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

by Amy Spalding

  The next morning I magically arrive at Jordi’s exactly when she’s walking through her gate.

  “Hi,” I say.

  “Did you get my message?” she asks. “You didn’t respond.”

  “Oh, I …” … was afraid I’d sound unhinged. “Sorry. I did get it, though. There were more leftover faux-stadas, but I left them for my parents.”

  “Good girl,” she says and smiles.

  I wait for details on the lunch we’re going out to together, or whatever I’m apparently eating instead of piles of sad vegetables and tempeh. We just walk quietly, though.

  “Did you have fun at the library?” I ask when I can’t take the silence any longer. Probably it’s only been a few seconds but in certain situations a few seconds can be an eternity.

  “That was Tuesday, but we did,” Jordi says, and I realize out of nowhere how desperately I hope that “we” just means her and her brother. Jordi could have a boyfriend. Even if Jordi—miraculously—likes girls, why wouldn’t Jordi already have a girlfriend? How could I be the only person who’s noticed her?

  I wish it worked another way in my head. If only I found her silences maddening instead of intriguing. If only I thought it was boring or predictable or silly that she’s in all-black every day, even in the warm June sunshine. If only I didn’t think that whatever she did to end up in juvie wasn’t justified, no matter what it was.

  If Jordi had wanted to burn down a building, I believe that structure should have rightfully gone down in flames.

  Once we get to the shop, Jordi takes her lunchbag out of her black bag and nudges me. “Dad gave me extra caldo de pollo for you.”

  I don’t know what that is, but Jordi’s dad gave her food for me. Jordi’s dad knows I exist. I already love caldo de pollo.

  “You’re so lucky your dad cooks,” I say. “I mean, my mom makes …”

  “I saw,” Jordi says as we pour our coffees.

  “No … well, have you heard of Eat Healthy with Norah?”

  “Nope.”

  Maggie walks out from the back room. “Oh, no, are we talking about Eat Healthy with Norah? One of my friends is obsessed with her. I, on the other hand, find her incredibly irritating.”

  “Me too,” I say with a sigh. “Norah’s my mom.”

  “Oh, Abby, I’m sorry,” Maggie says. “I never would have said—”

  “It’s really okay,” I say. “Trust me, I understand.”

  “So …” Jordi says. “It’s a website?”

  “It’s a website, and a segment on the local NBC affiliate, and other shows bring her on as a healthy eating expert all the time. It’s wraps with cucumbers instead of tortillas, and sandwiches with lettuce instead of buns, and a grilled cheese except that the bread is actually made from cauliflower. And everything’s tiny little portions.”

  I wonder if I just seem like a fat girl complaining about not getting to eat enough.

  But then Jordi’s neutral expression turns into a frown.

  “I’m glad I rescued you, then,” she says. “Extra glad, now that I know about the cauliflower.”

  “I’m not even sure how you’d make bread out of cauliflower,” Maggie say. “I mean, I understand I could look it up, but I think bread is great.”

  “Bread is great,” Jordi and I chorus, and then we exchange a tiny grin. Well, Jordi’s grin is tiny. I’m pretty sure that mine is somehow wider than my face.

  Maggie gets Jordi started on downloading her photos from her camera to the computer in the back room before taking me into her office to chat about social media, or at least that’s what I assume we’ll talk about. I have my notebook of ideas ready to go.

  “I really am sorry,” she says. “I had no idea she was your mother. I never would have—”

  “No, seriously,” I say. “She is incredibly irritating.”

  “Anytime you want someone to buy you real bread,” she says, “just say the word.”

  “Deal.” I open my notebook. “So I just wrote up some preliminary ideas for different social media platforms, just sort of based off of wanting to get people excited about new arrivals, but also maybe to get more followers?”

  As the words come out of my mouth, it’s almost as if I can hear myself as someone else. And I sound like I know what I’m doing. I sound like someone who can compete with Jordi.

  Ugh, why do I have to compete with Jordi?

  “First, I saw that—”

  Maggie’s iPhone buzzes on her desk, and she frowns at the displaying number. “Let’s talk about it later. I’ve unfortunately got to handle this and it might take a while. See if Laine needs your help.”

  So instead of sounding like a professional, I spend my morning learning the right way to fold sweaters for a display. At first it feels like a waste of my time, but as we organize by color and size, it feels like something’s come alive. Who wouldn’t want to pull a sweater from this organized rainbow?

  The morning flies by, and I try not to look too eager when I follow Jordi to the breakroom and wait as she takes two Tupperware containers of soup out of her lunch bag.

  “Thank you,” I say. “It’s really nice that you—your dad—”

  “It’s nothing,” she says, but she smiles as she sets the containers in the microwave. I stare at the caldo de pollo as it rotates. Soup of love! Well, probably not, but I’ve decided that’s what caldo de pollo translates to.

  After the microwave beeps, Jordi unceremoniously takes the containers and two spoons over to the table for us. I feel sorry for the soup because it’s come to represent all my current hopes and dreams, and that’s a lot for soup to live up to. But it is delicious, and not just because of its potential meaning. It’s full of huge pieces of zucchini, potatoes, carrots, chayote, and chicken; if any soup could make me believe, this is it.

  “This is incredible,” I tell her. “Thank you. And thank your dad.”

  “Sure,” she says. “We have this all the time but … Yeah. It’s really good.”

  “Do you know what people like my mom call meals?” I laugh even though maybe no one else thinks this is funny. “Solutions. Here’s a great solution for eating pizza!”

  “Man,” Jordi says. “Poor pizza.”

  We eat in silence for a few moments.

  “What are you doing after work tonight?” she asks. “Stuff with burgers?”

  “I …” I take a big spoonful to buy some time to work on my response. “No. Nothing, honestly. I should lie so you don’t think I’m a loser, but, nothing.”

  She laughs as she elbows me. “I was going to take some photos tonight, if you want to come with me.”

  I think of Jordi’s profile picture, of the light and shadows sweeping over her face. “It’s so amazing you’re a photographer.”

  “Ehhhh.” She eats a few spoonfuls of soup. “I’m still working on what I am. I like taking pictures, but I also like painting, and I like sculpture, and I like street art. I like everything I try. But I think photography’s my favorite.”

  “That’s amazing,” I say, and then I laugh because I sound much more enthusiastic than I mean to. It is, though. “I think it’s great you like everything. Yeah, I have fashion, but it’s nothing big like art.”

  “Fashion can be art. And art doesn’t have to be big,” Jordi says. “It can be just for you.”

  “It’s okay if I come with you?” I ask. “It’s not like, a private thing?”

  “I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t okay, would I?”

  I have no idea if this means anything, but I agree regardless. As if there was a chance I wouldn’t.

  Maggie ends up leaving right after lunch, so instead of looking like a social media badass, if there is such a thing, I continue helping Laine. She ends up sending Jordi and me home early because, without Maggie there, there aren’t really any new projects to take on.

  We walk to Jordi’s house together. I expect to go in with her, or at least wait here by the shiny gate so she can do whatever she needs before taking off fo
r photography.

  “Meet back at seven?” she asks instead.

  “Sure!” I say and force myself to walk home without enacting some kind of grand farewell. I’m seeing her in less than three hours, and even if I wasn’t, that would be unnecessary.

  “Big news!” Mom says when I walk inside, and for just the splittest of seconds, I think my parents know about my photography non-date. I come back to reality very quickly, though.

  “A publisher wants your mom to write a cookbook.” Dad grins and wraps an arm around Mom’s shoulders. They look like a stock photo for happy middle-aged couples; blonde and sunny and fit in that way Californians are expected to be. “How exciting is that?”

  I’m not entirely sure. She’s on local TV at least once a week and has been on the Food Network more than once. Is a book more exciting than TV?

  “Everything’s paying off,” Mom says, and I nod. “How’s the internship?”

  “It’s great,” I say. “Anyway, I’m going out tonight, if that’s okay, and I need to get ready.”

  “Have fun,” Dad tells me. “I’m taking your mom out to celebrate.”

  Their last celebration dinner was at a raw food restaurant, so I find it unlikely the celebration will be too … celebratory.

  I review myself in the full-length mirror in my room. I wore a really basic yellow dress to work today—and if Jordi doesn’t like me—and why would Jordi like me?—changing would be really weird. This isn’t a date. You can’t make something a date by just hoping it’s a date and wearing a good dress.

  I settle for applying mascara and lip gloss.

  Jordi’s waiting outside when I arrive back at her house. She’s also wearing the same thing as earlier, though she’s layered an army green jacket over her outfit and switched out her boots for black Vans.

  “Hey,” she greets me.

  “I’m still thinking about that soup!” I say, even though I mean to just respond with a similarly chill hi. “Also, hi.”

  She smiles. “Let’s go.”

  “Where are we going? Do you have one place you like to take pictures? Or just all over? Is something happening tonight you want to specifically photograph?”

  Oh god, so many questions. How can I know it’s too many questions but ask them all anyway?

  “I don’t have anything specific in mind.” Jordi lifts her camera out of her bag and takes off the lens cap. “I like not having anything I’m after.”

  Then it happens before I can react: she points the camera at me and snaps a few photos.

  “Agh!” I fold my arms across my chest, and that feels awkward, so I tuck them behind my back, and then I worry my hips look big in this dress, so I just let my arms hang straight down. Now I feel like I have monkey arms.

  “Sorry,” Jordi says. “But this is why I don’t ask.”

  “Because I have monkey arms?” I ask, except that’s a term I came up with in my head and not aloud, so Jordi’s confused look is more than fair.

  “Because no one looks like herself when she knows she’s being photographed,” Jordi says. “But before you knew, you did. And you don’t have monkey arms.” She holds out her arms to her sides. “My arms are way longer than yours.”

  “But you’re taller!” I step closer to her and hold out my arms. “No, yours are way longer.”

  We’re standing face to face, inches apart, and Jordi automatically knew what monkey arms were. My face feels warm, and my lips are suddenly something I feel very aware of. I’ve known of the general feeling of wanting to kiss someone, but I’ve never felt the specific wanting to kiss someone right in this very moment before.

  Click.

  Jordi smiles at me. “Got you.”

  “When you take a picture, can you tell what a person is thinking?” I ask. “Does it show in the photograph?”

  “Why?” Jordi asks. “What are you thinking?”

  “Nothing,” I say. I say it more quickly than I’ve said anything in my life. Speed can be very suspicious, I realize.

  “Too bad.” Jordi turns from me and continues down the sidewalk. I try to predict when she’ll hold up her camera as I turn those two words over and over in my head. I think some graffiti on the curb might interest her, but it doesn’t. Too bad. I don’t even notice a patch of flowers emerging from dry grass, but Jordi does. Too bad. I think the sunset might be a cliché, but Jordi’s camera clicks while it’s pointed at the horizon.

  Too bad.

  “You’re quiet,” she says.

  “So are you,” I point out.

  “I don’t count,” she says.

  “I didn’t know if quiet people knew they were quiet,” I say. “The way loud people know they’re loud. People sometimes think I have no idea, but it’s not that I don’t know, I just can’t help it? Words come out of my mouth all the time.”

  Jordi turns onto Los Feliz Boulevard. “I never assume someone doesn’t know herself.”

  “Oh my god, no, I didn’t mean that I thought you didn’t, I—”

  “Abby,” she says. “Chill. I meant that I know that you know you’re loud. Louder than me, at least.”

  “You’ll have to say chill a lot,” I say. “If we keep hanging out. Because I am bad at it and I’ll need reminders.”

  Jordi takes a photograph of the tagged billboard over the Chevron gas station. The graffiti artist’s work looks crisper and better designed than the supermarket ad it’s covering.

  “That’ll be a good shot,” I say. “Not like the others won’t be. I’m sure you’re really talented. Well, maybe not the ones of me, but that’s not your fault. You can only do so much.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” she asks me.

  “N—nothing.” I lose track of how to stand normally again. “I’m not a model.”

  “Are you asking me to stop taking your picture?” Jordi asks. Her voice is a little softer. “If you want me to stop, I will. I didn’t mean to make you feel weird.”

  “I always feel weird,” I say.

  She grins as a breeze pours in around us and her wavy hair flies out around her. “Me too.”

  “You can keep taking my picture,” I say.

  And she does.

  CHAPTER 8

  Jax picks me up on Saturday afternoon so we can go to Pie’n Burger in Pasadena. Getting there requires the freeway, but since it’s the weekend, traffic is light and Jax vrooms his car easily to our destination. Today he has music blasting slightly beyond what I’d call listenable. I’m not sure what I’d have guessed his taste would be, but I would not have picked indie folk guys whistling and hand-clapping.

  “Can we turn this down?” I ask. “I can barely hear you.”

  “Man,” he says. “This shit’s my jam. But fine.”

  “So I sort of went out with Jordi last night,” I say. “I mean, not really. Not like a date.”

  “Nice,” Jax says. “Didja hook up?”

  “I said it wasn’t like a date.”

  “You can hook up on not a date,” he says. “You can pretty much hook up anywhere.”

  “Maybe if you’re you,” I say. “She wanted to take pictures in our neighborhood, since she’s this amazingly talented photographer. So I went with her.”

  “So she’s like an artsy type,” he says. “That’s what you’re into?”

  “I don’t know what I’m into,” I say. “I like her, specifically.”

  “Why?” he asks. “Remember, you have to have real reasons. I can use your rule against you.”

  “How is that using it against me? Because … she’s smart in this really calm and thoughtful way. And she takes photography seriously like it means the world to her. And …” I picture her and smile. “She’ll be super quiet and then say something kind of funny and sly.”

  I’m not sure I’ve ever thought much less spoken the word sly before.

  “And hot,” he says.

  “Well, yeah.” I think about Jordi standing perfectly still and snapping picture after picture, and about bein
g the one to see it all happen. “Did you ever come up with an answer for why you like Gaby?”

  “Of course I did,” he says as he parks the car next to the restaurant. “Come on, let’s do this.”

  “And?” I ask as we walk inside. “So?”

  Pie’n Burger is an old-fashioned diner that’s been here more than forty years, and it’s like time has mostly stopped inside. We sit down at the counter and quickly decide that even though we’ve been trying to diversify to add as many options as possible to the Biggest Blank, we’ll both get the regular hamburger. Our only other options are a veggie burger or a turkey burger, so we feel secure in keeping things simple.

  “Okay, so here we go.” Jax leans back in his chair. “She’s cute and smart.”

  “That’s barely specific,” I say. “That’s almost vague.”

  The waitress clunks our sodas down without a word or a smile, but I don’t care because even these are old-fashioned here, syrup and soda water poured over crushed ice.

  “If we were reviewing sodas,” I say, “these would win.”

  “Save it for the full app launch,” Jax says.

  “So what else?” I ask. “How do you even know Gaby?”

  “Our moms are in some alumni group together,” he says. “I see her around at these events I get dragged to.”

  “Aren’t you too old to get dragged to events?” I ask. It’s been years since I was seen at anything branded Eat Healthy with Norah! Though that’s probably as much my mom’s choice as mine.

  “You don’t know my mom.” He polishes off his last bite of burger. “So what’s your next move with Jordi?”

  “Why are you always asking me that?” The Thousand Island dressing on the burger has seeped through enough of the bun that I give up on holding it and surrender to the fork and knife.

  “Because you need a next move.”

  “I doubt that I do,” I say. “It all feels … I don’t know how it feels. Like it’s hopeful but also crazy and impossible. It’s like you told me I could fly.”

  “Man,” he says. “Your self-esteem …” He mimes a plane with his hand and then makes the hand-plane crash.

  “I’m just realistic,” I say. “Why do people treat realism as pessimism?”