by Amy Spalding
“It’s good?” I ask.
“It matches the sunset.” Her face is completely serious as she snaps photos, of me, the building, the sky. “Sorry. Is this annoying?”
I shake my head. “I like watching you work.”
“We can go now.” Jordi puts her camera down but not away, and opens the door once again. “Let’s go have a meal that would make your mom cry.”
It’s funny how something about my mom can also be romantic.
The restaurant’s tiny with brick walls. Jordi and I are seated at a table in the back, and I sit next to her instead of across because I don’t want to stop holding her hand.
“What color is your hair really?” Jordi asks while I’m browsing the menu.
I look up from the list of pastas and grin at her. “How do you know it isn’t this color really? Maybe I was born with pink hair.”
“A pink-haired baby sounds adorable.”
“My hair’s blond,” I say. “Kind of like my mom’s, but not quite so light. But it’s easy because I don’t have to bleach it to add the pink. It just shows up.”
“I tried to do that once,” she says. “But I think I did the bleach wrong, because the tips of my hair turned orange, and the next time I brushed it, a bunch fell out. I took it as a sign to just leave it like this.”
“I like it like this,” I say, and I start to touch her hair, but then the waiter shows up to get us drinks, and then somehow Jordi’s taking photos again. The walls, the table, me.
“How do you know?” I ask. “If something’s a picture?”
“Sometimes I’m just guessing,” she says. “But the thing I love about photography is that for just a moment, you can make everyone else look at the world the way you see it.”
I smile at that before having an idea. I take my phone out and take a picture of Jordi. If anyone saw this photo, they’d know what my whole world looked like right now.
After we split a tiny pizza and attempt to split a giant slab of lasagna, we head back outside to Jordi’s car. I’m pretty sure she intends to actually drive somewhere right then, but I study Jordi’s thin silver necklace glimmering in the day’s last rays of sunlight with Maliah’s necklace advice in my head.
So I don’t buckle my seatbelt right away. Instead, I lean in to kiss Jordi, and not midway over the console like before. At a red light we’d kissed sweet, restrained, almost fully in accord with traffic laws.
I don’t care about traffic laws now.
Literally mere days ago, I didn’t even know if I knew how to kiss. But kissing doesn’t feel knowable; kissing is something you do. It’s like breathing. Jordi’s lips are soft but they’re also rough and it’s gentle except when it’s hungry.
Hunger—this kind of hunger—is another feeling I didn’t know I was ever going to have.
“We should go,” Jordi says as I’m kissing the space between her necklace and her t-shirt collar. “Abby. We’re on a strict timeline.”
“Are we seriously?” I laugh. “You’re such a nerd.”
“Well,” she says, “it’s not that strict.”
“Good.” I focus my attention back on Jordi’s collarbone. I could lose myself here. Jordi probably doesn’t care too much about her timeline because her hands trace lines down my arms and across my shoulders. Her breath sounds heavy and full of the promise of us.
“Wait,” I say as her hands grasp my waist, and this new world we’ve entered dissipates. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she says but with a question mark in her voice.
“You’re so tiny,” I say. “I could probably put my hands around your waist. Well, I couldn’t, I have little hands, but someone with big hands could.”
“What are you talking about?” Jordi asks.
“When your hands are there, you know exactly how much space I take up,” I say, and I feel silly and also worried and how did I think I could continue to make out with a girl without thinking about my size?
“You take up the right amount of space,” Jordi says, and her hands are back on my waist. “Don’t say things like that. Please.”
“Okay,” I say, but I feel out of breath and not in a good way.
“Why would I be here right now if I thought something wasn’t right about you, Abby?” she asks. “I’m sorry if your mom’s making you crazy with all of her solutions, but you know that’s not how it really is.”
“I guess.”
“No,” she says and holds my face so that I look right at her. “I mean it.”
“Okay.” I’m not sure if I sound any more convinced, but we start kissing again so I guess Jordi believes me.
Eventually Jordi says we’re at the far end of our timeline, and so she drives through and past Downtown LA to a part of town in a neighborhood I don’t know.
“Have you ever been to Pehrspace?” Jordi asks me as she searches for parking on a narrow, curving street. “I probably missed getting a really good spot because you distracted me.”
“Oh, sorry you’d rather park than get kissed,” I say, and she snorts. “I’ll try not to be hugely offended. And, no, I’ve never been here. Where’s here? What are we doing?”
“You’re really impatient,” Jordi says. “It’s pathetic how cute I think that is.”
She takes another couple turns and finds an open spot on the curb. “Pehrspace is this all-ages art space and venue for bands. Right now there’s a photography show of street style up, so I thought you’d like it.”
“Oh my god yes,” I say, as we walk down the sidewalk. Jordi slides her arm around my waist and I think she’s trying to make a point. Maybe I’m already a little used to it, though. “You’re good at planning dates. You must do it all the time.”
Oh my god, no. Not a thing to say.
“No, I …” Jordi smiles and looks down at her black Vans. “This is, in full honesty, my first date.”
“Mine too!” I almost jump up and down. My wedges keep me from making any more of a fool out of myself. “We’re totally on the same page.”
Jordi looks right up at me. She’s still smiling. “Good.”
We take a turn off the street into a dingy strip mall, and if I didn’t trust Jordi, I’d think I was about to be murdered. But then our destination becomes clear; in the furthermost corner is a crowd of people in a haze of beer and pot and clove cigarettes. It looks like an extended version of Jordi’s crowd from school. I’m a little concerned I’ll stick out in my candy-colored outfit, but two girls stop me on my way in to ask where my dress came from.
(I try not to sound too enthusiastic about my internet shopping habits, but it turns out I can only dial that back so much.)
“Hey, Jordi,” the guy in the front room greets her. “You can just go on back.”
“What about Abby?” Jordi holds up a five-dollar bill. “I’ll pay for her.”
The guy stamps our hands, and I follow Jordi into the next room, which isn’t as crowded as it was outside. The walls contain photos of people downtown, of all ages, in outfits ranging from shredded jeans and old T-shirts to sparkly handmade gowns. The subjects are young and old, white and brown and black, conventionally beautiful and just normal.
“I get what you were saying about having defined style,” Jordi says. “Some of these people just do, even if I’ve never seen them before. You can tell.”
“This is amazing,” I tell her. “I’m so glad you knew about this.”
“Do you want to stay for a while?” she asks. “Some local bands are playing.”
“Are they good?” I ask. “Should we?”
“Let’s stay for the first one,” she says. “I think you’ll like them.”
I’m pretty sure that Jordi is just trapped in some kind of first date fog that makes me seem cooler than I am, but then kids our age are setting up their instruments and launching into a song that sounds like a fuzzed out hissy version of something I’d listen to. The sound pounds in my chest, and I can’t tell the bass drum apart from my thudding heart.
My beeping phone wakes me on Sunday morning, even though I could lie in bed dreaming about Jordi for potentially an infinite amount of time. The texts are all from Jax, and I realize I haven’t responded to him since before yesterday. Whut up abbz it starts, and by now has turned into r u dead? I reply with the news that I am still in fact among the living, and we quickly make plans.
After getting ready, I wave good-bye to Mom and Dad while calling out the vaguest information about Jax and lunch on my way out of the house. Jax’s BMW is in the driveway, and it’s funny how happy I am to see him. The morning after Maliah’s first date with Trevor, Maliah and I walked to the restaurant called Home, which we normally avoided because the wait to get in was so epic. But standing in the line outside didn’t even matter because there was so much to discuss. I always figured it would be Maliah who’d hear every last detail if the miracle of miracles happened and I actually had a first date. So it’s funny that—now that we’re living in miraculous times—Jax is the one I’m out with now.
“Did you die yesterday?” Jax asks over the banjo or ukulele or whatever other hipster stringed instrument is blasting from the speakers. “Twenty-four hours with no Abbs. It was rough.”
“Sorry,” I say, but I doubt he buys it because I’m smiling so wide.
“Shiiiiiit,” he says. “Somebody got some.”
“I did not get some,” I say. “Wait—get some is sex, right? I did not have sex.”
“I like to think it has a more fluid definition than that,” Jax says, and I make a face. “What?”
“‘Fluid’? Gross.”
“Mature, Abbs. C’mon. What’s the haps?”
“First, I should tell you that I tried to talk to Gaby for you and … honestly, Jax, I am not a good hype man. Hype woman. Whatever. I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine,” he says. “Stop withholding important info.”
So I tell him. The spilled beer and the bathroom floor and the kissing. The Italian restaurant and the photography show and the band and the gelato afterward. Being walked to my doorway like I’m old-fashioned and special.
To Jordi, I think I’m special.
“Hell yeah,” Jax says.
“She’s so great,” I say. “Like, I can’t believe how great she is. I feel like … how am I the only one to figure it out? There should be a million girls fighting me for her.”
“That sounds incredible,” Jax says. “Describe the fighting and the girls.”
I elbow him. “You’re a cliché.”
We end up at The Fix on Hyperion, which we seriously could have walked to from my house. Jax’s car love will kill the planet and his physical fitness, I swear. Playing lacrosse can only do so much, right? The constant car-driving and beer-drinking and burger-eating must outweigh it.
Honestly, I’m not even sure what lacrosse is.
I’m still really glad Jax is my friend.
I’m outside of Jordi’s gate early on Monday, but she appears almost as soon as I arrive.
“Hi,” I say but only partially because she covers my mouth with hers. It is a perfect greeting.
“So I’ve been thinking about it,” she says, taking my hand and starting down the sidewalk. “We can’t let Maggie know. Or anyone else at Lemonberry.”
“Why not?” I ask, because how can I not talk about this? How can I sit near her without my hand in hers? How can I not look at Jordi like I’m poisoned and she’s the only antidote?
“Abby, it’s work,” she says with a little smile. “We’re professionals.”
“Ugh, that’s right, we are.” I let go of her hand. “I’ll try not to smile too much.”
“You smile all the time,” Jordi says. “It won’t be suspicious.”
“Jax said I was smiling extra yesterday,” I say. “He totally figured it out.”
“When do I get to meet Jax?” she asks. “I still have doubts about his existence.”
“Jax would be the weirdest imaginary friend ever,” I say. “I’m sure you’ll meet him soon. He can be tough to escape. So, are you free Saturday? This coming Saturday? Five days from now?”
“Abby, I understand how days of the week work. And, yes. Second date?”
“Second date!” We round the corner, and Lemonberry comes into sight. “Okay. I’m taming back my happiness.”
“Just outwardly, Abby,” she says, and I laugh.
“Hey, girls.” Maggie walks up from the opposite direction. “I’m exhausted. Mondays are terrible. Let’s go get coffee before we go in.”
We walk down the street to Starbucks. My hand bumps Jordi’s a few times but I manage not to hold on. I’m also fairly certain that I have a normal smile on my face and not an obnoxious one.
It’s tough judging that about yourself, though.
“So I got some fun news this morning,” Maggie says while we’re in line to order. “There’s a sort of pop-up fashion show for local designers happening downtown this week, and Lemonberry will be part of it.”
“Oh my god, that’s amazing,” I say. “It’s so cool that fashion is happening outside of fancy upscale places in nontraditional—sorry. I’m geeking out.”
“Abby, you have no idea how much I love that you’re geeking out,” Maggie says with a huge smile, but then turns to Jordi. “Would you happen to be free on Saturday? I’d love you to take photos of the show.”
Jordi makes eye contact with me and I nod, and then worry I’m relaying the wrong info, so I shake my head, and I can see in her eyes that she still has no idea what I’m trying to communicate.
“You’ll get such cool shots,” I say. Jordi smiles, in this very understated way I am not sure how to duplicate. “Maggie, I’m free too, and I can totally be there to post stuff and—”
“Abby, you’re a doll to offer, but I can only bring so many people, and, anyway, you should enjoy your night off. I feel terrible enough I’m dragging Jordi in on the weekend. I’m not going to ruin both of your nights. And, Jordi, you can take one day off next week to make up for it. Sound good?”
No, none of it sounds good, but I nod anyway. Of course, Maggie’s talking to Jordi and not me so it’s even weirder that I’m lie-nodding.
“I’m sorry,” Jordi murmurs while Maggie steps up to order a complicated latte. I hadn’t realized a latte could have so many specifications.
“It’s fine,” I say. “We can reschedule.”
“Not just that,” she says. “You’d love being there, probably more than me.”
“It’s really okay,” I say, even though I’m not sure I’d feel the same way if I wasn’t now going out with Jordi. It’s an opportunity I’m not getting, and of course Jordi’s going to shine. She’ll impress the hell out of Maggie and whoever else sees the photos. She’ll impress people merely by shooting photos in front of them because she’s such an obvious professional. How couldn’t anyone see that?
But Jordi didn’t ask for special treatment, and also it’s not Maggie’s fault that Jordi’s so good at what she does. There’s just really nothing tangibly impressive about tweeting. And that’s probably a good thing for society, but right now it’s a pretty lousy thing for me.
I finally finally hear from Maliah on Tuesday. Pool at Trevor’s. Wear your freaking suit. Bring my shirt if Jordi gave it back to you. See you soon.
Sure, this sounds fun.
I want things to be okay and normal, so I do pull on my new nautical-themed one-piece, a fluttery yellow cover-up, and step into my gold sandals before leaving my room. Mom and Dad are sitting side by side and looking at Mom’s laptop in rapt interest.
“Kiddo, look at this,” Dad calls to me. “Your mom was listed on HuffPo as one of the top ten nutrition Twitter accounts to follow. Her follower count’s going through the roof!”
“Oh … cool. Anyway, I’m going to Trevor’s. Maliah’s demanding it. See you later.”
They sort of mumble good-byes to me, but at least I’m free to leave without any further questioning. The walk
takes a while, but the June Gloom has finally turned into, well, just plain June. It’s sunny and the sky is bright blue and I’m happy to be out in it.
I walk up to Trevor’s just as Jax is. This is great news because now I don’t have to awkwardly figure out how to get in without bothering Maliah. It really feels like it’s not the day to bother Maliah.
“Finally,” she greets me as I walk in behind Jax.
“I literally got your text, changed, and walked over,” I say. “I paused for about ninety seconds so Mom and Dad could tell me a thing about Twitter.”
“Why don’t you learn to drive?” she asks.
“Because anywhere I can’t walk usually someone will take me to,” I say. “Also, it’s scary. It doesn’t seem like the kind of thing just anyone should be allowed to do. Like, seriously, can you believe someone said that legally Jax should get to operate a motor vehicle?”
Maliah laughs. “You’re way more responsible than Jax.”
“How did I get dragged into this?” He tosses me a beer and runs off to join a circle of bros. It’s only ten-thirty in the morning, so I walk the beer back over to the cooler and trade it for a can of fancy blood orange soda.
“I have your shirt,” I tell Maliah.
“Good.” She takes a sip of lemonade. “How’s that going, anyway?”
“Jordi, you mean?” I want to appear exhausted with Maliah’s attitude, but the problem is that I haven’t mastered saying Jordi’s name without smiling. “It’s good. Really good.”
“Be careful,” she says.
“You can say that a thousand times, but it’s still going to sound stupid to me.”
“Abbs, I care about you.” She gives me a look I think she thinks is wise and knowing. “I just don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Well, I don’t want you to get hurt either,” I say. “But I never said anything when you first started going out with Trevor. I was like, a thousand percent supportive.”
“Trevor didn’t have a record,” she hisses.
“Neither does Jordi,” I say. “Why won’t you believe me? When have I ever lied to you about anything, Mal?”
