The church basement was warm and garlicky. Long tables stretched the length of the room; kids ran up and down the rows, yelling; an old lady who reminded him of his grandma sat at a card table and took people's money.
Ziv Matusec tilted a chair against a table to save the place, and got in line. Up ahead, past the murmurs of a pair of old ladies, and the whines of a bunch of kids, a woman's voice called, "Hi, Chef Gio!" Ziv saw a bright-eyed man look up from ladling spaghetti sauce and grin at someone in a pink sweater. "Hi, Annie! Good to see my best customer!"
"Yeah! I love spaghetti, Chef Gio!"
"I know you do, Annie." The chef smiled at her like you'd smile at a cute kid.
When he got through the line, Ziv saw that his place was taken. Once, he told himself, he would've argued. or leastways given the guy a dirty look. Now he took the first empty seat he saw, setting his tray on the scarred Masonite table and dumping his backpack on the floor. When he dropped into the folding chair, he found a steel column against his elbow.
Someone across from him giggled. It was the girl in the pink sweater. "That's not a good seat," she said smugly. "No one takes those seats against the poles. This is a good seat, see? I always get a good seat."
She sounded like a kid, but she wasn't one. in her early twenties, maybe. Straight brown hair, pale skin--kind of ordinary, except for something odd about her expression.
"I come here every Friday," she said, cutting her spaghetti into inch-long pieces.
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