The Music of What Happens(35)

Nah. No way.

A few minutes later, Max glances over to see how big the line is. It is slowing down.

“I need to take a break,” he says.

“Can you wait? I don’t know how to do the chicken.”

He shakes his head. “Break,” he says, not looking at me, and I’m like, What the fuck?

He jumps off the back of the truck and disappears, and I turn and look at the grill, feeling lost. I’ve watched him enough that I basically get how long it needs to cook, and how to squirt the water to make the grill sizzle, and how to cover the chicken with the round, silver thing so it cooks in the juice, and how to squirt the sauce on top after and serve the chicken with a slice of tomato and two pickle spears, like a sandwich minus the bread.

As I take orders, grill chicken, blend lemonade, and plate dishes all by myself, for what is probably five minutes but feels much longer, my mind is on Max. Is he going off to find Kevin? Is he making a date? Was he trying to be polite and not do that in front of me? This ugly feeling wraps around my throat and chest. Like I’m the butt of a joke. Like, make sure you don’t do it in front of Jordan, because he’s a wuss and it’ll hurt his feelings and he can’t take it.

As I throw away a burned chicken breast, I start to feel furious. Working my ass off while Max works on his secret dating life, which puts him so far ahead of me, so far out of my league, that it isn’t even funny.

He comes back wordless, not even a sorry.

“Don’t worry,” I say. “I held down the fort while you did whatever.”

“Thanks,” he says, not taking the bait, and once again I’m totally unsure of everything in my life. Who is this guy, Max? What are we? Why did he bother to draw that picture and show it to me, if he doesn’t even give a shit about me?





I’m handing Jordan a particularly awesome-looking habanero-peach chicken breast when I lose control of my hands and my stomach heaves. Luckily, I’m close enough to the handoff that no one notices. I put my hands behind my back and feel them shake as Kevin recognizes me.

He’s all, “We should get together again.” What do you say to that? Not if you were the last dude on earth, bro? So I said, “Yeah, sure.”

And truthfully I don’t really get what the big deal is, or why my stomach heaves, or why I’m being such a pussy, as Dad would say. So my first time sucked ass. Big deal. But my stomach jumps and my body starts its shaking at the hands and I can’t wait for Kevin to get the hell out of there. I excuse myself from the truck and Jordan is all helpless and I try to be nice about it but sometimes a dude just needs to warrior up. So I leave, hoping Jordan can figure shit out without me for a few minutes.

I barely make it to the garbage can behind the burrito truck. That’s where I hurl. I close my eyes, not wanting to see the contents of my stomach as they are sprayed into the trash. I throw up once, open my eyes, spy a chunk of something green and square that I cannot recognize, and spew again, and once I’m emptied, my head spins and I lean back against a big, shady tree while I catch my breath. Then I cup my hands around my mouth and inhale, and it’s nasty. How the hell am I gonna go back to work like nothing just happened?

How the hell can I not? Jordan isn’t gonna be able to do everything by himself for too long.

So I walk back, trying to slow my heartbeat. Wondering why the hell I just threw up like some weak-ass dork, not like Super Max at all. I have to be able to control my body. What kind of dude can’t even do that?

I climb onto the back of the truck and quickly grab and swig a cold bottle of water before Jordan even notices I’m there. I breathe into my T-shirt and sniff surreptitiously. A little better at least.

“Don’t worry,” he says. “I held down the fort while you did whatever.”

Is there a little attitude in his words? Jesus. I ask Jordan to do one thing ever, and he gives me shade. I decide to pretend I don’t hear it, because if I think too much about it, I’m gonna go off on him.

“Thanks,” I say, and I pop a piece of Trident gum into my mouth, wash my hands carefully, and get back to grilling chicken. And soon I’m feeling more like myself, and Jordan and I are back to being a team.

I get this idea. At first I’m like, no way. Because like a minute ago I was barfing. But sometimes you just want to get back to normalcy as quickly as possible. So as we start our cleanup, I ask.

“What are you up to later?”

“Why?” Jordan asks, and I laugh. He can be so weird. It’s like he never had lessons in social cues. He showed me his poem. I drew him a picture. We have moved past the We’re just coworkers phase, and truthfully? I like him, okay? I like him.

“I was just thinking. We should go get some fresh prickly pear.”

“Huh?”

“We say locally sourced. It’s all working. Let’s actually pick some prickly pear and use it in the lemonade.”

He sighs dramatically. “Can’t we just continue to lie?”

“I guess,” I say, crossing my arms. “But. Um.”

He stops cleaning out the blender and looks at me. “What?”

“Are you really going to make me say it?”

“Say what?”

And I realize: He actually doesn’t get social cues. Like, at all. We were getting along so well, and all day I was thinking how it would be fun to actually do something, like not on the truck. And he has no idea. Wow.