We studiously ignore Jenna’s empty seat next to mine. Nobody comments on the empty place setting that Trisha must have put out by accident, but I can’t stop myself from zeroing in on it and remembering, even if it makes my insides feel like an empty well and my skin itch.

Memory takes over. My plate morphs into a finer one with a tented cloth napkin placed perfectly at its center. The gleaming silverware twinkles against the polished wooden table. Mr. and Mrs. Williams will be meeting us any minute, but until then, Jenna and I are on our own in this very fancy restaurant.

I inhale, and the air has the clotted, close smell of spiced vegetables and butter and wine. There is a large elk’s head mounted on the wall above the kitchen. He seems out of place, presiding over this fancy Latin fusion restaurant with his wide stare, but taxidermy is rarely considered unsuitable in Texas, no matter the theme.

I only break eye contact with him when Jenna puts down her phone and looks up at me, shaking her head.

“They’re stuck in traffic on the other side of town. They said to go ahead and eat without them.”

“What? But it was your mom’s idea to try this place to begin with,” I say. “Let’s go, and come back when they’re with us.”

“We’re already here, Amelia,” she says. “Why not?”

This turns out to be a terrible idea.

The cheapest thing on the menu is something neither of us can pronounce, and it costs fifty dollars. Even Jenna, who wields her parents’ credit card with a fair amount of confidence, balks at the prices.

“Maybe we should split something?” I suggest.

Jenna agrees, and neither of us thinks much of it when the waiter gives us a funny look, until he eventually returns with the world’s smallest plate of thin, unidentified cooked meat and another, only slightly larger plate of … French fries.

“Thank God there are fries,” I say, popping one in my mouth before it can burn my fingers. “Tastes kind of funny, but they’re good!”

“Amelia,” Jenna hisses, her eyes darting to a very well-to-do couple who are looking at us like we’re a pair of mice that just scurried across their plates. “Those are plantains. Use a knife and fork.”

I roll my eyes. “Jenna,” I say, mimicking her tone, “these are called fries. You eat them with your hands.”

I lean forward to grab another and demonstrate, but Jenna pokes at my knuckles with her fork. Her eyes get a fraction larger, the face she makes when she is trying very hard not to laugh at me.

“Look, Bambi,” I say. “Why don’t you take care of … well”—I reach with my fork to nudge at the thin meat—“whatever that is, and I’ll take care of the fries?”