The Music of What Happens - Bill Konigsberg Page 0,43
say something sotto voce to Max, I mumble to him as I brush past. “We’re gonna have to go on the lam in a hurry. I’m setting off bullshit meters left and right.”
He laughs and puts his mouth close to my ear. “We’ll take it as a good sign that you’re a shitty liar, I guess.”
My ear feels on fire. “Am I?”
“The worst,” he says, and I can’t help but smile.
The next guy, college age with a blue faux-hawk, wants a habanero-peach chicken breast, without a bun. We don’t actually offer buns (it says nothing about bread on the menu), so I nod. It’s an easy order to grant.
“Habanero all day,” I say, and Max says, “Roger that.” We’ve picked up some good food prep slang from our video watching.
I take the guy’s money and try to sell him on a lemonade, but he’s not buying. Max says, “Habanero up,” turns around, and hands me the paper dish. He stops moving. Freezes up.
“Oh, hey,” the guy says, smiling.
Max just stares. “Hey.”
“Didn’t know you worked a food truck.”
Max looks suddenly stoned, which is weird. I’ve never seen him at a loss for words. “Yep.”
“We should hang out again,” the guy says. “Kevin, in case you forgot.”
“Sure,” Max says. “Okay.”
I pry the paper dish from Max’s clenched hands. I am all agog. Like, what just happened? Former hookup? I realize I don’t know almost anything about Max in terms of that.
“Text me,” the guy says, Max nods, and the guy walks off, and I’m like, Huh? It’s a little funny, actually. How could a waif of a skinny dude like that make Max speechless? And then I realize: That guy is about my build. Maybe Max actually likes ’em skinny?
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