The Wonder Bread Summer (5 page)

“Do I have to turn around again?” Sex Wax smiled at Allie.

“Yeah. Can you go over by the pumps or something while I weigh it out?”

“Give me your keys.” His open hand was sitting in front of Allie’s face. For a second, she had an urge to lean down and lick his palm, the way he had licked hers. But she knew that was wrong. Gross, even.

“Why do you want my keys?” Allie asked.

“So you won’t drive away with my cash!”

“Oh, yeah! Duh!” Allie pulled out the keys and placed them in his hand. Sex Wax closed his palm around Allie’s lucky rabbit foot, then walked away.

“Wait! What’s your name?!” Allie called out the window.

He paused, turned, and said, “Mike. And you’re Allie.”

“Right,” she said. “Mike and Allie.” And then she blushed, although if Mike had heard her, he gave no sign—he was walking back toward the gas station.

Allie leaned across the center divider and pulled up the
Glamour
magazine she had seen earlier. Paulina Porizkova was on the cover. Allie studied her beautifully square face for a moment and wondered what it would be like to be that pretty, if she would be in the mess she was in now if she were that pretty. Well, of course she wouldn’t, she decided, she’d be modeling! Allie flipped the magazine open, tore out a page, set it in her lap, and tried to make an origami envelope. That was how Jonas packaged his coke. Allie had seen him in the stockroom one day with a
Penthouse
magazine open, picking out the most salient half-pages of photos and then folding them into tiny envelopes.

It wasn’t as simple as Jonas made it look. Allie tried every combination of backward and forward and double folds on a half-page ad for Breck Shampoo, but nothing would hold its shape. Finally, she took the horoscope
(Things are heating up for Virgo gals this month, be sure to cool your jets before you fly off . . .),
folded it in half, and set it on her lap. She lifted the Wonder Bread bag from the floor, stuck her hand in, pulled out a palm-full of coke, and dumped it into the fold of the magazine page.

Allie had no idea what three and a third grams would feel like (she couldn’t even remember how many grams were in an ounce), but she lifted the magazine page and lowered it as if she were weighing it. Somehow pretending she knew what she was doing gave her a nice feeling of control. A shimmery layer of coke stuck to her hand and she wondered if Mike would want to lick it off. But of course it would seem bizarre if she offered up her palm. Allie wiped the remnants off on her jeans.

“Okaaaay,” Allie whispered. “Got some of my paycheck!” She spun the Wonder Bread bag shut, tied the twisty around it, and stuck it under the front passenger seat. It seemed unsafe to get out of the car with the magazine page full of coke. Allie tapped on the horn a couple of times and looked into the rearview mirror. Mike was walking backward, talking to Jimmy as he inched his way toward the car. Then he turned and lightly jogged to the open window.

“Are you a hooker?”

“What? No. Why would you say that?” Allie looked down at herself, as if she were making sure she were still fully dressed.

“Your license plate says CALL GIRL.”

“It says CAL GIRL. Like California girl,” Allie said. Was Mike illiterate? He was so good-looking that it could make up for a lot of deficiencies, although maybe not illiteracy.

“Is that for me?” Mike glanced at the coke on Allie’s lap.

Allie nodded and lifted the magazine page by the two sides. “Here you go.” She moved it over to Mike, who started laughing.

“Shit! Wait! Put it back on your lap.” Allie did as she was told. Mike ran around the car and got in the passenger side.

“Hey,” Allie said, as he shut the door.

“Where’s the magazine?”

Allie pointed to the floor. Mike reached down, brought the magazine up, tore out two pages, ripped each page in half, then did some folding. “Do you have a spoon or something?”

“No,” Allie said. “I wasn’t planning on selling coke. I came to pump gas but then realized I didn’t have any money with me.”

“What about the price sheet?” Mike asked, and he grinned. Allie shrugged. Mike laughed, then reached over, scooped up some of the coke with his right hand and dropped it into one of the folded squares. In what looked to Allie to be fast motion, he folded the magazine around the coke into a tight little package, which he dropped into the breast pocket of his T-shirt. He did this three more times. Then he picked up the dusty page from Allie’s lap and licked it. Allie remembered the remnants she had dusted onto her jeans and regretted doing it. She could have gotten another lick.

“This stuff is fucking unreal,” Mike said. “Where does your friend get it?”

“I don’t know,” Allie said. “He’s in Berkeley. Or Oakland. Depending on what side of the street you’re on.”

“Oakland. Fuck. I gotta spend some time in Oakland.” Mike paused, then looked over at her carefully. “So, if I go get some more cash, can you give me another three and a third grams just like this three and a third?”

Ah. Clearly she had overestimated her coke measurements, Allie realized. Good to know. “Well,” she hedged, “yeah, but I’d have to stop off at my dad’s restaurant and get my scale so I can really measure it out, you know?”

Mike smiled. “Okay. Cool.”

“Okay then!” If Mike bought ten more grams, Allie calculated—real grams that she had weighed on her father’s food scale—then Jonas’s entire debt would be paid back.

“I’ll follow you to the restaurant,” Mike said, and he stepped out of the car and stuck his hand up for Jimmy, who was approaching. They high-fived, then Mike added a little fist-punch in the air.

Jimmy leaned in the window. “Can I get some money for the gas?” Allie could see he was a nicer guy than Mike, someone whose life was in order. He didn’t do coke. He was a student at UCLA. He worked hard all summer. If he had been Chinese, Wai Po would have approved of him.

Allie handed out a hundred-dollar bill and Jimmy made change from the roll he had in his pocket, then ran off to help the orange Karmann Ghia that had just pulled up at the full-service pump.

“You know, I’m kind of lost,” Allie said to Mike, out the window. “My dad’s restaurant is on Fairfax. Can I follow you there?”

“You don’t know how to get to Fairfax from here?” Mike asked. “And you’re from here?”

“Direction deficit,” Allie said. “I get lost in big buildings.” It was true.

“I don’t believe you’re from here,” Mike said. He reminded Allie of Kathy Kruger’s older brother, who offhandedly and somewhat charmingly dismissed whatever Kathy and Allie did—the music they listened to, the teachers they liked, the shows they watched on TV. Growing up, Allie had felt so alone that she often wished she had an older brother to bump up against and give her trouble. Her life at home consisted only of her parents, who were never around, and Wai Po. When Wai Po died, her mother left to be the tambourine girl in Jet Blaster’s band, Mighty Zamboni. So, for most of her childhood, it was just Allie and Frank. And Frank never even asked about school and which teachers she liked.

“What? No. I mean, yes,” Allie said. “I’m really from here.”

“Yeah, right,” Mike said, and he rolled his eyes, like a girl. “Where exactly is the restaurant on Fairfax?”

“Toward that street the museum is on. Toward the La Brea Tar Pits.”

“Wilshire.”

“Yeah, Wilshire, near the tar pits.”

“The tar pits are on Wilshire. You don’t know Wilshire?” Now there was an edge of cruelty in Mike’s voice.

Allie smiled reflexively. “No, I know Wilshire. I said Wilshire.”

“You said where the tar pits are as if you didn’t know they were on Wilshire.”

Allie imagined a wrench tightening a screw each time Mike spoke. It was as though he was ratcheting himself up into a clenched, angry fist. If he didn’t shut up soon, her attraction toward him would evaporate.

“Well, I know they’re on Wilshire. So let’s go to Wilshire. Okay?” She smiled again.

“Great.” Mike walked toward his red truck without looking back. A giant red toolbox spanned the width of the truck below the back window. Allie wondered if he were a carpenter or builder. Lately, she had been finding guys who worked with their hands sexy. Maybe it was a reaction to her broken heart; she was searching for the anti-Marc. Marc was all about ideas—his business plans, his MBA—and that certainly had done Allie no good.

Prince played in the cassette player as Allie followed Mike. Allie turned up the music so she could dim her thoughts. She knew she should call Beth and let her know where she was with the car, but at this point Beth, in Berkeley, felt connected to Jonas and Vice Versa, and Allie was enjoying the freedom of being hidden in an entirely different city. Also, Allie was worried about how she would explain herself—her presence, the Prelude—to her father when she saw him. The last time they had talked, he had lectured her on the value of hard work. Frank worked seven days a week at the restaurant. Allie didn’t know anyone who worked harder than he did.

Instead of deciding on what to say to Beth when she finally did call, or what to tell her father (or even how she would get the food scale out of the kitchen to weigh the coke!), Allie thought about making out with Mike.

In high school, Allie had barely noticed boys. Kathy Kruger even asked her once if she was a lesbian. But then Marc came along and Allie discovered what it was like to have overwhelming feelings for someone. After Marc left, it was like she was ill, infected with a virus that gave her instantaneous unabashed desire that ran concurrent with her heartache. It was beyond reason, Allie knew, a hormonal-physiological impulse she couldn’t will away. Every moment with another body (and she only ever went as far as kissing) seemed to rub out Allie’s mental image of Marc, like a pencil drawing that was being slowly erased. And Mike, with his toolbox, surfer’s tan, Sex Wax T-shirt, and swooping blond hair, would be an ideal eraser as long as he didn’t get any meaner, any snappier, any more illiterate than he already was.

Once they turned onto Fairfax Avenue, Mike pulled over and motioned for Allie to pass him. Allie followed the familiar stores and restaurants until she got to the parking lot for Hamburger Hostel, Frank’s place. It was empty. Allie looked at the clock on the dashboard. Eight forty. Was business even worse than Frank had intimated? The restaurant was usually packed by now—the old people would have eaten and gone and the first wave of teenagers, twenty-, and thirtysomethings would be filling the booths.

Allie pulled up the emergency break and got out of the Prelude. She clicked the lock button, loving the feeling she got from doing so. It made her feel rich. Fancy.

“Looks closed.” Mike stepped out of the truck. Allie was startled again by how good-looking he was. Like one of those guys in a surf movie: belly as flat and hard as a surfboard, hair as bright as the sun, arms made of dense rope.

“Yeah, it’s weird.” Allie wandered toward the front door. The glass was tinted, so you couldn’t see in. Allie hated that—it reminded her of drug dealers with their tinted car windows. She blushed at the thought that, in a way, she was a drug dealer now.

Mike tugged at the brass handle of the front door. It was locked. “You sure this is your dad’s place?”

Allie felt a gurgly panic. Hamburger Hostel was her only stable point of reference. It was always there. Always open. Who was her father if not the man hovering over the employees at Hamburger Hostel? Was this why he had been totally unwilling to help her out financially? Did Frank need every penny he had in order to try to keep the restaurant open? Allie didn’t want to look at the locked door. It made her queasy, like viewing a dead body.

“Your dad didn’t tell you the place went out of business?” Mike said. His eyes were narrowed, but he didn’t look suspicious. If anything, he looked bored.

“No. This is a complete surprise,” Allie said, and she pulled the door again as if it would suddenly open.

“Well, why don’t you just measure out the coke with your hands like you did last time?” Mike asked.

“Let’s go to a pay phone. I’ll call my dad.” Allie wouldn’t let the transaction happen without a scale. She couldn’t afford to give away more coke than the value of what she was owed. Besides, she needed to make sure her father was okay, still walking, still with a beating heart. The only way Frank’s restaurant wouldn’t be open would be if he were physically unable to get there or in complete financial ruin.

“Where’s your mom?” Mike asked. “Didn’t she tell you about the restaurant?”

“My mom’s on the road with Mighty Zamboni. She’s the tambourine girl.” Allie started walking back toward the cars.

Mike laughed, following her. “No way.”

“Way,” Allie said. “She and Jet Blaster are a couple.”

“I thought everyone from Mighty Zamboni was dead by now. Are you like a pathological liar?” The casual way Mike asked this made Allie wonder if he assumed lying to be a normal means of communication.

“They’re still touring. None of them are dead.”

Mike must have been as uninterested in Mighty Zamboni as Allie was, because he said, “My friends and I used to eat at your dad’s place all the time in high school.”

“Oh yeah?!” Allie looked at Mike and tried to spin her head out of the shock of the closed restaurant.

“Great fucking burgers.”

“Yeah.” Frank had always been proud of the burgers.

“Wait. This isn’t your dad’s place! The guy who owns this is some black dude. I remember seeing him at the cash register and checking on the tables all the time.”

“That’s my dad.” Allie had never seen her father anywhere else within three hours of suppertime.

Mike took Allie’s arm and turned her toward him. “You’re black?!”

“Yeah. Half. Or a—” Allie was in the process of saying
a quarter
when Mike pulled her in and kissed her.

“That’s so hot,” Mike said, when he pulled up for air.

“It’s the first thing I’ve said that you’ve believed.” Allie laughed, then stopped laughing as Mike leaned into her and they went at it again. She could feel the four packs of coke pushing into her chest through Mike’s T-shirt. She could feel his bones and muscle obliterating the worry about her father and his restaurant. And, yes, okay, so maybe he was only kissing her because he thought she was black (which she was), but there was no reason to think about that now.