The Five Steps | Jensoo

Chapter 26

Jisoo

Still floating from watching Chaeyoung kick some absolute ass on the rugby pitch yesterday, I follow the groups of students across the quad until I catch sight of a mini street fair. I can already smell the food cooking as I walk through the grass, getting a peek of a woman dangling from two long ribbons of fabric attached to a pole fifteen feet above the ground.

There's an ocean of sweaty students, all stuffed into picnic tables set up in the middle of the street. There are about thirty white tents on either side of them, giving out free samples and selling art. On the opposite end of the street the food vendors are lined up along the wooden barriers blocking traffic from coming through.

My phone buzzes in my hand and I raise it to find my mum calling for the second time today. I talked to her for a couple of minutes this morning but she started asking all kinds of questions about Chaeyoung and whether we had "linked up" yet. It's like she thinks that's the only reason I could be busy.

Then I tried to switch topics to tell her about the food trucks on campus but that didn't go so well either. After I mentioned Rules would be here I could practically hear her curling her lip up as she told me to be careful what I ordered since "you never know what they put in that stuff."

What a fucked up thing to say. Not that I haven't heard it from her before. My blood was practically boiling under my skin so I ended the conversation pretty quickly. And I'm not about to go for round two so I send her straight to voicemail.

I head toward the food vendors where the crowd is much thinner. I'm not here for whatever is in the tents or to watch a woman twist herself around on a couple of ribbons. I'm just here to see...

That.

Jennie hangs out the window of a black food truck at the back of the line, the generator growling loudly as it struggles to power everything. They're not very busy, only a couple of people waiting in line to order.

When she told me her food truck was working at the fair today, I had to see it for myself. Plus, she promised she could score me a free cheesesteak if I came at closing time.

I'm five minutes early so I grab a seat off to the side on the curb to watch Jennie work.

There's something about seeing her serve the public that makes me chuckle.

I mean, I wasn't expecting anything glamorous but it looks like it's... actually pretty tough. From the sweat beading Jennie's face, I'd say it's even hotter than it looks in there.

And then there's her boss who looks a little grumpy and sterner than she let on. I watch him hop down off the back of the truck, light up a cigarette, and basically shotgun his secondhand smoke right into the face of a customer who just picked up his food.

I look back at Jennie who has a very fake customer service smile and grin plastered on.The customers probably don't know it's fake but I do. I've gotten pretty good at reading her the last few weeks. I watch as she takes an upperclassman's order at the window, asking for his first name along with it. He reaches into the back pocket of his jeans and hands over some cash for the order.

"Well you've got my name. You want my number too babe?" he asks, grabbing on to his oversize belt buckle like he's the campus sheriff.

I wait for her to flirt with him, to brush her long brown hair behind one ear and charm him into leaving a big tip. But instead she drops the phony smile, giving him an almost despondent look that I've seen only once before.

It's the way she looked at me before rugby tryouts, when she talked about how people treat her like a "bimbo" because she looks the way she does. I've never given much thought to how people thinking you're hot could possibly be a negative but... clearly it can suck around assholes like this. Or even not total assholes. I jumped to conclusions about her which after seeing this... makes me feel even crappier. I didn't treat her much better than Belt Buckle is.