The Music of What Happens - Bill Konigsberg Page 0,31
I can’t really imagine that.
“So here goes nothing,” Max says, cracking the first egg. He separates the whites from the yolks, putting the yolks in a small bowl. Then he starts whisking the whites to within an inch of their lives, and I stare at the whites as they slowly stiffen and form peaks.
“You’re amazing,” I say, and he snorts.
“That’s me. Max the Amazing Egg Whisker.”
“I couldn’t do it.”
“That’s something you should probably deal with. Who can’t whisk an egg?”
I ignore his dig and start in on my contribution. We convinced Max’s mom to part with her Vitamix, and I’m going to have two frozen drink offerings: frozen mango lemonade and frozen cherry lemonade. I have enough lemonade concentrate and frozen fruit to make a hundred lemonades. At five bucks a pop, that’s five hundred dollars net if we sell out, and it cost me just under a hundred bucks for the ingredients at Safeway. Not bad for a day’s work, and I figure if we sell out, maybe we can streamline the process and sell even more on days in the future.
I place my notebook down by the sink, aware that for the first time, I’m not likely to get much writing done today. I actually wrote some funny stuff and some poems last week. Then I start with the first can of concentrate, combining it with water to create sixty-four ounces of lemonade. I shake and shake and shake, and then pour myself a little bit. Real tart, real sweet. Not too bad. Then I pour eight ounces into the Vitamix, tear open a package of frozen mangos, and pour a quarter of it into the blender. I hit the button and watch the machine whir to life. I didn’t actually try it at home; it seemed simple enough, but as I watch the ingredients combine, I realize maybe I should have experimented. My lemonade looks frothy but watery.
“Hmm,” I say, stopping the blender for a moment.
Max walks over. “How did it work at home?”
I press the button again as an answer. He presses it off.
“Jordan. Tell me you tried this at home. I was doing cloud eggs all night last night.”
“Sounds like a real party,” I say, and I press the button again.
“Dude,” he says, shaking his head and moving away. “Dude.”
We’re falling into this routine, where Max is awesome and I’m a screwup. I can’t say I love it. I purse my lips and try to put it out of my mind.
I find that if I do half the packet of mango instead of a quarter and some ice — yes, I didn’t even think of ice, I’m that dense — my drink thickens up in about a minute on high blend. I wait until it looks sufficiently thick, stop the blender, and pour myself a cup. It’s bright orange-yellow, a color that would definitely catch my eye if I were walking by and thirsty.
The taste is, well, it’s pretty good. Mango-y. Sweet. Refreshing. Super cold. Max watches as I drink and I make an exaggerated show of enjoying it.
“Ahh,” I say dramatically. “Perfection. Imagine: I was able to blend lemonade and fruit all by myself, without testing it out at home!”
He gives me a dirty look, and I assuage him by offering him a sip from my cup. He pauses for a moment, and I realize that there is a sort of intimacy to sharing a cup. But finally he takes it, and I have to admit my arms tingle as I watch his Adam’s apple go up and down while he tastes it.
“That is some sweet shit, dude. How much sugar is in that lemonade?”
I shrug. “Frozen.”
“You know, we could have actually done real lemonade.”
I swallow, tighten my jaw, and — remembering how much I need Max — I try to keep things light. “We could do lots of things. At this point I’m just looking to make some money.”
I set things up so that we have a blender full of mango lemonade, ready to go. A real food truck would probably have two Vitamixes, one for each fruit. As it stands, I realize I’m going to have to hope people want the same one over and over, or else there’s gonna be lots of Vitamix washing.
Once I’m set up, I watch him tenderly place the egg yolks in the center of the white clouds, which look like marshmallow fluff circles. I have to admit that I’d totally order one of those. Max is