Alanta and I often met at a diner—making waiter friends, sampling the six-page menu, playing booth-and-table musical chairs. It became our female family table, our place to discuss writing, school, work—and to eat.
My work wife sends me a picture of an Elevation Burger from its namesake restaurant in Plainview, New York. It’s beautiful, she says. I agree.
Later that week I take her to Shake Shack because she’s never been. She waits with me in line but doesn’t want to eat. At the last second, she looks at me—eyes wide, one blink—and says, If you get the fries, I’ll get the burgers.
My favorite college professor gave me a book for graduation, the title lettered in red foil down the spine—Appetites: Why Women Want by Caroline Knapp. I never read it, but it’s what I think of when my friend asks for fries: what we want; what we fill ourselves with; why, when we’re not satiated, we hesitate to ask for more.
My first partner always ordered a fried egg on his burgers; my current one orders his over easy. I never ask for an egg. But there’s a diner on Hudson Street where the server knows my order by heart, meaning she knows me more intimately than if she actually knew me. I walk in and she says, Deluxe cheeseburger with a side of tzatziki, right, baby?
I’ve worked all day, and I’m hungry, so I say yes.