Taco Ballz Deep- Chapter Two: Oh Brunch Please!

It took Una and Miro less than an hour to get Taco Ballz ready for what Miro optimistically described as the lunch rush.

"How much of a rush are we talking about?" Una asked.

"Could get crazy."

"Really?"

"Five, maybe six people."

Una nodded solemnly. "Jesus. Should I call for backup?"

"Already did. Nobody answered."

As they worked, Miro explained that opening for one final day wasn't entirely pointless. Whatever food they sold was food they wouldn't have to throw away that night, which meant Una's first official managerial responsibility was apparently helping Taco Ballz consume itself before it died.

She found this strangely poetic.

She found the Taco Ballz recipe less so.

"So that's it?" she asked, staring down at the stainless-steel prep counter. "That's the famous recipe?"

Miro scooped seasoned ground beef onto a bed of crushed nacho chips.

"Family secret."

"Your family should've kept it secret."

"You're insulting a proud culinary tradition."

"I'm observing one."

He gave the beef a generous sprinkle of salt.

Then another.

"Why twice?"

"Grandpa's recipe says 'double sprinkle.'"

"That's not a measurement."

"It is here."

Miro rolled the mixture into a ball with his gloved hands and held it up.

Una stared at it.

"That's a meatball covered in Doritos."

"Nacho crumbles."

"They're Doritos."

"They are legally distinct from Doritos."

He dropped the ball into the fryer.

Una leaned against the counter. "And people pay for these?"

"Wait until you see the best part."

A few minutes later, Miro retrieved the crispy golden ball and placed it on a tray. Then he picked up what looked suspiciously like a large culinary syringe.

Una took a step backward.

"What are you doing?"

"Finishing it."

"Why does finishing it require medical equipment?"

Miro filled the injector with a pale cream.

"Sour cream."

"Okay."

"And powdered margarita mix."

Una stared at him.

Miro stared back.

"You're lying."

"I'm not."

"You mix margarita powder into sour cream?"

"Correct."

"And inject it into fried meat?"

"Correct."

"Why?"

Miro plunged the injector into the Taco Ball.

Una recoiled.

"Grandpa believed people liked surprises."

"I don't think he understood what people meant by surprises."

Miro held the finished product out to her.

"Want one?"

"No."

"You haven't tried it."

"I've heard enough."

He grinned and bit into it himself.

Una watched him chew.

"Well?"

Miro swallowed.

"Pretty bad."

She burst out laughing.

"Then why did you offer me one?"

"I wanted to see if you'd do it."

"You're an asshole."

"Assistant managers aren't supposed to talk to their supervisors like that."

"Fire me."

His grin widened.

That grin was becoming a problem.

While they continued prepping, Miro told her the surprisingly long and unsuccessful history of Taco Ballz.

His grandfather had developed the recipe decades earlier and, according to family legend, attempted to sell it to Taco Bell when fast-food franchises were beginning to explode across the country in the 1960s.

"They passed," Miro said.

Una looked at the sour-cream injector.

"Visionaries."

"My grandfather thought they were idiots. So he decided he'd open his own restaurant and put them out of business."

Una glanced around the nearly empty Taco Ballz.

"How'd that go?"

"They're still around."

"I noticed."

Miro explained that his grandfather had never quite figured out what Taco Ballz was supposed to be. Whenever business slowed down, rather than changing the menu or advertising more aggressively, he'd reinvent the entire restaurant.

"What do you mean, reinvent?"

Miro leaned against the counter.

"Late sixties, jazz lounge."

Una blinked. "Taco Ballz was a jazz lounge?"

"Yep."

"Okay."

"Seventies, gentlemen's club."

Her eyebrows shot up.

"No."

"Absolutely."

"Strippers?"

"Topless dancers and Taco Ballz."

Una covered her mouth.

"Stop."

"Apparently Grandpa thought the two businesses had natural synergy."

"They absolutely do not."

"He disagreed."

"What happened in the eighties?"

"Adult mystery dinner theater."

Una stared.

"I'm sorry. Adult as in adults solving mysteries, or adult as in—"

"Both."

"Oh my God."

"Nineties, open-mic bar."

"Of course."

"Then karaoke for a while. Sports bar briefly. And most recently—"

He paused.

Una waited.

"Speed dating."

She laughed so hard she had to put down the container she was holding.

"People came here on dates?"

"People came here to find dates."

"While eating Taco Ballz?"

"Nothing exposes compatibility faster than watching a stranger bite into a fried meat sphere and get surprise margarita sour cream on their shirt."

Una was still laughing when Miro motioned for her to follow him into the office.

He had stacked several old advertisements against the wall rather than throwing them away.

The first featured a glamorous woman in a sequined dress reclining beside a plate of Taco Ballz beneath the words:

HOT JAZZ. HOT BALLZ.

Una stared at it.

"No."

"Yes."

Miro produced another.

A mustachioed man in an enormous collared shirt stood between two bikini-clad women.

COME FOR THE GIRLS. STAY FOR THE BALLZ.

Una bent forward laughing.

"Your grandfather was insane."

"He was an entrepreneur."

"He was horny."

"Two things can be true."

The eighties poster was somehow worse.

A woman in lingerie lay dramatically across what appeared to be a fake corpse while holding a magnifying glass.

MURDER. MYSTERY. BALLZ.

Una wiped tears from beneath her eyes.

"I can't believe you're closing this place. It belongs in a museum."

Miro's smile faded just a little.

"Wasn't my decision."

Una noticed.

She lowered the poster.

Miro had told her earlier that his grandfather died shortly before the infamous mouse-in-the-milk incident. Ownership had passed to Miro's uncle, Mr. Owens, who'd immediately had the property appraised and decided it was worth more sold than operating.

Miro had assumed things would happen differently.

He'd been working at Taco Ballz since his late teens. He'd managed it for years. Somewhere along the way, without anyone actually promising it to him, he'd begun believing the place would eventually become his.

Una looked around the cramped office.

"You wanted it."

Miro shrugged.

"I wanted the chance."

That landed differently.

"So what would you have done with it?"

"First?"

"Yeah."

"Changed the name."

Una laughed.

"I'm serious."

"You don't believe in the Ballz legacy?"

"I've spent half my adult life answering the phone, 'Thank you for calling Taco Ballz.' I've paid my dues."

"What would you call it?"

Miro thought about it.

"I don't know. That's the problem. I always figured I'd have time."

For the first time all morning, Una didn't have a joke.

She looked at him instead.

Miro wasn't smiling now, and without that perpetual grin on his face, he seemed different. Older somehow. Not old—God, definitely not old—but less like the gorgeous jackass she'd nearly been elbowed by an hour earlier and more like a man watching something he'd spent years building disappear without ever being given the chance to save it.

Una suddenly became conscious of how close they were standing.

The office wasn't large.

Miro was.

And he smelled annoyingly good for someone who had spent the morning standing over a deep fryer.

His eyes met hers.

There was a moment.

A very definite moment.

Then someone pounded on the drive-thru window.

Una jumped.

Miro closed his eyes.

"For fuck's sake."

The pounding came again.

They returned to the kitchen.

Outside the drive-thru window stood two young men with bicycles. Both wore white short-sleeved collared shirts, oversized name tags, and immaculately pressed black slacks.

Una looked at Miro.

"Customers?"

"Chris and Pete."

"You know them?"

"They're missionaries."

"Oh."

"They're also the neighborhood surveillance department. Nobody appointed them."

Miro opened the drive-thru window.

"Morning, guys. What can I do you for?"

The taller one—Pete, apparently—leaned toward the window.

"There's a couple of hobos going at it behind your dumpster."

Miro paused.

Una paused.

Chris nodded gravely.

Miro leaned slightly out the window.

"Going at what?"

Pete lowered his voice.

"Each other."

Una's lips disappeared between her teeth.

"Ah," Miro said.

"Can you call the police?"

"Why can't you?"

"We don't have cell phones."

"Right."

Pete looked relieved.

"Thank you."

"Absolutely."

Miro closed the window.

Una watched the missionaries pedal away.

Then Miro walked toward the office.

She followed him.

"Do you want me to wait outside for the police, or should I stay in here until they come?"

Miro sat behind the desk.

"Oh, I'm not calling the cops."

Una stopped.

"What?"

"I don't care."

"But there are two people having sex behind your dumpster."

"So?"

"So..."

She gestured vaguely toward the dumpster.

Miro leaned back in the chair.

"How long can hobos possibly hook up for?"

Una stared at him.

"That's your reasoning?"

"I give them twenty minutes."

"What if they're in love?"

"Forty-five."

Una laughed despite herself.

"Chris and Pete complain about everything," Miro continued. "Yesterday they wanted me to write a letter to our congressman."

"About what?"

"They saw a woman bend over in a miniskirt."

Una waited.

"And?"

"Apparently she wasn't wearing the proper undergarments."

Una's mouth fell open.

"What does that mean?"

"I asked. They wouldn't elaborate."

"So they wanted you to contact the federal government?"

"Immediately."

"Because they saw a woman's ass?"

"Possibly more than her ass. Again, they were reluctant to provide specifics."

Una laughed.

Miro smiled at her from behind the desk.

There it was again.

That look.

The same one he'd given her in the kitchen when she'd asked where he wanted her.

Una suddenly wondered whether she was imagining it.

Then his eyes dropped briefly to her mouth.

Nope.

Not imagining it.

She leaned against the doorframe.

"So let me make sure I understand my responsibilities here."

"Go ahead."

"I've been assistant manager for approximately two hours."

"Impressive tenure."

"The restaurant closes forever tonight."

"Correct."

"Our only other employees quit."

"Moved on."

"There's a pair of missionaries patrolling the neighborhood for sexual misconduct."

"Self-appointed."

"Two people are currently having sex behind our dumpster."

"Allegedly."

"And you aren't calling the police."

"No."

Una nodded slowly.

"Anything else I should know?"

Miro considered the question.

"The men's-room toilet backs up if you flush it twice."

She stared at him.

"Of course it does."

A buzzer sounded from the front of the restaurant.

Their first customer.

Miro stood.

"Ready for lunch, Assistant Manager Gold?"

Una picked up her yellow Taco Ballz visor and put it on.

"Absolutely, Mr. Wolfgang."

His eyes lingered on her for a second.

"Miro."

She smiled.

"Miro."

It was almost eleven.

Una had been employed for two hours; the business was collapsing around her, and somewhere behind the dumpster two strangers were apparently having a considerably better Sunday morning than anyone had anticipated.

And yet, as Una followed Miro out of the office, she found herself thinking that her spectacular day might not be ruined after all.

It had simply become interesting.