Page 11 of The Secret Dinner

“And what now?” Miguel asked, sitting on the floor with his long legs crisscrossed, like he was getting ready to meditate.

I was lying on the couch, my head on a pillow, running my index finger along the rim of my wineglass, while my brain searched for possible solutions to the mess we were in.

“Dante, how about asking your parents for help?” Hugo began, gnawing on his cuticles. It was his way of feeding his thoughts. “I think they would be happy to give you the money.”

“We’ve got to figure this out on our own.”

“Quit being so proud,” Miguel said.

“It’s not that. I don’t want to run to mommy every time things go south. She holds it over me, I don’t want to feel indebted to that woman. I’m independent now. We all are, we’re all adults here!”

“Well, it’s not exactly an option to ask my mom, is it?” Hugo said. “My family’s not as well-off as yours, Dante.”

I caught a whiff of envy in his voice. He’d had a humble upbringing; his dad was a bricklayer and his mom a homemaker. He despised his origins and rarely spoke to his parents, even on the phone. His dad beat his mom, who could never leave her husband. She’d call now and again, but Hugo always asked me to make up an excuse so he wouldn’t have to answer. Even though I found his behavior petty, I understood his reasons.

Hugo’s parents weren’t very happy when, back in Pingo d’Água, he started getting tattoos, growing his hair long, and getting piercings in his ears and septum. They liked it even less when he decided to go to culinary school—it was no profession for a man, and it didn’t pay well. Hugo held a grudge because my dad owned a prominent notary office and my mom, even though she was from the countryside, accepted me as I was. All Hugo wanted was to be accepted. His arrogance always felt like a defense mechanism to me. It was the way he’d found to shield himself from the world, especially from his father. He’d rather live alone at the top of his artsy-fartsy castle than risk getting hurt.

We sat in silence for a few seconds.

“Why don’t we try to get the money back from Cora?” said Miguel.

“She’ll never give it back,” I said. “It’s her job.”

“Then there’s no other way. Unless we pool our savings. I have about three thousand saved up for emergencies.”

“You can’t use that money. Piglet’s the one who got us into this mess. Let him figure it out!”

Miguel had been saving up to help his mother, Mirtes, who’d been diagnosed with stomach cancer and had undergone surgery the previous year. She’d worked as a housekeeper for my family since I was little and had practically raised me.

“It’s our problem too, Dante,” he said, with meditative calm. “I can put that money in the pot, no problem. You, Hugo, and Piglet will pitch in, too. We’ll get there. Don’t sweat it.”

“Don’t sweat it?! We’re talking almost twenty-six thousand!”

“So what do you want to do?” Hugo asked. “Rob a bank?”

“We can pick up part-time jobs on the weekends.”

“Dante, the country is in a recession!” said Hugo, slamming his fist on the floor. “Businesses are firing people, not hiring! What are we going to do? Use Bukowski to drive Uber?”

“I don’t know, I was just spitballing.”

Hugo stood up and paced quietly back and forth. Once he’d finished gnawing off all his cuticles, he grinned, waving his index finger in the air.

“Wait, I’ve got an idea.” He spat a cuticle out the window. “Last year, I read about a website called DinnerWith that was getting popular abroad. The idea of the site was to do a cultural exchange, but through food, inside regular peoples’ homes. Like, you go to a random country on vacation and have dinner at someone’s house, interact with the locals and try some home-cooked food—”

“Sounds cool,” interrupted Miguel, who was immediately shot down by Hugo’s glare.

“You know I hate all these foodie trends,” he went on, pouring himself some more wine. “Gastronomy is a science of the gods, an art for the few. But now there’s all these people out there pretending to be chefs. People who watched a few episodes of Top Chef and think they know how to cook. Man, I hate all those shows, especially the Brazilian versions.”

“What’s the idea, Hugo?”

“I read something the other day about a Brazilian version of DinnerWith. SecretDinner.co. It’s for anyone who has a little culinary talent and wants to earn some extra cash without having to open up a restaurant. The idea is to connect these people to folks who are willing to eat at a stranger’s house, like a kind of culinary adventure. I was curious, so I checked it out and the whole thing seems pretty legit. It’s simple, you just create an account and then you can propose a dinner.”

“Propose a dinner?”

“Yeah, you post the menu, time and date, the neighborhood, the maximum number of people, and the price per head. So, whoever’s interested—if anyone’s interested—pays and then they get the address by email. They don’t tell you beforehand to keep out gate-crashers.”

“And does it work?”