I realized as we sat waiting for our food, I had no reason to continue speaking to him. He’d already paid for the meal. Counter service was a good idea, rather than waiting through a whole meal to see whether he would ask to split the bill. I made a mental note as I snapped open the plastic cake container, not caring what he thought about me eating it before the other food. The frosting was the kind of sweet that made my teeth feel loose in my skull. I ate it anyway, all of it, gobbled it down. It was a good thing the roti took so long to come or I probably would’ve devoured that as well and thrown it all up in the street.

I’d never had roti before and had to watch the cop to figure out how to eat it. I followed his lead as he unwrapped the tinfoil and ripped off a bit of thin, unleavened bread, using the piece to scoop up the chicken and potatoes inside. I was delighted, when I bit into it, to find the bread was flaky and soft and the chicken tasted of butter and curry. Then my teeth bit into something hard.

“There’s bones in there,” the cop said, watching me.

I didn’t look at him; I just spit the bone into my hand, set it down on the table, and went back to eating. It was enjoyable, using my hands, fishing out the chicken bones. I didn’t give a shit what I looked like to this cop, since he’d already paid for all this good food.

“Girl’s starving,” he said, as I scooped up bite after bite.

“I’ve hardly had a minute to eat today,” I said, my mouth full.

I realized then that he hadn’t asked me a single question about myself. Didn’t he wonder why I hadn’t eaten all day? Didn’t he wonder what I did for work? Wasn’t that the question everyone always asked?

When the food was gone I was very full. I was grateful to him for providing me with this lovely full feeling. I didn’t feel I owed him for it, but I felt like repaying him anyway. He had a good face—friendly wide-set eyes and perfect white teeth. It was dark outside. I slapped a mosquito away from my leg as we stood together on the curb. The seventeen-year cicadas were supposed to hatch and outnumber the city’s population six hundred to one that summer, but they never came. The eggs had died; the newspapers said we’d filled too many vacant lots with condos. Mosquitoes were already swarming in their place. “Subway’s that way,” he said.

I pulled on his thick arm and said, “Yeah, but I live over here.”