“Oh, yeah. Believe and achieve.” Kevin gave me a double thumbs-up.

“Was it the Tea-Drunk Duck?” Grandma Esme asked, poking my mother’s shoulder.

“No, it was the Gambler’s Duck.”

“Right. Gambler’s Duck.” Grandma Esme leaned over the counter. “Excuse me, do you know how much longer? We’re number twenty-one.”

“Sorry, lots of big parties tonight,” the man said and hurried away.

“Ma, you want to go outside, get some air?”

“But we’ll lose our spot.”

“The kids are here. They’ll come get us, right?”

“Sure,” I said.

Mom handed me the slip of paper with our number on it and led Grandma Esme out of the restaurant.

Jeanine, Kevin, and I let the crowd jostle us out from its center until we were pressed against the lobster tank. The three of us turned around and watched the half-dead lobsters drifting through the purple-lit water.

“Washington,” Kevin said suddenly.

“Adams,” Jeanine answered.

“Jefferson.”

“Madison.”

“Monroe.”

“What are you doing?” I said.

“Naming the presidents in order,” Jeanine said.

“Yeah, I got that. Why?”

“Because it’s fun. Ignore him,” she said to Kevin. “Adams the Second.”

“Jackson…”

Buzz. I put my hand over my pocket and let my head tip forward, knocking into the cool glass of the lobster tank. Something burned in the back of my throat like I’d eaten too much tomato sauce.

“I don’t know if I can do it,” I said to a lobster floating by.

“Do what?” Jeanine said.

So I told her and Kevin about my meeting with Chef JJ.

“And?” Jeanine said when I was done.

“And so I don’t deserve my spot.”

Jeanine crossed her arms. “Yes, you do. It doesn’t matter why she chose you, just whether you’re good enough to be there, which we all know you are.”

“Hey.” Kevin tugged Jeanine’s sleeve. “Remember what my dad told us about causation? This is really a causation issue, right?”

“Oh, totally.” Jeanine nodded, then turned to me. “Kevin’s dad is a lawyer.”

“No kidding.” I rolled my eyes. How could I forget? She’d only told me a million times. “Still not following.”

“The point is,” Kevin said, “you’re asking the wrong question. You’re asking, ‘Why did I get on? Was it because Chef JJ worked with my mom?’”

“Yeah, so?”

“The question you should be asking is, ‘If Chef JJ hadn’t worked with my mom, would I have gotten on anyway?’ If the answer is yes, why she chose you doesn’t matter because it wouldn’t have changed the result.”

“Exactly.” Jeanine nodded. “And we all know you would have gotten on.”

“I don’t know.”

“Oh, come on, Tris!” Jeanine said.

“Look, if it makes you feel any better, my cousin works in TV,” Kevin said. “And she says that people get on those shows for all kinds of reasons that have nothing to do with their cooking skills. Some kids get on just because they’re cute, or because they seem like they’ll pick fights, and fights are the kind of things people love to watch. Your getting on because Chef JJ knows your mom is no different from all the other reasons people get on the show that have nothing to do with cooking skills.”