Seduction

The fish & chip place was across from the community centre, next to the plaza. To get there, I had to walk down Lauralynn, around the corner on to Dennet, past the church, down Glen Watford and into the newly built, square, stand-alone building that housed the fish & chips shop. 

When I pulled open the heavy glass door and stepped inside, the smell of deep-fry filled my nose. Not something I was used to, but it was appealing and surrounded me in a warm greasy hug.

I had a coin, which I put up onto the counter. I don't remember if it was a nickel or a dime, but whatever it was, it was exactly enough to buy a cone of french-fries. Me, I was six…seven…eight? Let’s just say, by today’s standards, I was alarmingly young. 

I don’t remember my age, but I do remember the golden french-fries nestled together in their scorching hot paper cone glistening with oil and sparkling with salt. I took my cone outside into the fresh air and blew on the chips, trying to cool them down before I dared pop one in my mouth.

If you eat a french-fry too hot, it lodges somewhere between your lungs and your rib cage like a bullet, which, I think you’ll agree, spoils the whole experience. 

I don’t remember walking home. And I don’t remember how I knew about the fish & chips store’s existence in the first place. Who took me there on my maiden voyage? 

Certainly not my parents. They weren’t takeout food types.

A clue, is the proximity of the fish & chips restaurant to the smoke shop in the plaza. My sisters definitely introduced me to the magic of the smoke shop, where open boxes of penny-candy were set out on the top of a pop cooler like drugs in a den of iniquity. 

Forget the fish, a sister must have taken me for chips the first time. That’s how we do it. That’s how we show each other how.

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