The Music of What Happens - Bill Konigsberg Page 0,98
a working truck, by Friday morning. We pick it up from the repair shop on Baseline, and it’s still a steaming pile of crap, but at least now it drives when you put it into drive, and reverses when you want without so much shaking. And they put in a side window that we can see through, so we no longer have to drive with the side door open.
It puts us back a couple thousand, and after we pick up supplies at Safeway and head toward ASU for the lunch rush, Jordan tells me where we stand. We have about $1,200 in profits put away toward the $5,000 he owes. The deadline is next Friday.
“If all goes well and the truck holds up, we’ll make it. But we really have to push,” he says.
“Challenge accepted,” I say, and I mean it. We’re gonna make this happen.
We’re like a well-oiled machine once we get going. I flip chicken breasts like a pro, and Jordan has probably picked up his pace on lemonades and on the ordering situation by 100 percent since we started. The line just goes on and on for at least two hours, and I lose count of how much we’ve sold pretty quickly and get in that work zone where I’m loving the heat of the grill and the challenge of what we’re up against. Also I love that I’m doing it with Jordan. It’s amazing how we’ve known each other only a month, and I already feel like meeting him has changed everything for me. I can’t imagine my life without him.
“Two cayenne, one no tomatoes,” he calls back, and with my nongrilling, still-slightly-sore-from-punching hand, I reach back and fondle his thighs below the window, so no one can see.
“What’s that for?” he asks, smirking.
“Stuff,” I say, and his smirk grows.
“Don’t start what you can’t finish,” he says, and he flicks me on the upper thigh so I know he’s joking.
“I think you might be surprised what I can finish,” I say.
His smirk grows yet again.
We work both East Valley farmers’ markets on the weekend, we do lunches at ASU, and it’s about three in the afternoon on Wednesday, at the ASU lunch area, when Jordan takes an order, thanks the woman whose card he’s charged, and then pulls me toward the back of the truck.
His eyes are so unlike the eyes I remember when I first met him, when he was so miserable and his mom was struggling so much.
“We did it,” he says, and he jumps up and down.
“We did?”
“Taking out taxes, taking out your pay, even taking out the next shopping we’ll need to do? We have it. The back-mortgage payment. We did it!”
I hug him tight. “I’m proud of you, dude.”
“Me too!” he says. “Of us.”
“So what are we gonna do with all this cheddar?” I ask Max, as the Friday lunch crush dies down and we start our cleanup. I flash him the bills in my hand — maybe eight hundred more today. Every day has been at least solid in terms of profit, and this time it won’t go to back mortgage, since I handed my mom that money on Wednesday night, which felt amazing.
“I told you already. Don’t do that. Cheddar shit. That’s not you, and that’s not cute,” Max says, and I laugh, because, yeah. Not so cute.
“We should like take a vacation. Take off without the truck for a few days. We’ve earned it. Ever been to Rocky Point?”
He snorts. “That’s white people Mexico.”
“All I know is they have good shrimp there. Fresh right out of the ocean. Back when my mom was normal and my dad was breathing, he used to take us down there some weekends. All I remember is shrimp and tomato juice out of the can. That’s weird, right?”
Max rubs the middle of my back with his palms. “I still remember the first time I tried cream cheese. It was this time my dad and mom took me to Yuma, and we went to a bagel place, and Dad ordered me an everything bagel with cream cheese. I thought it was the best thing ever, and I thought it was only in Yuma.”
“That’s funny how we remember foods more than anything else.”
He squeezes my sides. “That’s why I love this. I mean, I love this for a lot of reasons, and I kinda saved your life and all.” I poke him in the ribs and he grins. “But I love that we make memories.