I am seventeen years old. I’m about to be a senior in high school. And while maybe it would be okay at seventeen not to have had an epic love story yet, I haven’t even kissed anyone. Not even a boy. Last month, I was babysitting for the toddler twins who live next door, and when their twelve-year-old sister got home from her volleyball practice, she made an offhand comment about a boy she liked that made me assume she was nervous about kissing someone for the first time. Um, I’ve obviously kissed someone already, she’d said. I’m twelve, not nine.
I want to, in this very moment while I am walking down Glenfeliz Boulevard toward Glendale Boulevard, be fixated on summer looks and vintage reproductions and local designers. But my tween neighbor has more experience than me, and the only real-life girl I’ve liked has a boyfriend. This is why I keep forgetting to be happy about the dream internship I’ve landed—and am on my way to right now.
I meant everything I wrote to Maggie Goldman when I applied for the summer position. But I know a lot more than my letter let on; the internet is full of information when you know where and how to look. When I composed my letter, I was well aware that interns tend to get part-time—but paying—jobs for the next school year, until college takes you away and opens up space for the next girl. Maggie Goldman believed in giving people their starts; this year that person would be me.
Still, how am I supposed to think about any of this as the true tragic reality of my love life comes into sharper and sharper focus? Once the truth feels like it’s physically and literally surrounding you, can you go back to thinking about dresses and accessories?
No more real girls, I decide. Only celebrities and fashion. They can’t hurt me.
I’m five minutes early, so when I walk up to the shop, the CLOSED sign is still in the window and the door is locked. A girl is inside at the cash register, but I’m not sure if she has anything to do with my position, and, anyway, I really don’t know the non-awkward way of getting her attention. So I just wait.
“Hey,” says someone behind me.
I turn around to see a girl who’s probably my age. Her look is not Lemonberry’s general aesthetic of faux vintage girliness; she’s wearing skinny black pants with a slouchy T-shirt, and even though it’s June, she’s wearing short black boots that come up over the ankles of her pants. I’m not sure what she’d want to browse here once the store’s open.
“Hi,” I say.
“You’re Abby, right?” she asks, shoving her wavy dark hair out of her face.
“Yes,” I say, even though I probably shouldn’t let on to strangers who I am. The moment feels mildly dangerous, but maybe that’s just holdover from thinking about my doomed existence.
“We go to school together,” she says with her eyebrow raised, and then I can picture her in my geometry class.
“Sorry,” I say, and then, “You look different.”
“I got a haircut.”
I try to think of a nice way to tell her that I’m about to begin the most important professional role of my entire life and that I don’t have time to talk right now. Also, I’d love to remember her name because I would feel like less of a self-centered jerk.
The door opens, and Maggie leans out. During my interview, she told me to call her Maggie, so I’m following directions, not being too casual. “Come on in, girls.”
Girls?
I walk inside with the girl right behind me.
“It’s Jordi,” she says.
“What’s Jordi?” I ask, though softly.
“My name.”
“Oh,” I say, and then I smile like that’ll keep her from thinking I’m horrible. “Jordi Perez, right?”
“That’s me,” she says.
“Go on into the back room.” Maggie gestures to the door at the back of the shop. “I just made a fresh pot of coffee, so feel free to help yourselves. I’ll meet you in a few minutes.”
Jordi and I walk into the back room, and even though clothes and designs are all over, Jordi makes her way straight to the coffeemaker.
“Do you want a cup?” she asks me.
“Sure, thanks,” I say, even though I think of coffee as a grownup beverage and I’m far from a grownup. When school starts in the fall, I can be someone who carries in a cardboard cup of coffee instead of something like a Frappuccino.
By fall, I’ll think of Frappuccinos as so immature.
I try to calmly sip my coffee like the adult I’m pretending to be, but it’s hot, bitter water and so I sort of accidentally sputter it back into the cup while Jordi’s calmly adding Splenda and half-and-half to hers. She smirks and slides the Splenda and half-and-half to me. I tear open three Splenda packets and watch the coffee change from near-black to creamy beige as I pour in half-and-half.
The door opens, and Maggie walks in. I was honestly surprised when I met her, because even though I’d definitely seen her around the shop, she’s not who I assumed was the owner and designer. There’s a lady who’s often working who’s always wearing one of the store’s pieces, if not a full outfit comprising them. Her hair is dyed the most perfect shade of burgundy and coiffed like a team of stylists or maybe Cinderella’s magical mice set it in place each day.
That lady is definitely not Maggie, who today is wearing jeans and a blue T-shirt so faded I can’t make out what was originally printed on it. Her brown hair is piled atop her head in a
