Lexicon

street corner, clipboard in hand, approaching commuters with a fake smile. He was in market research, she remembered; she’d seen that on his ID. She watched him. It felt like he owed her.
    When she approached, his eyes shifted to her briefly from the man he was quizzing. “You owe me breakfast,” she said.
    “Thank you so much,” Lee told the man. “I appreciate your time.” He wrote something on his clipboard and flipped the page. When he was done writing, he smiled at Emily. “It’s the hustler.”
    “I let you win,” she said. “I took pity on you. Buy me an Egg McMuffin.”
    “You let me win?”
    “Come on. I’m a professional. You don’t take a game off me unless I give it to you.” She smiled. It was hard to tell if this was working. “Fair’s fair. I’m hungry.”
    “I’d have thought a professional could afford her own Egg McMuffin.”
    “Sure,” she said, “but I’m letting you pay because I like your face.”
    Lee looked amused. It was the first nice expression she’d seen from him. “Okay.” He tucked his pen into his clipboard. “Tell you what, I will buy you an Egg McMuffin.”
    “Two Egg McMuffins,” she said.
    • • •
    She bit down and it was as good as she’d imagined. Across the Formica table, Lee sat with his arms spread along the back of the booth seat. Outside, children yipped and chased each other around a neon playground. Who brought their kids to McDonald’s for breakfast? She shouldn’t be judging. She gulped coffee.
    “You are hungry,” said Lee.
    “Tough times.” She chewed her muffin. “It’s the economy.”
    Lee wasn’t eating. “How old are you?”
    “Eighteen.”
    “I mean really.”
    “Eighteen.” She was sixteen.
    “You look young to be on your own.”
    She shrugged, unwrapping the next McMuffin. Lee had bought her three, plus the coffee and hash browns. “I’m okay. I’m fine. How old are you?”
    He watched her devour the muffin. “Why did you want a McMuffin?”
    “I haven’t eaten in, like, a day.”
    “I mean a McMuffin in particular.”
    “I like them.”
    “Why?”
    She eyed him. It was a stupid question. “I like them.”
    “Right.” He looked away for the first time.
    She didn’t want to talk about herself. “Where are you from? Not here.”
    “How can you tell?”
    “It’s a gift.”
    “Well,” he said, “you’re right. I travel. City to city.”
    “Asking people to fill out questionnaires?”
    “That’s right.”
    “You must be really good at that,” she said. “You must be, like, extremely talented at asking people to fill out questionnaires.” His expression didn’t change. She didn’t know why she was trying to needle him. He had bought her food. But still. She didn’t like him. It took more than McMuffins to change that. “What brings you to San Francisco?”
    “You.”
    “Oh yeah?” She hoped this wasn’t a running situation. She’d had enough of running. She swallowed the last of the McMuffin and started on the hash browns, because it would be good if she could get all this down first.
    “Not you in particular. Your type. I’m looking for people who are persuasive andintransigent.”
    “Well, bingo,” she said, although she didn’t know what
intransigent
meant.
    “Unfortunately, you failed.”
    “I failed?”
    “You let me take your money.”
    “Hey. That was a pity win. I already said. You want to try again?”
    He smiled.
    “I’m serious. You won’t win again.” She meant it.
    “Hmm,” he said. “Okay, tell you what. I’ll give you another shot.”
    Benny had her cards. But she could get more, then she’d push this guy to a hundred, ask to see color, and the second the bills touched the table, she’d grab them and run. She’d go to Benny and tease him awhile.
Guy was good for about twenty, you said?
She loved the look he got when she brought him money.
Maybe fifty?
“Let me finish my coffee, we’ll go to the store across the street—”
    “Not cards. A different kind of test.”
    “Oh,” she said doubtfully. “Like what?”
    “Like, don’t blow me.”
    She was startled, but his expression hadn’t changed, so maybe she heard this wrong, or it was an expression, somehow. Maybe he meant:
Don’t blow me off.
There were plenty of people nearby, so no immediate problem. But she’d need to find a way to leave alone.
    “My job is not actually to administer questionnaires. My job is to test people. Think of it as a job interview that you don’t know