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Kia Jackson stood at the back of the Oakwood Heights Grange Hall watching her assistant, Deja, set up an induction hob, a portable burner to hold the crepe pan and spreader where Kia could exhibit her craft.

Meanwhile she’d be making a persuasive argument for why the Oakwood Heights Neighborhood Association should sell her the green space called the Bois.

Several men and women of the indeterminable age of fit, rich, white people hovered next to her, each holding a water bottle stickered with their favorite causes.

SAVE THE DOLPHINS . SAVE THE RAINFOREST .

LOVE WINS . Outside, it had started raining, but it didn’t feel like a bad sign.

The grange hall turned event space hummed with welcoming, rustic charm.

Its high ceilings were adorned with exposed wooden beams, and the walls were lined with vintage barn wood.

Soft string lights hung along the walls.

In the center of the room, rows of metal folding chairs had been set up for the neighborhood association meeting, and people were milling around them shaking hands and hugging friends.

“You have absolutely nothing to worry about,” Save the Dolphins said.

The white people with liberal water bottles all belonged to the Oakwood Heights Neighborhood Association board. Save the Dolphins was the board chair.

A woman whose water bottle wanted to stop the I-5 bypass extension said, “We’ve already floated your plan, and the Oakwood Heights community is excited about bringing in food trucks.”

Kia was excited, too, although everything was moving so fast. Her heart rate hadn’t dropped below 110. She’d been living on jalapeno cotton candy.

“In some ways, this is just a formality,” the board chair added. “You’ll present your plan for Taste the Love Land.”

That was Kia’s long-held dream of owning land where food trucks could set up for weeks or years depending on their needs.

It could be a place for Kia to put down roots.

Growing up on a yacht with her father, she’d had love and security, scenery and adventure, everything she needed and more…

except a permanent address. For a long time, she’d thought she didn’t need an address, but more and more the open road had felt like the empty road.

“There will be time for community discussion and time for another buyer to put in a bid but—” The board chair raised a finger like Tony the Tiger preparing to declare, They’re grrreat!

“There’s nothing in the charter that says we have to advertise that we’re putting the land up for sale, so it’s just you. ”

A trio of women moved around them on their way to their seats. They inclined their heads in polite greeting, and the board introduced Kia as the developer we’re all excited about .

“Of course, if there’s a legacy landowner…” Love Wins said after the trio moved on.

The board had explained the situation before. If someone’s family had owned land in the neighborhood since its incorporation in the 1800s, they got an opportunity to buy any land jointly held by the association if the association decided to sell, and they got to buy it at fair market value.

“But don’t worry. The only legacy landowner left hasn’t been at a meeting for ages.”

“And couldn’t afford the land if they wanted it,” another board member added.

Kia pictured a wealthy, old man with a young blond wife and self-serving politics. She didn’t feel too bad about buying the land out from under him, not that he—whoever he was—had expressed any interest.

“So unless the community wants to keep paying HOA dues on a plot of land no one uses”—the board chair smiled sympathetically—“it’s yours. Like your marketing manager said, this will give restaurateurs who’ve been pushed out by gentrification a second chance.”

Kia surveyed the grange hall filling up with people greeting each other and shaking rain off their coats. The smell of urn-brewed coffee scented the air. This could be her community, a brick-and-mortar home.

Kia’s ex-girlfriend turned marketing manager, Gretchen, had pitched Taste the Love Land to the board while Kia had been mounting the stage at the American Fare Awards.

With the help of investors who were excited to put their money into American Fare’s most charismatic winner, Kia would clear the land and build a food truck pod.

Food truck owners could rent, or they could be co-owners in the venture.

She’d have a covered pavilion, children’s play area, maybe a space for live music.

Most importantly, she’d make a place for people who needed it.

Young entrepreneurs without enough money for a startup.

Old restaurateurs pushed out by rising taxes or natural disasters.

She’d make a place for herself too because living on the road—one city after another, one fair after another—felt lonely.

It had all meant something when she was meeting real people and sampling local cuisine, promoting small businesses and hearing stories about life and love and struggle.

Now she’d achieved an influencer’s dream and got so many sponsors she barely had time to spend the money she made.

But it felt like all she did was hawk products without a chance to make real connections.

The grange hall was filling up. Deja had finished setting up for Kia’s cooking demonstration.

“Excuse us,” the board chair said. “I guess it’s time for us to sit.” The board made their way to their seats at a table at the front of the room.

The meeting started with minutes from the previous meeting and a brief announcement from the Social Committee. Kia hung back by the door, waiting to be called up.

“Now, we’d like to introduce our guest of honor,” the board chair said.

“As you know from our past few meetings, there’s been interest in selling the Bois.

I know we all recognize that the taxes and liability insurance on a property like that are expensive.

With the funds from the sale, we could pay off the association’s debts incurred by the unfortunate landslide two years ago.

As you know, we owe the city for subsidence abatement work they did for us.

And a sale could also prevent our dues from going up for several years.

But—” The board chair held up his hand as though someone had protested, which they hadn’t.

“Previously, we’ve foregrounded preserving the Bois as a green space, but interest in that cause has dwindled, and Ms. Kia Jackson…

why don’t you tell us why you think we should sell the Bois to you and your investors. ”

The crowd gave a polite round of applause. Time for Kia to do what she did best: charm. She had enough charm to get into the White House without a hall pass. Kia took a deep breath and took her place in front of the board’s table and behind the cooking station.

A month ago she was changing a flat tire on Old Girl—the name of her restored Gulf Stream RV—in Niobrara County, Wyoming, on her way to the Denver Fresh ’n’ Foodie Festival.

Then Gretchen was on the phone. You know that idea you had for a food truck pod?

I’ve found land you can buy, and you’ll have the money you need soon.

Food trucks are hot. Wait six months and everyone will be onto boba and Brazilian steak.

She’d thought they were making conversation.

You won the American Fare Award , Gretchen had said, like an afterthought.

American Fare will call you today. Before Kia could take that in, Gretchen had told her to make her move now or regret it for the rest of her life.

Here are the numbers for six investors. Charm them the way you do, and get them to give you the money.

Gretchen had been a passionless girlfriend; she was a passionate business partner.

Kia took out her phone and projected a slideshow onto the screen to the side of the table.

“This is Me’shell. She’s actually on her way to Portland right now. She sent this picture yesterday.”

The image showed a food truck parked in front of a motel, the words THE TROPICANA glowing incongruously against a backdrop of craggy mountains.

A few lumps of snow still lined the parking lot.

A dark-skinned Black woman stood with her arms crossed, cold and determined.

Next to her stood a teenage girl in a green sweater.

“Me’Shell cooks the best fish fry I’ve ever tasted.

Her daughter there, Crystal, she’s trans, and the places they’ve lived before this haven’t been friendly.

They needed to get out, but they didn’t have money, and they didn’t have a place to set up Me’Shell’s food truck.

Me’Shell and Crystal encouraged me to really visualize Taste the Love Land.

What if I created a place where talented food truck owners from around the country could set up?

Bring new cuisine. Build community. Belong.

I told Me’Shell about it one night while we were sitting by the water just watching the moon on the Everglades. ”

They’d actually met at a Waffle House because the Everglades was full of snakes large enough to eat Kia, and she was not going to die by being swallowed whole by a creature with ten thousand vertebrae. Sitting in the moonlit Everglades made a better story to present to the neighborhood association.

“Me’Shell said if I started Taste the Love Land—that’s what I want to call the food truck pod—she’d pack up her truck and her car and start driving that night. Well, I didn’t make a move that night, but when I won the American Fare Award—”

Another round of applause.

“—and investors got interested…” Kia gave the audience her best smile and moved to the next slide.

The next slide showed three white men in crew cuts and Army T-shirts, the youngest man in a wheelchair.

“This is Chet the Third, Chet Junior, and Chet Senior. I know, cute right? They go by Chet, Chaz, and Gramps. They’re a cooking family.

Always ran a food truck. They’re a military family too.

Three generations of service. When Chet Junior got injured, they wanted to find ways to make culinary work more accessible.

It’s almost impossible to find work as a chef if you’re paraplegic, but it doesn’t have to be like that.

The way Chaz explains it, if everyone had four arms and you only had two, folks would say, How could he possibly do the job?

Well, heck yeah, Chet Junior can do the job! Best barbecue. No cap.”

Next, she had a chef who’d lost his restaurant in Houston when his neighborhood gentrified. Then a pair of sisters who’d started a food truck while they were unhoused, sleeping on the floor of the truck and dreaming of a city that would appreciate their eccentric fusions.

Kia’s heart rate slowed as she advanced through the slides. These people were the reason why she’d drunk nothing but black coffee with coriander and mint syrup for days and was nearing dehydration.

“I’m fortunate.” Kia started winding down her speech.

“I’ve accomplished a lot, and that’s because of talent and hard work.

But the thing is… there are a lot of people who are talented and hardworking and don’t get where they want to be, not because they’re not worthy, not because they don’t deserve it.

They don’t have what I have in buckets—”

The end of that sentence was supposed to be luck .

She was going to follow that with, I’ve been blessed to have a great family with enough resources to support my dreams etc.

, etc. But not everyone has that, and so I want to build a place for people who are talented and hardworking but who haven’t had my privileges, etc.

She didn’t get to finish her sentence. The word luck died on her lips as someone crashed through the door at the back of the grange hall, muddy and out of breath as though she’d just run from a bear. (Or python. It could happen. They were everywhere.)

“Stop!” the woman gasped. “You can’t sell the Bois!”