Page 14 of The Secret Dinner

Without another word, Piglet clicked on the Statement Balance icon. It took a few seconds for the page to load, then the following appeared on the screen: R$30,000.00.

“Wait, what? You were lying? You didn’t spend our money?”

“Guess again, babe. I’ve uncovered a gold mine!” he cried, taking a hit from the joint pursed between his lips. “Remember that riddle you told us about the seagull meat?”

I nodded, still not understanding.

“I don’t know why, man, but that stuck in my head,” Piglet said. “So, like, as a prank, I decided to mess with the registration form Hugo asked me to fill out on SecretDinner.co. Instead of charging five hundred a head, I set the price at three thousand. And … instead of saying there would be lamb with a vodka and green apple reduction, I said there would be … human meat. Human flesh with a vodka and green apple reduction. Get it now?”

I felt my knees buckle and had to lean against the back of the chair to keep from falling to the floor. Miguel massaged his temples with his left hand.

“I thought that shit would get taken down by admins in a matter of minutes … I was just messing around,” Piglet explained ecstatically. “But you’re not gonna believe this, I went on the site half an hour later and people were already signing up. More than ten people were interested, Dante. People willing to pay a fortune. Thirty thousand reals in half an hour. So, how do you like that, kiddo?”

7

I just wanted to take my Klonopin and forget about the world. I wanted it all to be a big prank, a bad joke. Human flesh with vodka and green apple reduction; three thousand per person. That was supposed to be funny?

“Why the hell did you do that?” shouted Miguel.

“It was just a joke. Because of the seagull meat riddle.”

“A joke? What if the cops saw it?”

Already Miguel was worried about the police.

“They’ve got more important shit to do. It was just a joke. Imagine if the cops went after every little thing people post online.”

Still feeling dizzy, I sat on the bed, on the part that looked the least filthy, with fewer beer stains or ash. Miguel was clearly shaken, so I needed to act rationally.

“Let’s just try to calm down.”

“A dinner serving human flesh, Dante! Of course somebody will report it!”

Piglet got out of his chair, moving at the speed of a tortoise, and put out his joint in the ashtray.

“Get out of my room, Miguel. I’m tired of hearing you whining in my ear.”

“You’re the one who got us into this mess!” he said, grabbing Piglet by the shoulders and shaking him violently. “You’re the one who decided to advertise a dinner with human flesh online! Can’t you do one thing right?”

“I created a fake email account for the registration,” he replied proudly. “You didn’t actually think I’d do something like that with my real email, did you? Nobody’s going to find us.”

I tried hard to sound nonchalant:

“I’m sure the admins have taken it down by now.”

“Yeah, they did.”

“See? There’s nothing to be scared of.” I put my arm around Miguel’s waist, since I couldn’t reach his shoulder. “Have a glass of water, take a deep breath. We’ll post again later with the lamb dinner, and everything’ll be fine.”

Miguel thought for a few seconds before slowly nodding, then left the room. I looked around the pigsty of a bedroom, which smelled especially bad that evening, like sweaty clothes, filthy socks, and rotting food.

“So we’re not going to do the dinner?” Piglet asked me.

It all seemed so absurd to me that I didn’t even consider that he was being serious. I closed my eyes and smiled, joking along with him. “You’re hopeless. You know that, right?”

He repeated his question, this time with obvious frustration in his voice.

“It’s thirty thousand reals, Dante. We can pay off the debt and still have some left over! We’re really not going to do this?”