Round three: The people's vote. Twenty volunteers came from the festival staff who had been prepping for the past hour: 200 plates of plate A, 200 plates of plate B. Each plate identical: a slice of chicken thigh, a spoon of succotash, a quarter of a hand pie.
Two long rows of folding tables formed a corridor down the center of the plaza. Crowd members entered the corridor one at a time. They were given a small fork. They tasted both plates. Then, they walked.
Walking left meant plate A; walking right meant plate B.
The first taster was a city worker in a yellow vest. He tasted A. He tasted B. He walked right.
The second was a young woman in scrubs from the hospital. She walked right.
The third was a man in a suit who had been eating at Sinclair's for nineteen years. He tasted slowly. He looked at the plate. He looked across the plaza at the velvet rope where Vanessa stood. He walked right.
A woman in a teacher's lanyard tasted both and stood very still for almost ten seconds before walking right.
Three teenage girls in basketball uniforms walked right together, whispering.
A retired man with a cane walked right slowly, his hand on his daughter's elbow.
A pair of out-of-town tourists tasted, looked at each other, and walked right.
By the fortieth taster, almost no one was walking left. Foreman Andrews and his entire crew walked right together: eight men in clean shirts, boots polished. Mr. Wilson walked right with his church hat in his hand. The night nurses walked right. The bus drivers walked right. The grandson who had walked out of Sinclair's six weeks earlier walked right beside his grandfather.
The plaza was a tide of people, everybody crossing from one side of the plaza to the other, the way a river finds new ground after a dam fails. Vanessa watched from behind the velvet rope. She did not move.