by Cameron Lund
“Okay, I’ve got some shit with my parents to sort out,” she says. “I’ve got to get them on board for New York.”
“I know they’ll let you go,” Myriah says.
“It’s not about letting me go, though.” Romina shrugs. “I’m moving there after school either way. It’s about them forgiving me for it.” Myriah reaches out and squeezes Romina’s hand, just for a second.
“Okay, well, I’m going to get my Instagram up to one hundred K,” Olivia says, and the moment is broken. “The one for my photography, not my personal one. Okay, well, maybe both.” She laughs. “I mean, I probably could.”
Sometimes when Olivia says things like this, I can’t help but feel a small twinge of jealousy. I want to be the type of person who is so sure of herself, who knows who she is so securely that she doesn’t ever worry about it.
I worry about it so much.
“Penny?” Olivia says. “How about you? What’s your perfect junior year? Say it over the sacred candle.”
And suddenly I’m stuck. I mean, I think I know what I want: for all of this to stay the same, to always be this girl on Olivia’s floor, finally surrounded by a circle of friends. I want my mom to understand me, to be around more. But I feel like I can’t say any of these things to them. They’re too personal, too much a part of me.
I look down at the flickering candle, at Lady Gaga’s steely expression, and then glance up behind Olivia and see Jordan’s picture tacked to the wall right over the bed. I want to be the kind of girl deserving of Jordan’s attention, to be brave enough to finally talk to him. And yeah, maybe this candle isn’t magic and Lady Gaga isn’t actually going to make all our junior-year dreams come true.
But she might.
“I want Jordan Parker to fall in love with me.” I say it right at the candle, my voice clear, and then look up and meet Olivia’s gaze. She narrows her eyes, just slightly.
“That’s your biggest wish?”
“I mean, yeah . . .” I say, hesitant.
“We all wish Jordan were in love with us,” Katie says.
“I don’t,” Myriah and Romina say at the same time.
“Okay, well, most of us who are into dudes,” Katie says. “But what about Kai, Penny? We want you to have his babies.”
“I want Jordan’s babies,” I say. “I mean, no, wait.”
“We all know you’re into Jordan, Penny,” Olivia says. “I just didn’t realize it was your, like, biggest biggest wish.”
“Oh, and your biggest wish is more Instagram followers?” I challenge.
“Okay, fine. Touché.” Olivia leans forward and blows out the candle. “You know what we should do? Prank-call the boys.”
NOW
I FIND JORDAN THE NEXT DAY at the Upper Crust, the sandwich place downtown where he works. He hasn’t answered any of my texts, so I know I have to approach him somewhere he can’t avoid me.
He’s behind the counter preparing someone’s turkey on rye when he looks up and sees me. His hands, which were moving expertly over the condiments only seconds before, freeze in midair.
“No,” he says. “I don’t want to hear it.”
“Jordan, please.” I walk a few steps over to the counter.
He actually backs away from me. “I don’t want to do this here.”
“I just want to talk to you. You’re not answering my texts.”
“Yeah, because you”—he lowers his voice to a hiss—“you messed around with my best friend.” Plastering a smile on his face, he drops the sandwich he’s working on into a plastic bag and holds it out to a man on my left. “Here’s your sandwich, sir. Have a crusty day!”
The man takes it and leaves the store, glancing back at me and narrowing his eyes. I know he heard what Jordan said about me.
“That slogan is terrible,” I say.
“I didn’t write it,” Jordan answers. “It’s from corporate.”
“Can we please talk? When do you have your break?”
“Fine.” Jordan pulls off his hairnet. “Meet me around back.”
“I didn’t mean to do anything with Kai,” I tell him when he walks out the rear door into the parking lot. We’re out by the garbage cans, and it smells horrible, sharp and acidic. It’s a fitting smell for a conversation like this one. “Jordan, I love you.” My voice cracks.
“Yeah, then why did you?”
“I don’t know.” It kills me that I can’t answer him, that I can’t find the right words to say to make this all better, to explain a decision I barely even remember making.
Jordan fiddles with the strings of his apron. “You know what last night was supposed to be.”
“I know,” I say. “I was excited.”
“I waited months for this, Penny. Did I ever pressure you? You told me you wanted to wait, and then the same night we’re gonna go for it, you kiss my best friend. Like . . . I have nothing to say to you.”
“It was nothing,” I say, my nose stinging again like I’m going to cry.
“I have to get back to work.” Jordan tries to brush past me, slipping his hairnet back onto his head.
“It didn’t mean anything,” I try again.
He spins back around. “I mean, why should I believe that, though? This isn’t the first time you guys have hooked up.”
I’m floored by his words. I try to speak, but I can’t get any sound to come out. What the hell is he talking about?
“What?” I gasp out finally. “Kai and I have never.”
“What about the freshman camping trip? The boathouse. Didn’t you guys . . .” He trails off, presumably at the confused expression on my face.
“No,” I say. “That wasn’t anything. Wait,” I say, angry again for a whole different reason. “Did Kai tell you something happened?”
Jordan sighs. “No, I just . . . figured.”
It would almost be funny if it weren’t so horrible. I know exactly what moment he’s talking about. Freshman year, we were all sent on a camping trip as some sort of silly class bonding activity. Olivia and I weren’t paired in a tent together, so we’d decided to sneak out in the middle of the night. She’d hidden a bottle of wine in her duffle bag and told me to meet her and the boys in the boathouse.
At five minutes till midnight, I zipped open the flap of my tent and crept past the campfire we’d spent the night circled around, roasting marshmallows and listening to ghost stories that suddenly felt a lot more real in the quiet darkness. I snuck through the circle of chaperone tents and headed toward the lake. The boathouse was down on the pebbled beach where we’d spent all afternoon doing team-building activities like we were ten years old.
I was the last to arrive. When I creaked open the door, Olivia was sitting on a sheet on the floor, drinking straight from the wine bottle. Jordan and Kai were on either side of her. It smelled like mildew, and there was a thin layer of dust coating the floors, the windows, the racks of old kayaks and canoes.
“You made it,” Jordan said, his smile bright even in the dark. Warmth pooled in my stomach because of course I was already embarrassingly obsessed with him back then.
“Now we can’t have a threesome,” Olivia said to the guys, pouting. She was obviously joking, but the comment still made me nervous. Her hair was thrown up in a messy bun on top of her head, a look we all started calling the Olivia back in sixth grade.
I sat down next to Jordan, immediately aware of how close he was to me—his knee, the bare skin of his arm, his long fingers only a few finger lengths away. It was dark enough that I could have stretched out my hand to touch his and the others wouldn’t have been able to see. I was on high alert, buzzing with possibility. The air felt electric.
Olivia held out the wine in my direction. “Drink up, girly.”
I had never tried alcohol before, but I took a sip of wine anyway, trying to be brave, choking a little
when I swallowed.
“Let’s play a game,” Olivia whispered.
“Spin the bottle?” Kai suggested, and Olivia whacked him on the shoulder.
“No way, Tanaka. That’s just asking for an orgy.”
“Never have I ever?” I asked, and then immediately regretted it. I hadn’t ever done anything, not really, and I wasn’t so sure I wanted to admit it to any of them. Especially Jordan. “I’ll start,” Jordan said. “Never have I ever had an orgy.” We all laughed, bubbling with nervous energy.
“Oh man, last summer was wild,” Kai said, taking a long swig from the bottle.
“Yeah right.” I shoved him so that some of the red wine dribbled out the side of his mouth and onto his neck, like he was bleeding. “You could never find more than one girl to hook up with.”
“Ouch!” Jordan said. He raised his hand to high-five me, and I felt like I was flying. It was just the right insult at just the right time. I felt cool and funny and unstoppable. Our hands smacked together, the sound loud enough that we all shhhhhh’d and erupted into more giggles.
We found out Kai had smoked weed, Jordan had called a teacher Mom, and Olivia had shoplifted. Soon, we were all a bit tipsy, laughing louder than we should.
“Penelope hasn’t done anything,” Kai said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He gave me the bottle. “Have you even lost a turn yet?”
“That’s not my name,” I snapped, taking the bottle from him as forcefully as I could. I had been taking small sips in between rounds, hoping nobody would notice. It’s a delicate balance being a girl. Is it worse to have done too much or nothing at all? I wanted to be somewhere in the middle, safely ordinary.
“Have you ever been kissed?” Kai leaned closer to me. His black hair was all pushed up on one side, like he’d been sleeping on it. I didn’t like that he was bringing this up in front of Jordan. I could still feel Jordan’s warmth right beside me, the energy radiating off him. There was a bird outside, a ghostly howl over the water, the sound of waves lapping against the shore.
“None of your business,” I said.
“So you haven’t.”
I turned to Jordan, my eyes straying down to his lips of their own accord, then back up to his face. Turning back to Kai, I saw he was looking at me, his expression a challenge.
“So what if I haven’t?” I said, aware as I was saying it that he’d probably make fun of me for the rest of time. But I didn’t want to lie. If I lied and they saw through it, that would be way worse.
“I’m cold,” Olivia said suddenly. She was in a strappy camisole, and I could see goose bumps on the skin of her arms.
“Why didn’t you bring a sweatshirt?” Kai asked.
She ignored him and turned to Jordan. “I’m gonna go grab one. Come with me?”
“I can go with,” I said, feeling cold all of a sudden too.
“No offense, but you could not protect me from the Smiling Man.”
“Come on, you don’t believe that stupid story Hanson told.” Kai groaned.
“He could be out there!” Olivia stood up, pulling on Jordan’s arm. “Come on.”
Jordan brushed his hands off on his pants, shrugging and smiling like he thought Olivia was being stupid, but that he also thought it was cute. I pressed my fingernail into the palm of my hand, creating a little half-moon in my skin. It was true—Jordan was the biggest of all of us by far, already tall with a six-pack at fourteen. I’d have picked him to protect me if I were scared too, and not just because Kai probably would have fed me to a monster and laughed while it chewed. But I was worried that wasn’t what this was about.
I tried to make myself relax. Olivia knew I liked Jordan. We’d talked about it a million times.
“We’ll be right back,” Jordan said. Olivia pulled open the creaky door and they left.
Kai and I sat alone together on the sheet for what felt like forever, the empty wine bottle overturned between us. I pulled at the sleeves of my sweatshirt, staring down at the floor. There was a spider crawling toward the edge of the sheet, and I watched it stop and change directions, creeping away into a hole in a floorboard.
“Well, this is fun,” Kai said after a while.
I tore my gaze away from the floor and looked at his face, glowering. “They’ll be back in a minute.”
“Sure.”
“I don’t have to entertain you,” I said. “Look at your phone.”
“No signal.” He tapped his hands on the floor, a beat that sounded vaguely familiar. “Jingle Bells”? I glared angrily down at my lap. Everything was backward. The night wasn’t supposed to have gone like this. I hated that I was there with him, hidden away in the dark, a moment that was supposed to have been with Jordan.
Kai kept tapping, the sound of it like a migraine.
“Can you stop?”
He tapped louder, adding a beat with his mouth, lifting one hand up to become a snare drum, his tongue the crash of a cymbal.
“Seriously,” I said. “Shut up.”
“I should’ve known you hated music, Penelope,” he said. “Completely heartless.”
“You’re gonna get us caught.” I leaned forward and brought my hands down on top of his on the floor, holding them in place. He stopped moving, his hands under mine, and I didn’t pull away for some reason. The room was quiet, and the tapping had stopped, and the bird howled again out on the lake, like it was crying. I could smell the wine on Kai’s breath, and I didn’t know how he’d gotten so close.
And then we heard the sound of Olivia’s voice outside the door, and I lifted my hands and pulled away from him, crossing my arms and bringing my hood up like I was trying to become invisible. I didn’t know what had just happened. It was like I forgot for a second who he was and who I was, who we were to each other. I had never touched a boy’s hand before, at least not one who wasn’t related to me, and the feel of skin against skin had made my brain fuzzy. That and the wine.
“What was that with Jordan last night?” I had asked Olivia over the platter of cantaloupe at the breakfast buffet the next morning. “You know I like him.”
“Of course.” Olivia had smiled and tapped me on the nose. “I wanted to get Jordan alone so I could talk to him about you. I was only telling him how great you are.”
There’s always been something slightly off about that night, something I’ve let time cover over. But I didn’t realize until right now what it was.
“You really thought something happened with me and Kai that night?” I can’t believe how incorrectly Jordan had read the situation. This entire time we’ve been together, he’s been under the assumption that Kai got to me first.
It makes me feel . . . weird. Was that what made him pursue me in the first place? Did he only want me in some competitive dude way because he thought I’d been with Kai? The thought is too uncomfortable, and I shake it away before it can take root.
“Well, yeah,” Jordan says. “I thought . . .” He trails off, and we both flinch when we hear a voice from inside the shop: “Parker, you’re five minutes over on your break!”
“I liked you,” I tell Jordan. “I’ve always liked you. We snuck out that night so that you and I could be together. And then I got stuck with Kai.”
Jordan squeezes his eyes shut for a second. “I gotta go, Penny. I’m sorry. I have to get back to work.”
And then he’s gone. The screen door to the sandwich shop slams angrily behind him.
* * *
• • • • • •
I leave the Upper Crust and walk back toward my car. Everywhere I look there are signs of Jordan—layers upon layers of memories reminding me of everything I ruined. Down the street is the convenience store where he once took me to get Popsicles. There’s the row of parking meters he jumped over on a dare. Across the street is the park bench we sat on once while waiting for his sister, when he l
et me play him my favorite song from the musical Waitress, each of us using one of his AirPods. And there, out of the corner of my eye because it hurts too much to look at it head-on, our tree; the one he once said resembled me—long-limbed and delicate and beautiful.
I can’t spend all summer feeling like this.
There’s a senior trip to Disneyland planned in August, something the school does every year to celebrate the incoming senior class. We did stupid fund-raisers and car washes all last year to raise money for it, and I’ve been dreaming of this trip ever since Jordan and I got together: fantasies of us strolling hand in hand down Main Street, taking cute pictures in front of Sleeping Beauty Castle. I already made us each sets of ears—simple black felt ones for him, the fancy rose-gold kind for me.
Now the thought of the trip fills me with anxiety. I picture myself in the single-rider line for Splash Mountain, my old group of friends walking past and laughing. If Jordan isn’t talking to me by August and my friends are still ignoring me, I’ll probably have to stay home.
With a sigh, I turn away from my car and see the sign for Scoops, the old ice-cream shop I used to be obsessed with as a kid. There’s a flier taped to the door—horrible Comic Sans font and frayed corners. Scoops is hiring.
Suddenly, I have an idea. Since Jordan works right next door, if I take this job I’ll be able to keep track of him—have more opportunities to try to convince him we belong together.
Also there’s this: I want to keep busy in case no one invites me to anything for the rest of the summer.
I push the door open and duck inside. There’s a little jingle of a bell as I enter, and then I’m hit with the sugary smell, so sweet it makes my teeth ache. The walls are a pastel lilac color—my favorite—and the cool air inside the shop immediately makes me feel better. Scoops is a classic tourist spot, and already this morning there are several people inside—families with towels and armfuls of children on their way to the lake.
I approach the case with the colorful assortment of ice-cream flavors. There’s a yellow sand bucket filled with applications on the counter, a cup of sparkly seashell pens, because everything in our small town is ancient and still done on paper; I bet Scoops doesn’t even have a website. I grab one of each and am about to walk them over to a corner table to fill them out when a head pops up from behind the counter, a girl straightening from where she’s been bent over scooping ice cream. Her frizzy blue-streaked hair is currently hidden under a cap, but pieces of it are still curling out around her face, fighting desperately against the humidity.