But my well of ideas is dry and I have nothing to contribute to our chat. I want to somehow swoop in with a brilliant idea that makes Chaewon and Jess think I’m a genius, though.

“You could start a food stall?” Priti suggests.

“What kind of food would I sell?”

She shrugs. “You could take some food from the restaurant? Or maybe ask Ammu to cook for you.” She holds one hand out in front of her and, dragging it through the air, says “authentic Bengali food” in a dramatic whisper.

I start laughing at how ridiculous it sounds and next thing I know Priti’s hitting me over the head with her English textbook.

“Okay, okay, ow. Sorry.”

She finally stops and sits back down again, looking mighty proud of herself.

“English books should not be used in such ways. There’s poetry in there. Very beautiful, gentle poetry.” I rub my head.

“There’s also all those poems about war. How gentle are those?”

“Whatever,” I say. “Look, nobody’s going to be interested in authentic Bengali food. For one, they don’t even understand what Bengali means or where Bangladesh is. Secondly, people are just not into South Asian food right now. Dublin is currently all about burritos and donuts. And thirdly, I can’t take food from the restaurant, and if I asked Ammu to cook for my business she would get so mad. Plus, wouldn’t that kind of be like cheating? I’m not really doing it on my own, am I?”

“I guess not,” Priti says, though she doesn’t sound like she wants to admit it at all. “It’s just … imagine Bengali street food on the streets of Dublin! Yum! It could be the next craze after donuts!”

It would be pretty cool if the next Irish food trend was South Asian. We’d already more or less flown past the Japanese food trend, and donuts are way past their shelf life. Realistically though, Bengali food is never going to be trendy in the streets here. That much I learned from Chyna, at least.

“Nobody other than you and me would be able to eat Bengali street food. Plus, can you imagine what Chyna would say if I started selling that?”

Priti frowns, and says, “Chyna isn’t that bad.”

I actually physically recoil from Priti at that. Not intentionally, it’s just an instinct. I look at her with wide eyes. “Chyna ‘your-father’s-restaurant-gives-people-diarrhea’ Quinn isn’t that bad?” I ask.

Priti sighs, crossing her arms over her chest. “When you say it like that. It’s been like … a long time since everything happened.”

I narrow my eyes at Priti, before leaning forward and touching her forehead with the back of my hand. “You don’t feel warm, but obviously you’re so feverish that you’re delusional.”