We’re quiet for a while, and then Max surprises me.
“Our cloud eggs will make your dreams come true,” he says. “Come on and give a cloud egg a try, and tell me it didn’t change your life. It doesn’t change your life, it’s on the house.”
It’s not catchy, exactly, but onlookers stop and approach.
“Cloud egg? Okay. I’ll bite,” a woman says. “How much?”
“Seven,” Max says. “Get it with a frozen mango lemonade for ten instead of twelve.”
She raises an eyebrow and reaches for her pocketbook. “Sold.”
Max smiles that golden grin of his. “You won’t be sorry. One cloud egg coming up!”
I take the woman’s credit card, charge her ten, and then go back to the blender and prepare her a drink. The sugar smell of the concentrate is so strong that I momentarily worry. It was one thing when I was imagining feeding someone my creation; actually giving the woman a frozen mango lemonade brings out all sorts of butterflies in my chest and stomach.
Max hands her a small, red-and-white checked paper dish with the cloud egg regally sitting in the exact center, a fork lying at its side. I hurry up and hand her a see-through-plastic sixteen-ounce cup of mango lemonade.
“Lovely,” she says, and we stand at the window and watch for her reaction. She forks in some of the egg white, and her eyes go wide. “Oh my! The consistency is more marshmallow than meringue,” she says. “I wasn’t sure. And is that Parmesan I’m tasting in there?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Max says.
“I kind of love it!”
A line begins to form, and my heart soars. We have a hit! This is happening.
She takes a sip of the lemonade, and her expression changes in a different way.
“Is this … lemonade mix?”
“Um,” I say, my heart crashing into my shoe.
She shakes her head. “Now that is not quite so special,” she says, and she takes off the lid and pours the contents of the drink on the ground. A poodle pulls on its leash and comes to lick it up, much to the chagrin of its owner.
“Warren!” the owner yells, yanking the dog away.
“I’m sorry,” I say, and the woman half smiles.
“Fifty percent,” she says. “I’ll come by next week, and I fully expect a free fresh-squeezed frozen lemonade.”
“And you’ll get it,” Max says, and I feel about two inches tall.
We spend the next two hours serving up mostly cloud eggs and the occasional frozen lemonade. The cherry is a big hit with kids, who don’t seem to have much of a sense of the difference between store-bought mix and fresh lemonade, thank God.
A few times we have to make people wait five minutes as Max makes another tray of cloud eggs, but mostly we get into a pretty good rhythm of me taking orders and him serving, and soon we’re even able to talk a bit between us, which is kinda nice, actually.
Until he goes back to our topic from before.
“My buddy Betts is on my jock to meet a boyfriend of mine. I don’t know why he cares so much.”
“Have you ever introduced anyone?”
He shakes his head. “None of his business. They’re too up in my stuff all the time.”
“I hear you,” I say, not really knowing what it would be like to want to hide boyfriend stuff from Pam and Kayla.
“And anyway, it’s not like anyone’s even been that close to being my boyfriend. It’s like, When someone interesting shows up, I’ll let you know, okay? Leave me alone, right?”
Max hands me a cloud egg, and I take it and look away, feeling like barely a person. Of course he’s not interested in zit boy, the skinny kid who can’t even make lemonade. What was I even thinking?
“Right,” I say. “As if we’re all attracted to each other. As if we see some gross gay dude and we’re like, I want that. I must have that.”
He laughs, I laugh, and I wonder about what it would take to get a full body and personality transplant.
We take in nine hundred dollars our first day with cloud eggs, thank you very much, and you better believe I feel like a freakin’ superhero.
In a world in which some deign to simply scramble their eggs, Chef Max saves an area family with his delectable cloud eggs! Story at eleven!
And that nine hundred bucks was without much in terms of drink sales, as Jordan decided that frozen lemonade concentrate would get the job done. Really, dude? Your life is on the line, and you went with Minute Maid? I don’t know, man.
He’s quiet as he hands me my ten bucks per hour plus half the tips, which turns out to be a hundred and five dollars. Then he hands me an extra two hundred for my work last week.
“Thanks,” I say, and Jordan mumbles, “Don’t mention it.” He’s back to being spacey, and it’s driving me crazy.
I go over in my mind what I could have said that would make him act that way. We were talking about our friends, and how they are all up in our business about who we’re dating, or in my case, not dating. I said I hated that. He agreed. I said I’d let them know if and when I found someone even close to my type.
My throat tightens. Shit. Why am I such an ass? I told Jordan, who is gay and available, that I hadn’t met anyone even close to my type? Why would I say that? I mean, he was all “Don’t shit where you eat,” and I guess I was just being defensive? I thought that took me out of the equation. I don’t know.
How can Jordan not know he’s adorable? I mean, this thing where he doesn’t like himself is kinda written all over him. And I guess I want to fix him, make him understand he’s better than he thinks, and maybe I have from the start. But I didn’t really think it would be that hard, because, I mean, his lines. Delicate and perfect. His limbs, moving like a dance. His fine features, like they could be on a doll. Minus the zits, yeah, but that doesn’t really bug me. I can see underneath. His thin, almost slight nose and lips. Those light green eyes filled with mystery. I don’t look at rugged guys like me. It’s just not my thing, which is why it’s so funny when Betts is all flirty. He’d be like my last choice. Jordan? A bad idea, because all we do is fight. But yeah, cute as all hell. And thoughtful. The stuff he says makes me think. I like that. I want more of that in my life.
“You were great today,” I say, and he laughs, almost like a snort.
“Yeah, I’m a real food truck mogul.”
“No, really. You and I? We’re a great team. I’m glad I took this job. I like working with you, Jordan. I like you.”
He looks at the floor and doesn’t respond.
I want to say something else, but I know I’m already way too much. Out on the edge of a cliff. Like the precipice, where you teeter before falling off and breaking your neck.
We go silent as we clean up, and I begin to feel like I have fallen. I said those sappy “I like you” things, and he left me hanging. And that fucking sucks. Maybe I need to cut my losses. We’ll work together. We don’t actually have to be friends, and it’s not like he makes friendship even possible. I can’t say anything without him taking it personally. It’s exhausting. Too much drama.
He wants to go home right away after, but I insist that we should take the time to prep for tomorrow, which means buying more eggs and also actual ingredients for lemonade. And when he rolls his eyes, it takes everything I have not to yell at him. I mean, I’m saving his freakin’ family. You’d think he’d be a little nicer about stuff. Jesus.
“I gotta tinkle,” he says, and he jumps out the back of the truck.
“I’ll miss you very much,” I say under my breath. “You’re a real pleasure.”
I take a tray over to the sink to clean it, and Jordan’s notebook is there.
I can’t help it. Call me curious. What was he writing last week when the truck was so dead?
At the top of the first page, it reads,
Under are three entries:
The last one cracks me up. Jordan doesn’t always show it, but he’s funny. When I first met him, he said something like “We do Italian things with chicken,” which isn’t funny ha ha, but funny like a unique way of speaking. I wonder if he’s holding back? Like not comfortable being himself with me?
I turn the page, and the next page says,
Under is a poem.