A box remained on the driveway. I opened the front door and descended the concrete steps to retrieve it. It was weird the movers had just left it, as it was small enough to have been easily hoisted atop the other boxes that had been brought in all morning.
The forgotten box wasn’t even taped closed. The cardboard flaps were instead alternatively folded and tucked into one another. Now that I was closer, I realized the package wasn’t part of our family move. It didn’t have the sticker labels Mom had printed off and stuck on each of our possessions: JAMAL FAMILY MOVE TO HUNGRY HEART ROW, BOX #___.
This was something else.
I tentatively teased apart two of the flaps and peered inside. A smell hit me—sharp, garlicky, vinegary.
Pulling out all four flaps revealed a casserole dish, the clear glass lid resting atop plain white rice. The condensation on the lid indicated this had been made very recently.
Valimma, my grandmother, stepped onto the driveway behind me.
“That is Simeona’s food, moleh. She just called to say her son dropped it off on the driveway.” Valimma spoke her English slowly but surely, with a lilt that was the result of years of socializing with neighbors from a variety of backgrounds. “Simeona can’t come to Thursday Club today but still wanted to send her delicious shrimp adobo.”
“This is just rice, Valimma.” I pointed at the casserole dish.
“Check under. The tasty mix, the bountiful flavor, must be below.”
Sure enough, under the rice container was another, shallower dish housing large shrimps coated in dark brown sauce. Yup, sharp, garlicky, vinegary.
Valimma bent to hoist it all up, but I put a hand out.
“I’ll get it. You already helped too much, Valimma. You didn’t have to start unpacking the kitchen. Dad said we were going to start this weekend.” I followed her up the stairs, pausing at the small corner landing to shift the contents of the box. Another whiff of vinegar hit my nose, and I closed my mouth tight. Vinegar wasn’t a favorite.
“Oh no, the kitchen needs to be done first after a move. The pantry needs to be stocked with rice and staples to bless our home with food always. It is tradition.”
I nodded, more out of habit then agreement. If it had been Mom saying this, I would have asked for sources. What tradition? Whose tradition?
But Mom was teaching university in Dubai. She’d been here, back home in the US, for a month to help pack for the move, and then had had to leave for the start of a new semester.
Before she flew out, she convinced Valimma, who’d lived in the same Hungry Heart Row apartment from when Dad was a kid, to move into the new brownstone walk-up with us. To be the matriarch.
I was the other person who’d needed convincing to agree to the move.
Both my brothers were beginning new chapters of their lives in the fall, so changing neighborhoods wasn’t a big deal for them. The older one, Bilal, was starting college nearby and the younger one, Rashad, would be a high school freshman in two months.
But, for me, moving the summer before senior year meant that I wouldn’t be graduating with my class. It also meant I’d have to give up my job at Daily Harvest, a free meal service for those who needed it, where I’d worked for five years, first volunteering with my mom at twelve and then joining as an employee two years ago. It’s in an area called Russell, closer to my old neighborhood, and there was no way I could get to work in time after school.
Which was absolutely the worst, because just a few months ago, they’d begun letting me help the fundraising team make videos. Which is MY thing.
Moving to Hungry Heart Row had been excruciating, and I’d let everyone know it.
Then, a month before the scheduled moving date, I came home to find a brand-new camera, a Sony A6500.
I’m kind of ashamed to say it, but the bribe had worked. Especially since this year I needed top-of-the-line equipment to win gold in the teen category at the state film festival—a prize which included my dream: an internship with a production company.
Last film festival, I’d come in second.
This time, however, no one, especially not a person by the name of Gabrielle Rose, would stop me from first prize.
Once I settled on a prize-winning idea, that is.
* * *
“What about Hungry Heart Row itself as a topic? Like those roaming videos where you get to see the people, the places, hear the sounds.” I peeled a thread off a string-cheese snack and tilted my head back to drop it into my mouth. “Like sound would be the feature of the film then.”
“I doubt anyone would care,” Bilal said. He was opening random boxes in the dining room adjacent to the kitchen, looking for something. “Did anyone in Mulberry talk about Hungry Heart Row? Did you ever hear a single soul say a single word about it, except Dad reminiscing about his old days? So why would anyone at the film fest care?”
“But the wow factor wouldn’t be the subject of the film. It would be the way it’s made, the form of the film. I can do awesome, shocking things with it.”
“You already did that with last year’s film, remember?” Bilal paused running a box cutter down the taped seam of a box. He lifted up his left hand in a fist. “We Resist: An In-Your-Face Act of Film?”
“I won second, remember? Remember?”
“Yeah, but first place went to an unraucous film,” Bilal said smugly. “Hania, your stuff may be too intense.”
“I hate the fact that older people judge these things!” I leaned my elbows on the edge of the kitchen island counter and slumped my face into my palms. “They liked the lingering shots of crocheted doilies, pastel walls, and flowery curtains that Gabrielle Rose did. She knew what they’d like; that’s why she went all bland. Ugh.”
“It was nice. In a mellow, dignified way.”
“It was old. Like old-people old.” I stopped myself from saying the next part—like boring old—as Valimma walked into the kitchen, a scarf worn loosely on her head. Her gray hair, oiled and austerely parted, could be seen peeking out the front.
“Bilal, monu, help me clear the dining table of these boxes. It’s my turn to host Thursday Club, and we need a place to sit and eat.”
“Sure, Valimma.” Bilal began moving boxes off the long walnut table.
“We need to put five chairs around the table. Well, four today, because Simeona isn’t coming.” Valimma lifted up smaller boxes and set them on the floor.
“What do you do at Thursday Club, Valimma?” I leaned on the frame of the kitchen doorway.
“We eat and laugh and eat and tell stories and eat again.”
“Can I come? Can I film you guys?” I avoided Bilal’s smirky look.
“Yes, certainly. I’m sure my friends would like that. A young person to hear our stories.” Valimma motioned to Bilal. “So yes, leave five chairs here.”
* * *
I adjusted the focus. “Thanks so much for waiting for me to set up the camera. Okay, now, action, reach for the food.”
Four hands in various shades of skin reached for utensils to ladle food from bowls atop a lazy Susan as I watched through the screen on my camera. Being the host, it was Valimma’s hand that spun the lazy Susan, after allowing each woman adequate time to take from the food laid in front of her. The shotgun mic picked up the clinks of cutlery, the slight rustle of clothing, and low murmurs.
With the dishes revolving in turns, the scene had a rhythmic quality to it. Meditative and tranquil.
I frowned. Meditative and tranquil meant it was too much like Gabrielle’s first-place film last year, unimaginatively called Home Is.
Bland.
And derivative?
“Franklin saw him again on the security camera. The lost boy.” A white woman with glasses and wispy gray curls was talking, her hand, holding a spring roll, shaking slightly. “I told him to turn it in to the police immediately. But he doesn’t listen to me. He says it’s just someone who looks like him.”
Valimma tsked. “The last time the police said it was not the lost boy on the security film. Maybe that is why your son doesn’t want to waste their time. The camera outside his hardware store records a lot of people, with the movie theater next door.”
Shaking her head, a black woman paused winding her fork in noodles. “It’s time they reopened the case. How could it be that a teenager doesn’t come home, and they close it after half a year? Especially in a small community like Hungry Heart Row?”
“But now he’s been missing for over a year, Diane. They have to close it at some point. Who made this rice? Is it yours, Maymoona? It’s fluffier than my mother’s used to be!” I knew the name of the woman who exclaimed this. It was Valimma’s closest friend, Shirley. She and my grandmother had played mahjong together for years.
Valimma shook her head. “No, it’s Simeona’s. But you must have it with the adobo. Mix-it flavor!”
“Oh yes, Simeona is a fantastic cook,” Diane said, reaching for some adobo.
“Especially her Soup Number Five special, right?” Shirley said, glancing around at the other women. They burst into laughter in response.
“Hania, come and try some shrimp,” Valimma said.
“I’m working, Valimma.”
“Open,” Valimma commanded, holding out a spoon of rice, tinted brown with adobo sauce, a single shrimp on top.
Vinegar. I shook my head.
But the spoon kept coming forward. That was Valimma’s way. She wouldn’t stop until you had at least one taste.
I sighed and, closing my eyes to make the process less painful, opened my mouth. It was an instinctive action when Valimma was around—the first vision I had of being with my grandmother was food, unrelenting, coming toward my mouth. Like now.
Oh wow. Bliss. The adobo was perfectly calibrated between my two favorite flavor juxtapositions: sweet and tangy. And the shrimp: practically dissolving in my mouth.
“Thaouft’s goofd.” Mouth full, I could only grunt my appreciation.
“Told you.” Valimma smiled, satisfied. She set aside some adobo and rice on a plate for me. “Simeona knows how to mix it.”
* * *
“Could you tell me about this ‘lost boy’? If you don’t mind?” I asked, lowering the tripod so I could scan their faces while they talked. “I’d like to get it on film.”
The women looked at each other.
Shirley raised her eyebrows at Valimma. “Why don’t you start, Maymoona? We don’t know what to say so as not to scare your granddaughter.”
I grinned. “Auntie Li, I’m seventeen. I’ve seen a lot. Maybe more than you have, in terms of scariness.”
All four women laughed simultaneously. I looked at the screen. Great scene! Spontaneous, natural, and, if the laugher was fully picked up by the mic, perfectly soundtracked.
“Okay, if you’re not scared, if you’ve seen it all, then let Margaret tell you.” Shirley turned to the white woman. The other women did too. “She knows the story the most, because her granddaughter was involved.”
I turned the camera until it centered on Margaret. The lighting was off and cast a gray pallor on her skin.
After clamping it lower on an extra chair, I twisted up the desk lamp I’d rummaged from a box in Rashad’s bedroom. The light shone from below, to the left of Margaret, and lit the thin tendrils of her hair.
It kind of had the effect of when someone used a flashlight to light their face from under their chin when telling a scary story at camp.
I couldn’t decide if I should change the lighting again, but then Margaret put her spring roll down and cleared her throat.
She stared right into the camera. After a pause, her mouth opened.
“One year ago, a boy by the name of Barnaby Bennett, sixteen, went to watch a movie at the cinema here in the neighborhood.”
Barnaby Bennett.
The name was odd, old-fashioned, but rung a bell.
Who and where?
“He left home at seven p.m. The movie he wanted to see was playing at seven thirty.
“Before the theater, he went to visit the food carts on Ginkgo Street. He bought a hot dog and fries.
“Many witnesses say they saw him walk to the movie theater. The surveillance cameras say the same thing.
“The ticket vendor that night was my granddaughter. She says she sold Barnaby a pass.
“But Barnaby never came back home after the movie. He’s never been seen since.
“Except that every once in a while, he shows up on one of the security cameras around the neighborhood.
“The police closed the case soon after, because Barnaby was the age at which he is allowed to leave home if he wishes. And because he’d told his friends that he wanted to leave.
“But some of us don’t think he left home.
“Some of us think he’s still in Hungry Heart Row.
“We think he just doesn’t want to be seen.”
* * *
“Boo!” Rashad had snuck up behind as I watched Margaret’s story again on my laptop the Sunday after Thursday Club. I paused shoveling in the rice and shrimp Valimma had saved for me.
“You’re not funny. Unload the dishwasher. I need to load it before Dad gets home from the mosque.”
“It’s Sunday. We get to do chores later on Sunday.”
“That’s old-house rules.” Rewinding the video, I began the “lost boy” story again. “Dad doesn’t want Valimma to start doing extra stuff around here. Get to it.”
“These tiles are the best for socks skating.” Rashad slid toward the dishwasher. “If I don’t put things in the right cupboards, it’s not my fault. It’s all new to me.”
“I’ll just make you redo it.”
Margaret’s story started again, filling the kitchen with her slightly raspy voice. “One year ago, a boy by the name of Barnaby Bennett, sixteen . . .”
* * *
Barnaby Bennett.
That name. I knew where I’d seen it.
It was on film footage I’d edited for the Daily Harvest meal service. A few months ago, they’d asked me to pore over all the video the film crew had captured and cut anything identifying people, and I’d removed a clip showing a short list of names on one of the desks.
Barnaby Bennett was such an odd name on the list, it had so stood out. I’d said it out loud at the time, thinking of the people I greeted each day when I worked evening reception at Daily Harvest.
Barnaby Bennett.
I saw the list clearer in my mind now. It was of young people who’d stopped using the meal service all of a sudden, who’d been earmarked for follow-up by one of the social workers at Daily Harvest but who hadn’t been traced.
How likely was it that a Barnaby Bennett would go missing from Hungry Heart Row and Daily Harvest?
* * *
I felt a sudden twist in my gut at remembering my old job.
It was just empathy—the feeling, I told myself. Must be SO hard having to rely on a free meal service for food.
But then there was this: Somewhere deep behind that gut twist there was homesickness, too.
I missed my old life.
Maybe I’d never get used to Hungry Heart Row.
* * *
“. . . Barnaby never came back home after the movie. He’s never been seen since. . . .”
Rashad left the dishwasher’s top tray pulled out and slid to the kitchen island. “What is that? YouTube?”
“No, listen to it. It’s about a Hungry Heart Row boy who didn’t do his chores and was never seen again.” I rewound the video for the third time.
When it was done, Rashad let out a long breath. “Is it true? That he’s seen on surveillance films?”
“That’s what Valimma’s Thursday Club says. I’m thinking of doing a film on it.”
“On the missing boy? You’re going solve a mystery?” Rashad walked back to the dishwasher. “I thought you said the film is due in three weeks. There’s no way you can solve a missing person case in under a month.”
“I’m not solving it. Just finding out information on it, like why some people think Barnaby’s on security tapes, stuff like that. An anatomy-of-a-local-legend film.” I took another spoonful of rice. “Also, it’s sad. I looked up Barnaby’s story online, and some reports make it out like his family didn’t really care about what happened to him. He had a hard home life, parents who didn’t care.”
Rashad raised his eyebrows. “That’s weird. And, yeah, sad too.”
“Yeah. Maybe if I do this film, it will get people interested again.”
I watched the rest of the Thursday Club footage, wondering why something was bothering me about the “lost” Barnaby.
I mean, besides the fact that it was a strange case altogether.
* * *
I met Delilah and Ranvir as they exited the crosstown bus at the corner of Nettle and Caraway.
“Not too bad to get here. If you call an hour not too bad. The traffic, man!” Ranvir said, looking around at the bustling atmosphere he’d stepped into. There were people squeezing fruits at a produce stall, people walking their dogs, people listening to a busker playing guitar, people sitting on benches eating sticky, drippy things happily.
“So when I’m down and need to see you guys, I’ll have to give myself an hour to reach happiness across town.” I led the way toward Margaret’s son’s hardware store, the first of my potential on-camera interviews.
“No, according to Google, on traffic-less days, you can do it in thirty minutes.” Ranvir slid his headphones off, as if he wanted all of his senses to take in the sights and sounds of Hungry Heart Row. “Whoa, this place isn’t like Mulberry, that’s for sure. This popping on a Monday?”
“It’s not that great. Just a lot of little shops.” I looked around, not impressed, remembering the neatness of the plazas near my old house.
“So I did the dirty work and poked around with Gabrielle’s friend,” Delilah said, pulling out her phone to read a message. “GR’s doing something ‘meta,’ like a film about form, whatever that means.”
“Great.” I closed my eyes. Of course.
Of course Gabrielle Rose would think up something that fancy. She was always one beat, at least one beat, ahead of me. And had been for years, since we’d started entering film competitions in freshmen year—and come across each other. Our names always in the top ten spots, but hers always higher than mine.
“A meta film,” Ranvir said. “I like.”
“Meta, which old people, i.e., the judges, will also like.” I tried hard not to sound sullen.
“I love what you’re doing, Hania! It’s going to win. People love legends,” Delilah announced. “The Legend of Hungry Heart Row’s Lost Boy.”
“I’m not even sure that’s what I’m doing the film on. And I don’t know if we can call it a legend. It’s only a year old. Plus it’s sad. There’s someone missing.” I paused in front of Franklin’s Hardware. “Barnaby Bennett.”
I pushed the door, and a bell jangled in response.
The store was crammed full of things but empty of customers. And empty of a proprietor, it seemed, as the counter, immediately to the right of the entrance, was unmanned. A radio was on so low you couldn’t even make out the genre of music.
Ranvir set his backpack down and unzipped it to pull out a portable lighting kit. I shook my head, so he packed it away.
“He still hasn’t fully agreed to be filmed. I don’t want to scare him,” I whispered.
Delilah nodded. “I’m going to shop hardware so it doesn’t look like we’re ganging up on the dude.”
She went down an aisle stocked with boxes of screws and nails.
I checked the time on my phone. I’ll be over at two p.m. so we can talk had been my e-mail.
I’m always in the store so sounds fine to me, Franklin had responded.
It was exactly 2:02 p.m.
Sliding his headphones back on, Ranvir said, “Let me check the back of the store.”
Alone at the counter, I took it all in. The cash register was facing the door, so whoever was manning it could see out into the store. Directly above the register was a small split-screen television. One side showed the inside of the store, and the other showed the area outside the front of the building, even the road and the sidewalk across the street.
The door behind me burst open, the bell jangling wildly.
A tall, thin man wearing a brown T-shirt tucked into belted jeans stood there, a coffee in one hand, a plastic bag in the other.
“You Hania?” he asked in a deep voice. “Wanting to talk to me about my security camera?”
I nodded. “Thanks for agreeing, sir.”
“I went to grab some lunch. Got some cookies for you, too.” Franklin unlocked the swing door attached to the counter and let himself in. He set his coffee down and pulled out a sandwich and a white box stamped with PANADERÍA PASTELERÍA from the plastic bag. “Now I’m glad I got a lot of them Manzano cookies. It looks like you’ve got friends, huh?”
Delilah poked her head out of an aisle of cleaning supplies.
“I hope you don’t mind. If you agree to our interview, I’d want to film it, and they’re here to help me,” I said.
“Well, I don’t know about agreeing to an on-camera interview. I can talk to you, yes, but I’m not keen on being on film,” he said, opening up the box to reveal pastel-colored cookies. “I like to stay out of the limelight.”
“So, did you see a boy like the missing Barnaby on your security camera?” I asked. “And what made you sure it wasn’t him? And according to your mother, this was the fifth time you’d seen the same kid?”
“Ah, my mother.” Franklin unwrapped his sandwich, took a bite, and then looked at Delilah and Ranvir, still not assembled at the counter. “You kids come on over, have some cookies. I’m telling you, you need them. The best in the neighborhood, in all of Rowbury.”
Continuing to chew, he held the box out, and we took one each.
“My mother thinks about sad news all the time. I believe she thrives on it. So when I visit, I give her a bit of such news.” He smiled and revealed lettuce draped on his upper front teeth. “So I happened to tell her about quote-unquote Barnaby on my footage. Again. And always in the middle of the night, round two a.m.”
“Can we see it?” I leaned forward, still holding my cookie. “Just to see what he looks like?”
“Sure, and you know what else? You can film the footage, there are a few of them with Barnaby. That, I’ll let you.” He took another bite of his sandwich and smiled again, lettuce gone now.
* * *
“I don’t like him,” Delilah declared. “Kind of creepy. Too nice without knowing us and yet not nice enough to let us interview him on film.”
We were next door to Franklin’s Hardware, sitting outside on the steps of the Hungry Heart Row Cinema, which, according to a sign on the door of the box office right behind us, didn’t open until three p.m.
The same theater where Barnaby was last seen.
“But those cookies . . . I didn’t have breakfast, and they hit the spot.” Ranvir stretched out his six-foot frame and lay back. His dastaar, a deep blue turban, cushioned his head against the stone steps. He always made sure to match his turban with his shoes, and today was no exception—a pair of dark blue, suede Jordans rested on the lowest step, almost touching the sidewalk. “He was nice to feed us like that. Mmm, cookies.”
“Have mine then. I’m waiting for real food.” Delilah passed her cookie over to him.
“Hey, let’s check out the food carts behind this place. There’s a good halal one we’d sometimes eat at when we’d visit my grandma before, plus the spot Barnaby got his hot dog that day he went missing.” I stood up, dusting off the back of my jeans. “Maybe we can interview the hot dog vendor. And also, eat.”
“Um, Hania?” Delilah pointed at the marquee sign above us, listing a selection of films.
Home Is: A Film by Gabrielle Rose, 1st place Rowbury Teen Film Fest, M, W, Sun 3 p.m.
I stared. “She doesn’t live in Hungry Heart Row or even Rowbury. Why are they playing her film?”
We walked away, but I couldn’t help glancing back at the theater. Was it my imagination, or did I see someone ducking down in the box office window?
* * *
“I’ve been here, at the same exact spot, for eight years.” The hot dog vendor passed a cardboard tray containing a bun-less sausage and coleslaw to Ranvir. “But that day is seared in my memory. The police wouldn’t stop asking questions. Yes, I saw the boy. Yes, he bought a hot dog. And fries. Can’t forget the fries. And yes, he walked that way to the theater.”
He pointed behind him across the park. And then nodded into the camera. “That’s all. That’s how much I want to say.”
I paused the recording. “Can I get you to say what you think happened? I might not use it, but it’s just always good to get extra footage.” I smiled big in what I hoped was a polite way.
“A’right.” The large man sighed, looking odd doing so, with his bushy blond beard and head of golden hair covered in food-preparation netting. Odd, like a lion ensnared by a flimsy net. “I actually think Barnaby ate his dinner, wasn’t planning on going to the movie—you know what was playing that night? Love at Last, that’s what—and then—”
“What does that mean?” Ranvir pressed, leaving his hot dog untouched while he listened. “Why couldn’t he have been going to see Love at Last? Because he’s a guy?”
“No, no.” The hot dog man shook his head. “Because it had been sold out, with all that buzz. And our theater is tiny. There’s no way he could have gotten a ticket last minute.”
“Then why did the ticket vendor say he went to the movie?” I asked.
“That’s where I differ with what some of the locals say and that’s why the police buy my story. I don’t think he went to see Love at Last.” He looked right into the camera. “Barnaby left home. He had my hot dog before he left. End of story.”
Delilah walked over from the halal food cart, two gyro sandwiches in her hands, and passed me one. I unwrapped it and took a bite while staring at Ginkgo Street.
* * *
“All my friends liked you very much. They want you to make a movie at each Thursday Club.” Valimma was making tea for me. I don’t know why, but I only drank tea when Valimma made it. It tasted fuller for some reason. Or was it richer? Anyway, it was only good when Valimma’s hand held the spoon that stirred the tea leaves and water and milk and sugar.
“That would be nice, recording all your club meets, except that the film I’m working on is due in two weeks, Valimma.” I reached with both my hands for the mug she held out. “Maybe I shouldn’t even enter.”
“Why? You always do the film contest, moleh.” She brought her own mug to the table where I was clicking on the video clips I’d already recorded.
“I don’t know why but I’m not feeling it. Maybe it’s because I’m not in my old neighborhood.” I wondered if I should get into it with Valimma, this not enjoying Hungry Heart Row. “I didn’t really want to move.”
“But you used to love coming here! From when you were little.” She picked up a crunchy biscuit that was more like dried bread than a cookie and dunked it into her tea. “You’d beg your dad, ‘Can we move here?’ That was why he thought you would all be happy.”
Yes. This was true. But that was because those were short-and-sweet visits.
Now this was supposed to be forever.
“Yeah, but it’s not home.” I tried not to look at her mouth, which slackened a bit at what I’d just said. “I’ll get used to it. Anyway, I’m so happy you’re living with us now. I get to have your tea every day if I want!”
The mouth turned up slightly. “Ah, yes. You love my tea. Do you know why?”
“Why?” I sipped the tea to test its temperature.
“Because I want you to love it.” Valimma dunked the rest of her biscuit in and paused before biting into it. “That’s how you’ll learn to love Hungry Heart Row.”
She said the last part matter-of-factly and confidently. I waited for her to finish her thought, but that was it. She continued eating her biscuit, looking through the stack of supermarket flyers as she did each Tuesday.
Was Valimma saying that I had to want to love Hungry Heart Row to like it here?
That wasn’t going to happen any time soon.
* * *
Twenty minutes of footage. That was all I had. And that included the grainy video clips from the security camera, each of which simply showed a white teen, indistinguishable really except maybe for an overly large baseball hat, walking on the sidewalk across from Franklin’s Hardware. Always time-stamped around two a.m., like Franklin had said.
I rubbed my eyes. Because I definitely couldn’t work at home with boxes everywhere, I had taken refuge in one of the Rowbury library’s quiet rooms. It was nice in here, wood paneled on two sides, windowed to the outside behind me and, in front, an all-glass wall facing into the library.
I’d been at it for two hours, trying to see what I could do to cobble a film together. And how any of the things I’d heard were connected to the Barnaby Bennett at Daily Harvest.
It was Thursday morning already, and in a week’s time I’d need to be editing, because, in another week’s time, reality hit via the film festival submission deadline.
I slid my headphones off to stare out of the glass wall, wondering what else I could film.
I was so lost in thought that it took me a while to register what I was looking at about thirty feet directly across from me, near the check-out desk: a camera, held waist high. Before I could see a face, the person holding the camera abruptly turned around and walked through the turnstiles, out of the building.
Something was familiar about the figure that had just exited.
I left my things and went to the check-out counter. A teen of South Asian background, like me, beamed at me under her short hair. NEHA said her name tag, under which was written with a Sharpie [that’s NAY-HA] 
. “Can I help you?”
“Yes, you can.” I leaned in, feeling strange at what I was about to do. “Um, but it’s a weird question.”
“I like weird.” Neha beamed again. “Let’s hear it.”
“Was that person standing here just now, um, was she holding a camera or something?” I whispered.
“Yes, actually, she was. She’s got special permission from the library. But don’t worry—she’s not focusing on faces. Just our ambience. If you’re not okay with it, I can tell her to not use the footage she just took?” Neha raised helpful eyebrows.
“No, it’s okay.” I waved a hand, half in appreciation, half in good-bye. “Thanks. Thanks, Neha.”
I went back to the quiet room.
I was sure I’d just seen Gabrielle Rose.
Filming me.
* * *
Delilah picked up immediately. “You’re calling me? You never call me, Hania! We’re text-only friends.”
“I think I know what GR is up to. Hear me out, okay?” I walked down Dill Street, glancing around, wondering where Gabrielle was now. She’d left the library only five minutes ago. “Somehow she’s in Hungry Heart Row. Somehow she’s filming me. Somehow I’m part of her film. I know it.”
“Filming you? Um, why?” Delilah sounded incredulous.
“She was in the library when I was in there working. With a camera aimed at me. Maybe I’m the subject of her ‘meta’ film.”
“Are you sure it was her?”
“Yes. Hundred percent sure.” I saw a café on my right, and an idea struck me. “Wait, I’m going to make it two hundred percent sure. I’ll call you back.”
With a latte for strength, I sat at a table inside the café and got my laptop out of my backpack. As I was about to put it down, something else was set in its place on the smooth marble-looking tabletop.
Atop a square of robin’s-egg-blue paper, a single pastry: cream colored and round, with a center, round as well, that was darker, almost brown.
“Hi, I’m Lila.” The speaker was a girl my age with neat bangs and wide eyes. She held a small box that was stamped PANADERÍA PASTELERÍA, the same kind of box holding the cookies Franklin had offered us at the hardware store. “I think you need an ojo de buey. It’s from my bakery. For you.”
Each of her sentences was a statement spoken softly but with certainty. I looked down at the pastry.
Well, I was hungry, and this looked so good. I reached for it. “Thanks so much.”
I realized there was no one around to receive my thanks. The girl was gone, the only evidence that she’d been here being the now empty box she’d left on the corner of the table. Taking a bite into the delicious doughy texture, I peered at the phone number on the box. Maybe I could call her later to thank her.
I booted up my laptop and opened the State Film Fest awards-day clip on YouTube.
There was a shot of me being called up for second place. And then there was the announcement for first, and there was Gabrielle Rose.
I narrowed my eyes, rewinding and pausing at the mark where the camera panned Gabrielle as she was getting up from her folding chair to come onstage.
A boy with an extra-large baseball hat was beside Gabrielle Rose, smiling at her while clapping.
The exact same person on Franklin’s security camera.
Barnaby.
* * *
Barnaby is Gabrielle’s FRIEND.
Two chat bubbles immediately showed up in reply to my text.
WHAT? HOW? Ranvir.
CRAZY! THIS MEANS YOU CHOSE THE RIGHT TOPIC Delilah.
What if she’s setting me up? To film this missing-boy thing? While SHE films ME? Her META film? I lowered the phone, scanning the café.
I’d glanced around when I first entered, but what if Gabrielle had come in when I was preoccupied? Just like that PANADERÍA PASTELERÍA girl had snuck up on me before?
A guy in the corner was looking over here, his phone positioned on top of his table as though . . . as though he were filming me?
I stared at him unblinkingly, and he lowered his phone. Could he be working with GR?
OMG, I was losing it.
I packed up and left the café, turning left on Caper Street, heading home, refusing to look around.
But a block before reaching the street I lived on, when a group of teens spilled onto the sidewalk behind me from an alley between a row of town houses, I decided to make a sudden duck into the doorway of a restaurant on Pepper Street.
I waited, and, sure enough, Gabrielle walked by.
The only good thing: Her hands were camera-less.
I opened the door to the restaurant. A deluge of smells hit me, one of them a déjà vu to my senses.
Three food stalls were in front of me, two manned by elderly women and the third by a teen.
Suddenly I was ravenous, not just hungry, like when I’d eaten the pastry. The girl, in the closest stall, stared at me from the register. “Yes?”
I looked at the display board behind her. ADOBO.
“Can I get an order of shrimp adobo? And rice?” I said. “To go?”
“Yep.” The girl punched it in without taking her eyes off me. “You’ve had it before?”
“Yes. A friend of my grandmother’s made it for us. Just last week.”
“And you’re back for more of Lola Simeona’s food.” The girl smiled. “May it be exactly what you need.”
She headed to a door behind her.
I was perplexed. This was the third time today someone had said something about food being needed by me. People in Hungry Heart Row seemed to have a weird obsession with food.
But I had to admit it was all soo good. The food here.
Maybe food was what I needed to solve the weirdness happening around my film. And what was happening around Barnaby Bennett, missing in some places and not in others.
Maybe it all had to do with Hungry Heart Row, the people here. And the food?
I glanced at the display board again. SOUP NO. 5.
SERVED 9 A.M. TO 2 A.M.
I closed my eyes, because there was something about two a.m. I couldn’t shake.
* * *
Today was Thursday so that meant Thursday club again. Valimma poured the remainder of the thin dosa batter on the griddle and spread it with the back of a wooden spoon, round and round until it filled the whole black surface. She waited a bit and then brushed the thin, crepelike top with oil. After flipping it to sear it quickly, she removed it from the heat and added it to the stack of dosas in a large-mouthed insulated container.
On the counter was a large Tupperware with sambar—vegetables stewed with lentils and spices—being stared at by me, my hand holding the plastic lid aloft. “Valimma, how many vegetables are there in this thing? I see seven.”
“Nine, actually, moleh. The dosa is simple, subtle, so the sambar has to be complex and strong. Mix it, and it’s good together.” Valimma dried her washed hands on a dishcloth and then smiled. “I used to play that game with your father. How many vegetables in this food? He was so careful with his guesses that he always got it correct.”
“Always? No wonder he’s an accountant.” I snapped the lid on the sambar and picked up the foam container of adobo shrimp I’d bought. I scooped a shrimp up with my fingers and dipped my head back to drop it in. The intensity smothered my tongue. “Oh, wow, strong.”
“You need the rice. For balance,” Valimma said, opening the rice container, a spoon in hand. “Rice is good. Open.”
I obliged, but not before I laid another shrimp on the portion of rice being held out. I savored it, smiling at Valimma as one of her oft-repeated phrases came to me. “Bountiful flavor.”
“That’s right. And you didn’t want to try Simeona’s food before, when you first saw it. On the day you moved here.” Valimma tsked me. “Any time someone makes something for YOU, you have to try it. Just a tiny bit even.”
“Even if you know you’re not going to like it for sure?”
“Even then. Remember, that’s how you’ll love it here. Your new home.”
“By eating people’s food?” I laughed. “Is that what Hungry Heart Row is all about? Food?”
“Yes and no,” Valimma said. “The people here want you to love what they offer. And if they want to show you love through food, you let them know you see it. And then you show love back the best way you know how. That’s home.”
I reached for more shrimp adobo, trying to make out what she was saying. It was kind of confusing, but I nodded, because maybe it was one of those things only Valimma understood after living and loving it here, her neighborhood.
“Let’s go now. You can eat more at Margaret’s. She is so very excited you’re coming over,” Valimma said, picking up her purse. “I think today will be a fancy Thursday Club.”
“Good, because I need more film footage.” I carried the bag with the food Valimma had made to the foyer and set it down beside my camera backpack. “And Margaret’s good on camera.”
“She wanted you to meet her granddaughter, but she’s working today.”
“Oh, at the theater?” I paused from lacing up my sneakers. “Maybe I’ll see her. I was thinking of watching something there this weekend.”
“We’ll invite them over one day too.” Valimma grabbed the food bag before I could. “She spends her summers here with her grandmother.”
* * *
Crocheted doilies. Pastel walls. Flowery curtains.
The setting of Gabrielle’s film Home Is confronted me when I stepped into Margaret’s living room.
Gabrielle’s face stared from a large framed photo on the mantel above the fireplace.
Gabrielle Rose.
She was connected to Hungry Heart Row.
She was Margaret’s granddaughter?
AND she was definitely connected to the missing Barnaby Bennett.
She was the last person to have seen him last year—at the movie theater.
Either she was just filming me making a film on him . . .
Or she had something to hide.
The only thing to do now was to ask Gabrielle directly what exactly was going on.
Maybe it was time to go to a Sunday matinee, maybe watch her film again, and afterward, just ask her the truth point-blank.
Because there was a weird truth going on—connected, but also all tangled up somehow.
But it wasn’t just linked to Gabrielle.
It was also connected to Hungry Heart Row itself.
* * *
I was the only person in the theater to watch Gabrielle Rose’s winning film.
It had been odd buying a ticket, with Gabrielle’s eyes on mine, a mixture of familiarity and secrecy in them.
All the lights suddenly turned off before I got to the best seat—the one smack-dab in the middle of the upper row—but I continued moving in the dark until I reached the prime spot.
Once seated, I blindly unrolled the top of the slim bag of barbecue-flavored popcorn I’d brought.
The darkness of the theater was so absolute that I felt like sound had disappeared too.
Then, with a sudden crackle, the light from the projector flipped on.
The screen ahead filled with a white square.
A flickering white square, now turning gray.
Then—a frozen gray square, no sound.
Gabrielle Rose walked in front of the screen.
I drew up my phone and began recording. I wanted everything on film.
“Thanks for coming to watch my film. Unfortunately, there’s a glitch, so . . . so instead, I wanted to tell you something.”
“You were filming me making a film,” I said. “You were being clever.”
“No, I wasn’t.” Gabrielle put a hand at her forehead to block some of the light shining on her from the projector. “Though that would have been cool.”
“Who’s the boy on the security camera?”
“That’s what I want to explain.” Gabrielle walked to her left and began climbing the aisle steps. “About him.”
I tilted the phone and followed the faint figure coming nearer, realizing the closer Gabrielle came, the less that could be seen of her.
“Is he the lost boy?” If I kept her talking, at least there would be sound captured that I could use. For The Legend of Hungry Heart Row’s Lost Boy.
Or whatever this film was becoming now. Or—I slumped in my seat—not becoming.
“No.” Gabrielle was almost at my row now. “He’s not.”
Before she got too close, she sat down abruptly, two seats away. “He’s not the lost boy because he’s not lost.”
I kept filming.
“It’s Barnaby. He ran away from a horrendous home situation.” Gabrielle sunk her face into her hands. “I helped him. Because I knew him from summers working here. He loved watching movies, they were his escape, so I let him in free. That day he disappeared or whatever, he came into the movie theater and exited that door over there in the corner, in the middle of the movie. He took the crosstown bus right outside.”
“From the bus stop at Nettle and Caraway,” I said. “But if he ran away, why does he keep getting caught on camera?”
She sighed again. “You know Old Manila? The Filipino restaurant on Pepper Street?”
“The Soup Number Five place?”
She looked at me weirdly. “How—”
“Adobo? Three stalls?”
“Yes, that place. Lola Teodora sells this dish called kare-kare, and two winters ago, Barnaby became convinced that eating it at lunch every day was making him braver and braver. So brave that he made the decision to leave home.”
I thought about it. There it was, the food thing again.
Does everyone here believe food affects us so much?
Well, that ojo pastry thing from Panadería Pastelería had gotten me thinking clearly.
But.
I shook my head. “Wait. What does Barnaby eating at the Filipino restaurant have to do with him being caught on camera so much now?”
“Well, he wasn’t just getting braver, he was also unloading his story on the lolas, the three women who run Old Manila. They offered him a job washing dishes after hours so he could save enough money to one day make it on his own. He still comes by in the middle of the night to wash and then leaves before the restaurant opens again in the morning.”
I guess that’s why he’d stopped coming to the meal service, Daily Harvest. He’d needed it when he first disappeared and was on his own but then, the lolas had helped him get on his feet.
My film idea was completely shot, but I’d found Barnaby. And this made me weirdly happy.
Because in finding him, I’d found something else, too. I’d found out a lot about Hungry Heart Row. The kind of home it was.
It felt okay being in a place where someone showed up to give you a pastry when you needed it. Or a job. And bravery. And deep friendships built around food, like Valimma had.
I stopped filming and turned on my phone’s flashlight instead. “Is he okay now?”
Gabrielle looked at me. “He’s safe, happier now. He’s with another friend’s family.”
“So why were you following me?” I pulled the phone under my chin to light up my face, creepily. “And filming me in the library?”
“I wasn’t. When my grandma told me you were making a movie on Barnaby, I started getting worried—but not film-competition-wise. Just my-friend-Barnaby-wise. And I guess I tried to see if I could talk to you about it. I’m actually doing a film on . . .” She paused, looked at me, and then burst out laughing. “Okay, I’ll tell you. You’re so funny-looking right now, with the light like that. I’m doing a film on the vibrancy of Hungry Heart Row. Like a pure soundscape film, quiet noises of the library, loud noises of the markets. Just form over story.”
I smirked in the light. I couldn’t wait to get home and tell Bilal that Gabrielle had arrived at my original film idea.
“But now I’m thinking . . . meta would have been good. Me filming you. You not knowing,” Gabrielle mused.
I turned to the gray square on the screen in front of us, seemingly frozen in anticipation of the film to come.
“Well, we caaan still do that if you want,” I said, something new, a feeling I’d never felt, growing inside me. It was erasing the previous anxiety I’d felt—at the deadline for the film, the move here, everything.
Hope. That was the feeling.
Maybe we didn’t have to compete. Maybe we could just do our films Hungry Heart Row style.
“What do you mean?” Her voice sounded open.
“Maybe we can mix it up. Me finding out about Hungry Heart Row, my new home, you chasing sounds, filming me getting used to this place, especially its food. Combine it all. One film, two directors. Simple yet complex.” I said all this to the screen, afraid to look at her.
Then I just had to see her face, so I turned.
Gabrielle was gazing at the gray screen ahead too, seeing what could be, the light of my phone showing a faint smile growing on her nodding face.
And then, just like that, I got what Valimma had been trying to tell me before about Hungry Heart Row: People here wanted you to love what they offered. They wanted it so much.
And if you saw this, saw how much this want was, your part in the whole thing would just fall into place: You’d love back.
I offered Gabrielle a bag of bountiful flavor. “Popcorn?”