Mom Cooked Only for Bella, So I Found My Real Mother novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Fire

Ginny buys a bottle of Landry's Fire Sauce at a gas station and eats cold fries soaked in it. The clerk-turned-stockman Luke stares at her face, offers her a cot, and at dawn a police cruiser pulls into the lot.

I dragged the suitcase to the gas station on Highway 90 because it was the only place still lit.

It was nine at night and I had not eaten since breakfast.

Inside, the clerk was watching a ballgame on a tiny screen and didn't look up.

I bought a bag of fries from the warmer.

Then I walked down the sauce aisle, because I always did.

Mom never let me put anything on my food at home.

On the bottom shelf, behind the ketchup, was a row of small red bottles with a pepper drawn on the label.

LANDRY'S FIRE SAUCE. Made in Westlake, Louisiana.

Under the name, in small print, it said: Not for the timid.

I picked one up.

It cost four dollars and twenty-nine cents.

I paid with a birthday twenty and counted my change carefully, because it was all I had.

Outside I sat on the curb with the suitcase beside me, tore the fries open, shook half the bottle over them and ate one.

The first second was vinegar and smoke.

The second second was heat, and the heat kept climbing.

My eyes watered and my nose ran.

I ate another one anyway.

By the fourth fry I was laughing out loud in a gas station parking lot at nine at night, crying, with my mouth on fire.

It was the best thing I had ever eaten.

"You're going to want milk," a man's voice said above me.

I looked up.

He was a grown man, maybe mid-twenties, with dark hair and a gray work shirt that said LANDRY'S across the pocket.

There were pale burn scars on both his forearms.

He held a crate of red bottles against his hip, and he was looking at my face.

He did not look away.

"I'm fine," I said, wiping my eyes.

"That batch is the hot one. Most people can't finish three fries."

"I've never had anything hotter in my life."

"Then you should be dead."

"I'm having a great birthday."

His mouth moved, almost a smile.

Then it fell away again, and he went on staring.

"Is there something on my face?"

"No." He shook his head. "Sorry. You look like somebody. That's all."

"Everybody says that. I have a common face."

"You don't," he said quietly.

I didn't know what to do with that.

He set the crate down by the van parked near the pumps.

It was a white delivery van with a red pepper painted on the side.

"I'm Luke," he said. "I drive for them. The plant makes this stuff, a couple of miles from here."

"Ginny."

"Ginny, why are you sitting in a parking lot with a suitcase?"

I looked at the suitcase.

"My mom locked me out."

"For what?"

"I asked for spicy potatoes."

He waited for the rest.

There wasn't any rest.

"That's it?" he said.

"That's it."

"On your birthday?"

"On my birthday."

For a second he didn't say anything at all.

Then he said, very flatly, "I'd like to meet your mom."

I laughed again, wetter this time, and my phone buzzed in my purse.

It was Dad.

"Come home and apologize to your mother. She's very upset. Don't make this harder."

I read it once.

Then I typed: "I'm not coming back to apologize."

I turned the phone face down on my knee.

Luke's own phone rang.

He glanced at it, and his whole face changed.

"I've got to take this," he said, and walked off past the pumps with his back to me.

I couldn't hear him.

I heard him say one word, low, and then nothing for a long time.

When he came back he was carrying a gallon of milk from the cooler.

He didn't say who had called.

He put the milk next to me. "Drink some."

I did.

It helped a little.

"Where are you sleeping tonight?" he asked.

"I haven't thought that far."

"You can't sleep in a gas station."

"I know."

"The plant has a break room for the night shift. There's a cot and a lock on the inside. I run nights. Nobody bothers you." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I know how that sounds. Call anyone you want, tell them where you are. The sign out front says Landry's. Look us up."

I looked the plant up on my phone, right there.

It had a website, reviews, a photo of a woman in an apron with a huge pot.

Four and a half stars.

I decided I'd rather trust a man who carried me milk than a mother who locked her own door.

"What do you want in return?" I asked.

"Nothing."

"Everybody wants something."

"Then I want you to finish your fries," he said. "They're getting cold."

That time I really did smile.

The plant was low and long, with a bottling line inside that smelled like roasted peppers.

The break room had a cot, a microwave and a thin blanket.

Luke showed me the lock, stood in the doorway and said, "Knock if you need anything. I'm on the floor all night."

I lay down fully dressed with my shoes on.

I was a runaway with two hundred dollars and a bottle of hot sauce.

I slept anyway.

I woke to blue light flashing across the ceiling.

Through the break room window I could see the front lot.

A police cruiser had pulled in beside Luke's van, and its door was opening.

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