you know?"

Something snapped in my mind. You want to play that way? "Which one of us does Valerie listen to more, Sue? Who sits behind her desk when she writes performance reviews?"

She put her hands on her hips. "Are you threatening me?" The bags of rice on the floor began to spin in slow circles. Was she trying to intimidate me?

"I'm informing you. Be nice or I will tell Valerie." That might get her fired. Sushi Queen only had room for one bully. "Now, are we still laying the rice on a plastic sheet?"

It took us an hour to cut the sheeting to the sushi roll's shape and another hour to determine how we'd distribute the weight of the fillings on top. Then the municipal delivery staff Peregrine had commissioned showed up and told us to scrap our plans.

"The top needs to be solid plastic and detachable," the skinny young Asian man who lead the crew told me. His tee-shirt was marked with flecks of oil. "We're going to have a crane lift it into the square. There's not enough space in the truck to carry it when it's fully assembled." As he gestured a crane lifting the top, I glimpsed the red tattoos on his hands. Half a human eye cut in half by a line. Artsy.

"Cool tats," I said. "What's your name, again?"

"Simon Lee," he said with a smile. I couldn't help but notice the knife scar on the side of his face. Had WSOC's initiative to convince the city government to hire former gang members finally started paying off? Something about this guy rubbed me the wrong way. Think rationally, Gloria. Don't rush to judgment.

Anyway, I had bigger problems to deal with. The delivery crew had only come to see if the sections of the roll would fit into their truck, so they were gone in twenty minutes. I called every specialty supplier on Valerie's list to find one who could get us a custom-made base in a week. It took me past eight in the evening to find one who said "Yes." By then, my legs were more than ready to run.

I texted Amanda. 'Is there food at the Tower?' Mom might have made something, but Will would have eaten it by now. Besides, she might not have bought my lie about sleeping over at Annabelle's. It's none of her business any longer.

'I'll bring pizza', Amanda told me.

Pizza sounded just like what I needed.