The Music of What Happens - Bill Konigsberg Page 0,2
not turning around, way too loud given she’s trying to sell food from the very truck she’s condemning. “This is hopeless, Jordan. Hopeless.”
Then she turns around, and she sees me, and she blushes.
“Oh shit,” she says. “I was kidding. It’s plenty clean. I’m just. I’m hopeless. That’s all. Me. Hopeless mess.”
“Mom,” Jordan says, very chill-like, like he’s used to calming her down. “This is Max. A kid from MG.”
“Oh!” she says. “Hi. Lydia. Lydia Edwards. Worst chef ever. Nice to meet you.”
“Hey,” I say.
“We just took this thing out for the first time in a long time today, and it’s. It’s a lot.” She runs her hands through her hair and widens her eyes at me. They are lined like she hasn’t slept in a week. “Hey. You want to be our first customer?”
“Um, no thanks,” I say.
“Oh, I was just kidding about the — come on. On the house. I’ll eat one if you eat one. Okay? Come on.”
It’s weird because I don’t owe Jordan or his mom anything. He’s a cute boy from my comp class who I don’t know that well. But I don’t exactly know how to walk away. I instinctively reach into my pocket for my phone, like I just got a text, but then I pull my hand back out. “Sure,” I say. “Okay. Thanks.”
This gets Lydia Edwards to smile at me for the first time, and when she does her face energizes. There is something kind of — charismatic? — about her.
“What can I get ya?” she asks.
The menu is printed on a whiteboard with orange marker. The handwriting looks like a third grader’s, and I wonder which one of them wrote it. There are four items. “Can I try … the chicken parm hero?”
Her eyes light up and she says, “Oh my God, you’re going to love it! Love it!” She rushes to the back of the truck and I look at Jordan and I almost laugh, because his expression is like — have you ever seen one of those TV shows about people behind bars in prison? He looks like he’s serving two to four years. Something about that miserable expression next to the freaky chicken drawing cracks me up, but he’s not laughing and I don’t want to piss him off.
“So this is like a family thing?”
He nods. “My dad. He used to run it. But he —”
I wait for him to finish and when I realize he isn’t going to, I say, “Oh. Okay. My dad lives in Colorado Springs, so I get it. My folks divorced six years ago.”
“Died, actually,” Jordan says, looking down at the stainless steel window counter.
My throat catches. “Oh,” I say. “Sorry, dude.”
He shrugs like it’s no big deal. “Four years ago. This was his, and today’s actually our first try without him.”
“Oh, wow,” I say, and I feel bad for thinking of his mom as a mess.
“Shit,” she yells from behind Jordan. “Ow!”
Jordan turns around and his mother starts hopping up and down, holding her wrist. “Ow ow ow ow ow!”
“What happened?” he asks.
“Damn grill. I’m such a … I can’t do this, Jordan. I can’t. I can’t I can’t I can’t.” She’s still hopping, and Jordan looks quickly back at me like he’s mortified that I’m witnessing this, so I turn around and pretend to look at my phone.
I hear the rest of the conversation, but I don’t see it. “It’s okay, Mom,” he says, his voice quiet and controlled. “We can do this.”
“Can we, though? Do novices just jump in and excel at food truckery?”
“We’ll make it work. I promise.”
“Four months of back mortgage by July fifth? We’re gonna be homeless, Jordan. Homeless because I’m an idiot and —”
“Mom. Stop. Please. There’s people.”
“Oh!” she says, suddenly realizing that her mini-meltdown is being watched. Not just by me — I turned around, I had to — but by a handful of other people who have come to witness the crazy. People are terrible. I’m a little terrible too, I guess. It’s like how traffic slows around an accident, and you kinda know everyone is hoping to see a dead body.
Jordan’s mom buries her head into his bony shoulder, and Jordan turns his head to see all of us watching. He catches my eye, his jaw hardens, and he turns back away from us. He tries to speak softly, but somehow I can still hear him.
“We’re gonna be fine. I’ll take care of it. I promise.”