The Summer of Jordi Perez (And the Best Burger in Los Angeles)

by Amy Spalding

  Maliah drops by after texting to see what I’m up to, and so this means two times in one week I get to see her without Trevor. I manage not to say that, though.

  “What’s today’s post?” she asks, hovering behind me with her iced coffee. I do a quick inventory of open browser tabs to make sure there’s nothing incriminating or even just weird. There is an article called How to Find the Best Underwear for Your Butt Type but I decide that’s universally relatable for most girls.

  “Midi skirts? Come on, Abby. No one looks good in midi skirts.”

  “Untrue, you just have to put together the right outfit,” I say. “And that’s totally the point of my post.”

  “You should post a photo of your black-and-white skirt,” she says. “When you wore it with the yellow belt and the button-up shirt? So cute.”

  I agree that it’s one of my better recent outfits, but Maliah should know better, and I tell her so.

  “I just don’t get it,” she says. “You are all about fashion. Every day. Why not let people see it? Real examples, instead of just talking about stuff and posting pictures from online stores?”

  “I reblog photos of street style all the time,” I say. “And people who do OOTD posts! That means ‘outfit of the day’.”

  “I know what it means by now, and you should be the one doing those posts.” Maliah sits down across from me and lets out a growly sort of sigh. “You look amazing, all the time.”

  “Can you imagine my mom’s reaction?” I ask. “‘Eat Healthy with Norah!’s Norah suspected of having a fat kid!’”

  Maliah rolls her eyes very forcefully. “No one would say that.”

  “A photo goes up of a teeny tiny actress who has, like, the hint of cellulite, and people line up to call her a cow.”

  “It’s not the same,” Maliah says. “You aren’t famous. You’re a regular girl. And you know you look great.”

  “Me thinking it is different than other people thinking it,” I say.

  “Fine, fine, fine. Anyway, there’s no way your mom would have that kind of reaction.”

  I don’t push it because Maliah doesn’t know the whole story. No one but Dad knows the whole story, and it’s much better that way.

  “I just want your blog to be as popular as it can be,” Maliah says, and then we both laugh.

  “Oh, yes,” I say. “The universal wish every girl has for her best friend. Tumblr popularity.”

  “Seriously, though, Abbs! Can you at least work toward it?”

  “I still don’t know why it matters to you that the internet knows what I look like,” I say as I type up a description of a striped midi skirt similar to mine. “The internet couldn’t care less.”

  “That isn’t my point,” she says. “It’s that you think there’s something wrong with you.”

  “No,” I say more sharply than I mean to. Everyone around us looks up from their laptops. “Sorry. I don’t think that. I just feel like … everyone else will. People who don’t know me. In person people get, you know, all of me. When it’s just a photo, it worries me they can’t see past how I look.”

  “But how you look is …” Maliah sighs and shakes her head. “Never mind. I don’t want to have this fight again, and I really don’t want to have it in this coffeeshop.”

  “Good,” I say. “Ooh, here’s a skirt with apples and pears print!”

  “That definitely sounds like something you’d own,” Maliah says, and I realize Jax’s theory about me and fruit clothes is absolutely on the mark. Is that bad?

  “It’s three hundred and seventy-five dollars,” I report. “So definitely not.”

  “So I have to go.” She gets up even though I feel like she literally just sat down. “I’ll pick you up Friday for the thing at Denny’s, yes?”

  “Sure.” Don’t ask, I tell myself. You already know the answer. “Plans with Trevor?”

  “We’re going to a Dodgers game,” she says.

  “Ugh, really?”

  She laughs. “Shut it. It’s our national pastime, Abbs. See you Friday.”

  So I spend the rest of the day alone. The good news is I do eventually find the apples and pears skirt on deep, deep discount on another site and give in to my fruit wardrobe destiny.

  CHAPTER 10

  The party’s already loud and overflowing onto the front yard when the four of us arrive at Denny’s house on Friday. Club-type dance music—well, what I’d expect clubs to play while people do the sort of dancing that seems more like fully-clothed sex—filters out into the night air, and I can’t help but shoot Maliah a look.

  “It’ll be fun,” she says. “I need a night out with my girls.”

  Maliah never said things that sounded like deleted dialogue from old episodes of Sex and the City until she fell in love with Trevor. Considering how stupid just a one-sided relationship in my own head with Jordi has made me, I really can’t judge anymore.

  I mean, I will, of course. But it no longer feels fair.

  I follow Maliah in, with Zoe and Brooke behind us. We have to walk through a narrow hallway to get to the kitchen, where we assume the drinks will be. As soon as we emerge from the squeezed space, I see a whole pack of kids in black. Artsy, thoughtful, purposeful black. Except Jordi. Jordi’s wearing a white tank top and army green shorts. I’ve never seen her bare legs before, and it’s honestly a lot to process.

  “Hi, Jordi,” I say in a squeaky voice I barely recognize as my own. Maliah whips her head around and gives me a look.

  “Hey, Abby,” Jordi says with a nod.

  “I didn’t know you were coming,” I say. “Not that you have to tell me. Why would you? There aren’t intern codes of conduct for parties.”

  Then I nervously laugh for, let’s just say, longer than necessary.

  “Abbs.” Maliah forces a red Solo cup into my hand. “Let’s go outside.”

  The four of us escape into the crowded backyard. I spot Gaby Manzetti almost right away, and I give her a tiny wave. I think we know each other well enough that it isn’t weird, and later I can report back nicely to Jax and look like a good friend.

  “So what’s going on, Abbs?” Maliah asks me. “You can’t hide anything from me.”

  “Nothing’s going on,” I say.

  “She likes Jordi,” Brooke says very matter-of-factly. “That’s all. You do, right, Abby?”

  I sigh. “Was it that obvious? Was it, like, embarrassingly obvious?”

  “It was obvious but cute,” Brooke says. “And it’s only obvious because we know you.”

  “I don’t know if Jordi realizes,” Zoe says. “But Jordi should realize; I want her to realize!”

  “Jordi probably doesn’t like girls,” I say. “No girls do. It’s like a whole school full of girls who only like boys. Plus me.”

  “Oh, Jordi’s definitely gay,” Maliah says, though she isn’t smiling. “But she’s also a criminal, Abbs.”

  I take a big swig of whatever’s in my cup. It’s horrible, somewhere between Hawaiian Punch and what I imagine sadness might taste like. “How do you know?”

  “Everyone knows,” Maliah says. “I told you. She went to juvie or something. It’s basically public knowledge.”

  “I didn’t mean about that,” I say. “How do you know she’s definitely gay?”

  “Hey,” someone says, and I look over to see that Gaby and her friend Marji are joining us. We all greet each other even though I really want to get back to the conversation we’re in the midst of. However, I owe this to Jax, and also maybe it’s good to take a break. I don’t want Maliah to be right about juvie, so is it fair to hope she is right about Jordi liking girls?

  “How’s your summer been?” I ask Gaby. “My friend Jax said you were doing a really cool volunteer thing.”

  Gaby rolls her eyes and laughs. “Aren’t you too … not horrible to hang out with Jax?”

  “Jax is actually a …” What even is the word for Jax? “A good friend. He seems like more of a bro than he is. A super douche wouldn’
t hang out with a fat girl with pink hair, right?”

  “You can do better than Jax Stockton,” Marji tells Gaby, which makes Brooke and Zoe laugh, and I also see how from some angles that might be true. He still wears his ugly flip flops and is keeping his hidden depths, well … hidden.

  “He really is a good guy,” I say, and I feel that whatever’s in this cup is already making my cheeks flush. “Sorry, am I talking about Jax too much?”

  “Yes,” Marji says.

  “I doubt he actually likes me,” Gaby says with a big smile. I swear that I understand in a flash why Jax is crazy about her. “He’s just a flirt.”

  “Flirts can’t be trusted,” Marji says.

  “I’m glad you guys are friends or whatever,” Gaby tells me, “but I just don’t really take him seriously.”

  I’m about to respond with whatever I can come up with to refute that when I catch a glimpse of Jordi out of the corner of my eye. Her group’s moved into the backyard, too, and we lock eyes for just a moment before Marji starts complaining about Jax more and I have to do my best to defend my friend.

  Ugh, how is Jax my friend? This summer so far has ceased to make sense.

  Somehow the subject gets turned to Brooke’s family’s upcoming trip to Hawaii, and we’re all offering swimsuit opinions instead of viewpoints on Jax when there’s a burst of noise across the yard.

  “Jordi,” I hear, and I may visibly perk up. I’m only so strong.

  “It’s not a big deal,” someone else says.

  “Shit,” Jordi mutters, but loudly. I didn’t even know Jordi’s voice could be that loud. “Shit. They’ll kill me.”

  It sounds like a half dozen people chorus back again that whatever it is isn’t a big deal.

  “You have no idea,” she says and pushes her way through the crowd. Nearly every single partygoer stares in her direction, but then the song changes from one hip-hop song to another and dancing is remembered and Jordi’s forgotten.

  By everyone but me.

  I try to trace her path, and end up catching up with her in the bathroom that’s connected to what appears to be Denny’s parents’ bedroom. I’m sure we aren’t supposed to be in here but rules don’t seem to matter right now.

  I make my way over to Jordi and see that she’s splashing water from the sink onto her shirt. “Are you okay?”

  “Some asshole spilled a beer on me,” she says. “No, not some asshole. One of my friends, and it was an accident, but …”

  She keeps splashing and dabbing at her shirt with hand soap in a very un-Jordi-like manner.

  “It’s easy to get stuff out of white clothes,” I say. “You can just bleach it once you’re home. It’ll look fine then.”

  Her face crumples and she sinks to the tiled floor. I’m not sure what to do, but it seems impossible to top the awkwardness of towering over her, so I sit down, too.

  “I have to be perfect this summer,” she says. “Which doesn’t include coming home smelling like beer.”

  “It wasn’t your beer, though,” I say. “Will that matter?”

  “Would it matter to your parents?”

  “I guess not.”

  She sniffs and leans over so that her face is completely hidden from me. “I got into huge trouble the last week of school. My parents almost made me turn down the internship as a punishment, but I promised they could trust me.”

  “You seem really trustworthy,” I say. “I’ll vouch for you. Will that matter? Do I seem trustworthy?”

  I hear, amid more sniffling, a little snort. It’s a relief that she sounds like herself again, though I guess the tears are also her being herself. No one’s only their happy side, even if that’s all we show the world whenever we can help it.

  “Do you like Gaby Manzetti?” she asks.

  “What? I mean, I don’t hate her? We’re not really friends.” I shrug and wonder why so many people this summer want to talk about Gaby Manzetti. She’s a nice person and all but doesn’t really seem like someone who should be a hot topic.

  “I saw you guys talking,” she says.

  “It’s a long story,” I say.

  “Like everything with you,” she says, but she looks up and smiles. “Gaby and burgers.”

  “They’re actually related,” I say. “My friend Jax likes her. I’m supposed to … be his hype man or something. And I’m pretty sure I’m terrible at it.”

  “I can’t believe you’re terrible at anything,” she says.

  “Oh my god,” I say. “Seriously? So many things.”

  Her smile fades. “Did you drive here? Could you maybe take me home?”

  “I don’t have my license,” I say. “Maliah brought all of us. But if you don’t mind waiting until later, you can totally catch a ride with us. And maybe if you use enough soap, your shirt will just smell like lavender or basil or whatever that is.”

  Jordi sighs. “I hate this. My whole life has been fine and then one thing … I’m practically on probation.”

  She totally went to juvie, and I totally do not care.

  “They’ll understand,” I say, because Jordi’s dad makes her extra food for me, and the food doesn’t taste like Mom’s crisp and sterile solutions. Jordi’s dad’s food tastes like love. How couldn’t he understand a spilled drink?

  “I was looking at sample portfolios online,” she says. “I want my photography portfolio to be as good as possible for my college applications. And a guy had this image of fire at the horizon and … I was obsessed with it.”

  Arson, Abbs, I hear Maliah say.

  “There’s this house a few streets behind yours,” she says. “It’s been for sale for months, and it has a tiny pool. It felt like a safe place to burn something. There’s water right there.”

  I realize I’m holding my breath.

  “I even bought my own fire extinguisher,” she says. “It felt really safe. So I lit some dried out grass and weeds, and … I got some good shots. It was starting to look like I’d imagined it would. And I was completely aware of how much was burning, and the extinguisher was literally leaning against me.”

  “But then it spread too quickly and the house burned down?”

  Jordi laughs. “No! Jesus, Abby. A cop showed up and accused me of trespassing and arson. The fire kept burning while he yelled at me, so by the time he took the extinguisher from me and put it out, it looked worse than I would have let it get. And even though I showed him my camera, I don’t think he believed me. He kept saying things like a cry for help and heartbreak is hard.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. So he made me get in the back of the cop car and I was sure I was getting arrested. But he just took me home and told my parents his version of what happened. And they completely believed him, even though I had the photos, and even though of course I’d shown them the portfolios I thought were good examples.” Jordi is sniffling again. “It was like they couldn’t even see me anymore. I was just the girl some cop dropped off at their front door.”

  “I’m so sorry.” I hate that she’s crying and that I don’t know what to do about it. I touch her shoulder and then her hand. “That cop’s an idiot.”

  “Maybe,” she says. “Maybe I’m the idiot.”

  “Don’t even,” I say. “You’re the smartest person I know. At work you’re this total professional.”

  “So are you,” she says, and I realize our hands are still touching.

  “I’m an idiot, too,” I say. “If it makes you feel better.”

  “Definitely,” she says, and we’re making eye contact again. And still hand contact.

  “So I was convinced I wouldn’t get the Lemonberry internship,” I start because it feels unfair to have Jordi’s words out there and not mine. “I know Maggie had a ton of applicants, and as I’m sure you can guess I was kind of goofy and rambly in our interview. My mom was being extra understanding about it—which isn’t really her thing—and said she had a big project for me with Eat Healthy With Norah! And I honestly think
I’m better at social media than my mom is, but, you know. She’s on TV. She has a lot of followers. So even though it’s not fashion, I started to get excited. I’d get a ton of experience with a huge audience, and maybe that would lead to … I don’t know. Something actually involving fashion, or a job, or just something really good to put on my college applications to make me stand out.”

  Jordi sighs loudly. “That’s all every advice site says. Find a way to stand out.”

  “Right? If we’re all standing out, aren’t we all just …”

  “Blending in?” She smiles at me. “I don’t think you could blend in if you wanted to.”

  “I feel like you could, because you’re stealthy,” I say, and I laugh because it sounds so silly and so honest at once and somehow our hands are still touching. I’m afraid to overthink it or even look at my own right hand, but I’m pretty sure our hands might be doing more than touching. There is a very real chance we are holding hands right now, but I don’t want to jinx it.

  “Anyway. I come up with all these ideas for my mom. I even wrote sample posts for her and developed these stupid hashtag ideas about nutrition. ‘#NoCarbsNoProblem’? ‘#BetterDeadThanBread’? But Mom looked …” I have to give myself a moment while I remember Mom’s expression. “She looked like I was an adorably stupid puppy who’d peed on a rug or something. Her big idea was that I’d be the before, and then I’d document eating her food all summer—which obviously I do anyway because that’s all we have at home—and then I guess I’d theoretically keep a food diary on her blog, and it would all be about me documenting my weight loss journey. And Mom said …”

  Great! Great. Now I’m crying, too. Except Jordi’s stopped crying, so I’m just crying on my own.

  “She said I’d finally be happy and pretty.”