by Amy Spalding
“It was great,” I say.
“Oh,” she says, and then, “good,” which is fine, because if I’m lying to her, I can’t be annoyed she’s pretending to be happy for me.
“You’ll be running the place before long, kiddo,” Dad says, looking up from a pile of paper samples. I decide not to correct him because even interns with less sad prospects aren’t exactly next in line to run places, and so he’s probably not being literal.
“I’m going to hang out with Maliah,” I say, because by the time I left Lemonberry, I had three texts from her about hanging out poolside at Trevor’s. My friends Zoe and Brooke had checked in with me to see how my first day went, but they’re not nearly as forceful as Maliah is. The thing I didn’t really learn from rom-coms is that after the happily-ever-after, your collective friends are often forced to co-mingle. This is why I have more than a casual knowledge of lacrosse bro lingo now.
“Be home for dinner,” Mom says. “I’m trying something very exciting tonight.”
When other moms say things like this, they’re probably referencing tacos or delicious sandwiches, but the last time my mom made tacos, it was just chicken wrapped in pieces of lettuce. She kind of made it look like tacos, which is the sort of thing she features all the time on Eat Healthy with Norah!, but I more than occasionally just want to Eat Normally with My Family.
What’s so bad about a few tortillas anyway?
“I’ll be home,” I tell Mom before sidestepping her and Dad to get to my bedroom. Maliah texts again while I’m changing, so I tap out a quick reply before switching to a bright blue casual dress and my matching Converse. They can’t make you get into a pool if you’re not equipped with the right wardrobe, right?
It takes me about twenty minutes to walk to Trevor’s house. I ring the front doorbell a few times, even though I can hear everyone yelling and splashing behind the house. I haven’t fully worked out the etiquette and customs of the rich, preppy, and athletically inclined.
I text Maliah that I’m there after my repeated doorbell rings result in absolutely nothing. She opens the gate to the backyard and sticks her head out.
“Come on back, weirdo,” she says, which is how she’s referred to me for forever, but forever ago it didn’t feel like it does right in this moment. Forever ago, Maliah wasn’t wearing a sparkling bikini with all the confidence in the world while I actually worked out a backstory on why I didn’t bring a swimsuit. And Maliah would have definitely managed to get through a day at Lemonberry less awkwardly than I had.
“Did you ask Brooke or Zoe?” I ask as we round the corner and step out into the backyard proper. There are a few girls—though none I know—but it’s mainly dudes running around and leaping ridiculous cannonballs into the pool. Maybe if I liked guys, I would understand all of this—find it cute, even—but I don’t think so. It hardly seems like a key selling point, especially when plenty of other guys at school seem funny and smart and interested in things besides sports and beers.
Not that I’m not going to take a beer. It’s here, after all.
This has been a new world for me, though, since Maliah and Trevor became serious. This group of guys could be pulled straight from a movie about rich jocks partying their summer away. I think it’s safe to say I never thought I would be even an extra in a scene from that kind of story.
“I wanted to see you,” Maliah says, and even though I’d love for a higher percentage of people I know to be here, I like being someone special to my best friend.
“So how was your first day?” she asks me.
“It was …” I shrug. “I don’t know.”
“Did you get any free dresses yet?” Maliah asks.
“No.” I pop open a can of PBR, because even rich boys in fancy houses have cheap beer. “There’s another intern.”
“Did she get any free dresses?” Maliah makes a face. “Unfair.”
“No one got any free dresses,” I say. “I thought that this would be … just mine. The way it’s always been.”
“One girl in all the world,” Maliah says in a dramatic voice.
“Well, in all of the Eastside, at least,” I say. “Now I probably won’t get the job in the fall. Which I was really counting on, you know. Money and my college applications.”
I texted all of this to Rachel already, but she hasn’t gotten back to me yet. I guess she’s too busy with her own internship to give me the internship pep talk I so desperately need. Well, I want a pep talk. Maybe what I need is a cold dose of reality.
“Why wouldn’t you get the job?” Maliah asks, and I feel it. I did need a pep talk. “You’re great at all your fashion Tumblr stuff. You were on The Cut!”
“I felt like such a goober today,” I say. “Guess who the other intern is.”
Trevor bounds over to us straight from the pool and wraps his arms around Maliah’s bare stomach. She squeals as he drenches her with cold pool water, and that almost immediately turns into making out. Okay, it’s just kissing, but it’s kissing with a lot of contact, and I’m standing right here, so it’s fair to qualify it as making out.
Seriously, I couldn’t be happier for Maliah, living out her real-life love story. I just occasionally or maybe slightly more than occasionally wish it affected my life slightly less. Also, is this an inevitable part of love, or even of like? It’s a horrifying thought. But since I’m going to be alone forever, at least I won’t become one of them.
Though will I just be surrounded by squealing and PDAs? My future is doomed.
“What were you saying?” Maliah asks as Trevor runs back toward the pool releasing some kind of warrior yell. Boys in big groups remind me of babysitting our next-door neighbors’ twin toddlers. There’s so much chaotic yelling and wrestling—and the sinking feeling that maybe nothing less than full adult supervision is required.
“Wait, what suit are you wearing?” Maliah grabs the skirt of my dress and starts pulling it up. I let out a full-on scream. Even the warrior-yelling boys look over.
“What the hell, Abby.”
“I’m not wearing a suit,” I say. “And I don’t want anyone seeing my underpants. That was a normal reaction for underpants-seeing prevention.”
“It’s a pool party!” she says. “I told you to bring a suit!”
“There was a problem with our washing machine last night,” I say. “So I couldn’t get it ready because I was at my internship all day. And, anyway, speaking of my internship, guess who—”
“You okay over here?” One of Trevor’s buddies makes his way over to us. “Sounded like something violent going down.”
“I’m fine,” I say. This is the one I don’t dislike, because he bought me a Diet Coke once, and didn’t laugh the other week at the girl whose bikini top fell off when she dove into the water. For a lacrosse bro type, I guess he’s harmless enough.
“Be safe,” he says with a smile.
“Jax,” Maliah says with a grin. “You know that hitting on Abbs is hopeless, right?”
Oh my god, that’s right. His name is actually Jax, like he’s an action hero or a for-dudes-only line of deodorant.
“I still need to talk to you about something,” Jax says with a little head nod. I feel like he knows this gesture works on girls and so he’s worked out the intricacies of exactly how much to tilt his head and squint his eyes.
Somehow it even sort of works on me.
“Leave her alone,” Maliah says, though with a smile.
“I’ll text you later,” Jax tells me while walking off.
“Good luck without my number,” I mutter to Maliah, who snorts.
“He’ll probably get it from Trevor,” she says. “Fair warning.”
“Why does Trevor have my number?” I take another sip of beer. It’s not good but it’s cold and free.
“You know,” Maliah says with a little shrug. “Emergencies and stuff. If he can’t get in touch with me, he can try you.”
See, it’s great that I’m doomed to my spinster existence—I
literally don’t understand anything that couples do.
“So what are you talking about?” Maliah hops up to sit on the little stone wall that sections off the pool area. “The other intern? Someone exciting?”
“No,” I say. “Jordi Perez. From school.”
Maliah squinches her eyebrows, nose, and mouth all at once. “Jordi Perez? I thought she was in juvie.”
“Juvie?” I burst out laughing. “Is juvie even real? I thought that was something that happened to bad kids in movies from the 1950s.”
“Abby, juvie is completely real, and I can’t believe she’s not still there.”
“She seems fine,” I say. More than fine. Professional! Inspiring! Fashion-serious in all black! Well-spoken! Beautiful!
“I heard she burned down a building. Arson, Abbs.”
“You are my best friend and I love you,” I say, “but that doesn’t sound like something that could have really happened.”
“Be careful.” Maliah grabs my arm and forces me to stare into her eyes. “Promise me.”
“Um, okay. Sure.”
“What’s it like otherwise? Can you use a computer? Then you could still work on your blog.”
“I don’t think so.” I feel a twinge of guilt that in today’s weirdness, I haven’t yet come up with my next post idea. “I don’t even know what I’m writing about.”
“Swimsuits,” she says, forcefully. “And you should take pictures in them. At least in the nautical striped one.”
“Is it too clichéd to write about swimsuits for my second post of the summer?” I ask. “And you know how I feel about putting pictures of myself online that aren’t severely locked down. Why would I start with me in a swimsuit?”
Maliah pokes me in the shoulder. “’Cause you’d look smoking and maybe this is how you find a girlfriend, finally.”
“I don’t want a girlfriend,” I say, because it’s what I always say. It feels good and consistent and right to stick to a story. After all, it’s not embarrassing not to have something you don’t even want.
The thing is, even if I wasn’t already doomed to never know love, it would still seem impossible. I don’t know how to find girls—Lyndsey is proof of that—and I don’t know how, if I managed to, one of them would be even interested in me, and then even if all of that magically happened, I don’t really know what it would be like. Watching Maliah with Trevor is a little like watching my best friend but also a little like spying on a stranger.
“My dad’s on his way home,” Trevor yells. “Everyone clear out.”
“Can you give me a ride?” I ask Maliah as I chug the last of my beer.
Trevor pops up next to us and slings his arm around Maliah’s shoulders. “‘Everyone’ doesn’t mean Mal.”
“I’m sorry,” she says. “You’ll be okay, right? It’s still light out.”
“I’ll be fine,” I say, because it’s not about safety! I just wanted to hang out with my best friend. “What are you doing tomorrow? I don’t work on Tuesdays or Thursdays.”
“Maybe Thursday, then? I already have plans tomorrow.” She looks so cozy wrapped up in Trevor’s bicep.
“Okay, Thursday then.” I wave and walk toward the gate.
Jax jogs up beside me. “Did I hear you need a ride?”
“I guess you did,” I say. “Which is weird because I thought you were all the way over there.”
“I have excellent hearing,” he says. “Ask doctors.”
“Which doctors?” I ask. “Any doctors?”
“Any doctors that have tested my hearing,” he says. “They’re always impressed. Come on. Where do you live?”
I barely know him, of course, but when you don’t drive, you get used to jumping in cars with friends of friends. I give Jax directions to my house and follow him out to his silver BMW. Boys from Westglen Preparatory High School always have nicer cars than my parents do. At this point, I expect it.
“So you like burgers, right?” Jax asks me.
“What? Burgers?” I shoot him a look. “Because I’m fat?”
“No! You’re not—”
“I am,” I say. “It’s fine. Being fat isn’t bad. Acting like fat’s an insult is, though.”
“Uh, okay then,” he says, though pleasantly. Of course, then he cuts off two cars as he swerves around a line of traffic backed up to turn on Riverside Drive.
“You’re terrifying,” I tell him.
“Just answer the question, Abby.”
“Yes,” I say. “Like most intelligent people, I like burgers.”
“I have to do this project,” he says. “It involves burgers. You in?”
“Am I in? To a project you haven’t explained at all? And also, I barely know you?”
“We’re like, friends-in-law,” he says with a grin. “The couple’s two best friends.”
“That’s not a thing.”
“It’s completely a thing—”
“You missed my street,” I say, and he screeches the car around in almost a U-turn. Somehow we’re both still alive as he pulls up to my home. I haven’t seen Jax’s house—I mean, why would I?—but I assume it’s like Trevor’s, tucked into hills with its own gate. Our bungalow is all but mere inches apart from the houses on either side of it. It’s the sort of difference I didn’t know was a thing for a long time, but then you’re in a BMW post-private pool party with a lacrosse player, and your house that you very recently thought was normal is actually a teeny toy home.
“Thanks for the ride,” I say. “Though it nearly killed us both.”
“That was nothing,” he says. “I’ll text you more info later.”
“I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I gotta get home,” he says. “But time will answer all questions, friend-in-law.”
“Seriously,” I say as I get out of the car. “That’s not a thing.”
CHAPTER 4
The house smells delicious when my beeping phone wakes me the next morning. By now I know not to expect breakfast in the kitchen, but a food photographer. When I tiptoe out in my pajamas, I see that I’m right.
“Look how great your mom’s burgers look,” Dad tells me. Until last year, Dad worked at a media agency, but now he’s managing all the non-Norah Eat Healthy with Norah! business, like scheduling and publicity and accounting. He used to come home and tell us funny stories about the grumpy old executive vice president he reported to. Now he reports to Mom, so even though I’m sure there are funny stories, he’s stopped sharing them.
“Sure,” I say, but for two big reasons they don’t at all. Mom’s food always sounds like a good idea, if you don’t hear the details. It’s a cheeseburger! What could go wrong? Well, first, there are no buns but fake “bread” made out of grilled mashed cauliflower. And it seems unfair to call it a cheeseburger when instead of cheese, the ground turkey meat is sprinkled with nutritional yeast.
Also, of course, there’s kale instead of a piece of lettuce.
But that’s not even the worst of it. That stuff’s just healthy and so I can get behind that. But food photography is actually really disgusting. The burger’s grill marks would be good enough for real life, but to make sure they really show up on camera, they’re touched up with dark brown eyeliner. Everything’s brushed with oil to make it shinier, and this burger is actually in perfect stacked order because little pins are holding it together. The kale has been misted with plant food, but that’s not as bad as it could be. The other week there was a photo shoot with a bowl of fruit, and it had all been sprayed with deodorant.
“Abbs.” Dad sighs while smiling. I can tell he thinks this will make me feel guilty, but it’s only mostly effective. “You have to forgive her at some point.”
“I should get dressed.” I glance at Mom and then at the woman standing next to her who’s holding a much fancier-looking camera than Maggie gave Jordi yesterday. My pajamas might be cute—a pink tank top with cupcake-printed shorts—but I’m still wearing pajamas in front of a stra
nger.
And you don’t have to forgive anyone you don’t want to.
It didn’t feel like this when Rachel was still here. It was easier for Mom to forget how disappointed every facet of me made her when the perfect daughter she would have picked out from a catalog was standing right beside me. The Ives aren’t supposed to be a three-person unit; we only function correctly at four.
After I take a shower and put together a couple of outfit options, I grab my phone. Jax has texted a third time, which astounds me. Aren’t fratty types unable to wake before noon due to residual post-partying effects?
can u meet me or not??
At least his texting style meets his stereotype’s expectations.
I decide to wear my shorts printed with lemons and flowers with a bright white sleeveless shirt Maliah gave to me for my birthday this year that I’ve somehow managed to keep in spotless condition. Sometime between hanging up my towel and adding a bright pink enamel necklace to my outfit, I must have decided that even giving in to Jax’s text demands is a better use of my time than sticking around here.
Plus this is clearly a going-out look.
Normally, I understand my own motivations a little more. Everything seems a little fuzzy since yesterday’s daydreaming and distractions in Lemonberry, though. Am I bored? (Possibly.) Do I miss Rachel? (Absolutely.) Am I jealous that Maliah has another person to spend her time with this summer? (Obviously, even if that makes me a baby.)
And so Jax and I meet outside of the overpriced juice place on Glendale. He’s wearing a Westglen T-shirt with baggy basketball shorts and worn-out flip flops. He looks like he put less effort into getting ready than I even realized was possible, but even a lesbian can admit that it all still sort of works because he’s tall and in really good shape and clearly goes to a barber who knows exactly what to do with his sun-bleached light brown hair.
“Man, I am hooked on these things,” he says, holding the door open for me. “Who the hell knew beets could be good to drink.”
I groan without even meaning to. “You sound like my mom.”
“That’s flattering.” He orders some fruit/vegetable combo that would make Norah’s heart sing. “What’d you want? It’s on me.”