The Summer of Jordi Perez (And the Best Burger in Los Angeles)(5)
So I kept doing it. My mom blogs for a living, at least in part, so I stole all the tips I could from her. I kept commenting on similar blogs and invited them to visit mine. I reblogged and retweeted and Tumblr’d and liked and faved and hearted all over social media. I wrote custom posts geared toward anyone who commented with something they wanted to see next, like formalwear or boots.
It, sort of magically, worked. And then the more I wrote, the more followers I gained, and it made me want to write even more. Now it’s just a regular part of my life.
I keep Tumblr Abby and real-life Abby as separate as I can, though. I don’t post pics of myself, even when I’m wearing the exact same looks I’m recommending. Maliah is my only friend who knows about +style, and I only told her because she wanted to know why I was always checking my phone. Maliah doesn’t believe in secrets, so holding anything back is a bit of an exhausting yet pointless pursuit. The effort doesn’t feel worth it for a freaking blog.
Once Jordi and I have combined our stacks of invoices, we give Maggie a few minutes to come out of her office. When she doesn’t, I decide to creep close to her closed office door to see if I can guess how we should proceed.
“Can you hear anything?” Jordi whispers.
“No,” I say, but I forget to whisper. The office door opens almost immediately, and I try to back away subtly. I don’t make eye contact with Jordi, but I can hear her snort.
“We finished the invoices,” she says calmly to Maggie, who’s emerged from behind the door.
“Great. Are you guys hungry? Let’s go grab lunch. I don’t want to overwhelm you on your first day.”
Considering we’ve been here for a couple hours now and the only thing we’ve actually done is put a stack of paper in alphabetical order, I’m not exactly feeling overwhelmed. Not by the internship, at least. By the uncertain state of the fall job, sure. By feeling like maybe I’ve lost out on something special by splitting things with Jordi, definitely. By thinking of Lyndsey Malone kissing Blake Jorgensen—of all people. Blake Jorgensen who, twice last year, interrupted our World History teacher because he felt like he “could explain the Ottoman Empire in a more relatable way.”
Yeah, I’m definitely overwhelmed.
“Abby?”
I look to Maggie, who seems like she’s awaiting something from me. Possibly an answer to a question she asked while I was thinking about how Blake Jorgensen’s hair is blonde in one section and he claims it’s from the sun but we’re all sure he bleaches it. Oh, god, I am for sure now missing probably another vital question.
“Lunch?” Jordi says. “Viet Noodle Bar?”
“Oh, sure, great,” I say. And it is great, not just because I like the restaurant, but because Maggie wasn’t doing something like offering one of us the fall job while I was getting angry at a boy I barely know for being with someone who’d never see me that way anyway. Why am I taking it so hard when I can’t imagine anyone seeing me that way?
We walk down the block to the restaurant, which isn’t one of my regular spots, because in our family, going out to dinner is tantamount to cheating on Mom. And maybe someday I’ll be the kind of girl who has regular lunch spots and favorite places for bringing dates, but right now all my extra money goes toward shopping (and obviously occasionally Frappuccinos). Also, I’ll probably never have dates; I’ll just need cool brunch places so I can meet up with Maliah and guide her through the travails of her love life.
“Not everyone knows their major yet,” Jordi says, with a look to me.
Oh, crap, I stopped listening again.
Even though we’ve gone to school together for at least all of high school, Jordi’s voice isn’t familiar to me at all. I don’t know her tone, and she definitely sounds more serious than anyone I hang out with. Up until today, Jordi and I have probably never exchanged more than a few words.
I know Jordi’s friends, though—well, I know who her friends are. They all wear lots of black, but not in the stoned-skateboarding-slacking way. They stand out in Glenfeliz High School because in Southern California, most people choose to wear colors that complement the near-constant sunshine. I feel like Jordi’s group is artsy and cultured and serious, but maybe I’d think that of anyone so enamored with the color black. If I switched to all-black clothing, I wonder if everyone would suddenly think that of me.
Maybe I should try it out, at least for a week. No! I’d miss colors way too much. Today, for example, I’m wearing a yellow floral dress with a tiffany blue belt and gold sandals, with a tiny jeweled barrette in my shoulder-length cotton candy pink hair. I was doing my best to go for a Lemonberry vibe without making it seem like I was trying too hard. It’s funny how trying hard is supposed to be the very last thing you seem like you’re doing in fashion, when, come on, no one just throws on an outfit that has the least bit of style to it. Trying hard shouldn’t be seen as a crime.
Anyway, I really do think that when the school year ended, Jordi didn’t quite look so cultured or bad-ass or intimidating. But I’ve never just looked so much at Jordi before.
“What about you, Abby?” Maggie asks, and I manage to remember I’m in the midst of a conversation.
“I don’t know about college yet,” I say, even though part of me feels like it already knows so much. I see myself in New York, or even still here, but downtown and no longer living at home. My parents want me to focus on something serious in college—which is pretty crazy considering Mom makes her living blogging about food—and refuse to believe that fashion can be serious. It’s as though they’ve forgotten binge-watching whole seasons of Project Runway with me while I choked up at all of the emotional moments.