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Chapter 1
Chapter One: The Brilliantly Terrible Idea
There are two kinds of hunger in the city: the kind money fixes, and the kind only a great story does. That night, we had both.
We were outside a restaurant with a door that weighed more than my rent. Tess tried to angle her phone so the light hit her cheekbones, Dev got a shot of the glowing sign, and Liam breathed fog onto the glass like he thought the maître d’ would draw a heart back.
“We could sell a kidney,” Tess said, still filming. “Just one.”
“Mine are artisanal,” Liam said. “Small batch, ethically sourced.”
The maître d’ smiled with the smoothness of butter sliding off hot toast. “Unfortunately, we’re fully committed this evening.”
“I’d settle for partially committed,” Dev said. He waved his film student card like it was a wand. “We can pay in exposure.”
“Exposure is for skin,” the maître d’ said. “Not cuisine.”
We were turning away, shivering, when a waiter glided past with a bottle shaped like a wish. “For Ms. Duval. Compliments of the house.”
“Duval?” Tess whispered. “Marianne Duval? The critic?” She said the words like she had discovered a unicorn taking a selfie.
Inside, a table bloomed under a halo of light. Everyone smiled at a woman who looked like she’d been born knowing which fork went where. The manager leaned in. The chef peeked out. Champagne flowed like a fountain reachable only if you’d solved a riddle.
We watched, ribs clicking, hearts hungry.
“Must be nice,” Liam said. “Being treated like a god for chewing.”
I shrugged, shoving hands into a jacket that was more thread than fabric. “We could totally do that.”
I meant it as a joke. But with us, jokes were plans in diet clothing.
“Sorry, what?” Dev’s eyes glittered like lenses catching a flare. “You mean become critics? This. This is cinema.”
Tess lowered her phone. “Hold on. This could actually work. I mean, I’m basically media-adjacent. I have followers—”
“Seventeen,” I said.
“Seventeen hundred,” she snapped, offended. “Anyway, restaurants thrive on hype. They’re dying to get noticed. If we look like people who notice things, boom.”
Liam kicked an invisible pebble. “I look like someone who notices when instant ramen is undercooked.”
“Your ramen is never undercooked,” I said. “It is, if anything, aggressively boiled.”
We laughed like people who pretend to be okay. The cold bit deeper.
“I write for a living,” I said. “Sort of.” “Sort of” because freelancing means your paychecks are like comets. “I can sound official.”
Dev had already started a list on his phone. “Name brainstorm. Brand. A site. Photos. Email addresses. We can use the film department’s cameras if we, theoretically, borrowed them during office hours.”
Tess’s fingers flew. “Handles. Branding. Stickers. I’ll DM every PR person in the city.”
Liam put his hand in. “If we’re committing a grand social deception, I want a name I can commit to.”
We all piled our hands under the long shadow of the restaurant’s fanged door.
“The Palate Patrol,” I said, because I love alliteration like other people love dogs.
Four hands squeezed.
“Break,” Dev said. “And also… maybe a slice of dollar pizza, because my stomach is making whale noises.”
We broke.
Our dinner was cheese that slid like a lava lamp, eaten standing on a sidewalk that smelled like all the choices we couldn’t afford. We made a plan on napkins.
A week later, we were “influential.” Or, at least, we had email signatures that suggested it.
