Hunter smiled, looking past me like a sailor gazing fondly at the horizon. “You’ve truly become one of us, Hancock.”
He pretended to be jaded by this job after two years of part-timing it. As far as I’d witnessed, though, Cinema 12 was Hunter Chen’s personal center stage. He flirted with elderly ladies, let his many buddies in with discounts, and wheedled every grumpy coworker until they smiled.
“Yeah, it’s a real treat.” I reached for a napkin, wrinkling my nose before I even neared the gum.
“So, hey,” he said. “You tell your parents?”
Yesterday afternoon, I’d shocked myself by confessing to Hunter that my parents didn’t know I planned to apply to film school in New York and LA. We were in the box office during a lull and venting about college anyway—Hunter may have been committed to IU for baseball, but he still worried about injury and balancing his coursework. And the words fell out, clumsy and unbidden. I hadn’t even told my best friend yet. And I hadn’t told Max.
“I did. Last night.”
I was hoping the screen-writing thrill would dim as summer wore on. I expected to stay the course: an English degree in-state, with screen writing as a quirky side interest. But when I helped my friend Maeve begin her writing portfolios for applications, I ended up starting my own, almost helplessly. Ideas that energized me, new pieces that challenged me.
“And it went well …?” Hunter prodded.
“Okay, I think.”
My dad went on about his pride in my go-get-’em aspirations, and my mom tempered the conversation with reason—ruminating about loans, job prospects, the fact that screen writing would likely keep me on either coast beyond college. It was like watching a bizarre table-tennis match: My dad on the left, rallying about my big dreams with the fervor of someone giving a commencement speech. Volley to my mom, reminding me that Indiana has great schools, that education is what I make of it.
Now I just had to tell Max. We’d talked about college abstractly, always assuming we’d both stay in the Midwest. Before this summer, I’d figured I’d land at IU like half my friends planned to. Then, even if Max went to Notre Dame or Purdue, we’d be a two- or three-hour drive apart—totally doable for weekend visits or meeting halfway.
Max would be supportive; I knew that. But as a helpless devotee to worst-case-scenario planning, I feared he’d also want to break up now, before we could get any more attached.
“Good thing this is our last showing,” Hunter said. “That look on your face … man. You need a drink. And not just coffee at Alcott’s.”
I wrinkled my nose at him, and we bagged the remaining trash, working silently and fast. Once in the lobby, Hunter spun back.
“Hey, for real, what are you doing tonight? You should come out with us.” He threw a glance at Lane, who was finishing up ice-bin clean-out behind the concession counter. Hunter described their best friendship as “siblinghood” after years of living in the same condo building. “Tell her to come out with us.”
“You should!” Lane ran a hand through her red hair—a pixie cut with long layers that she wore pushed back. “Bella said the more, the merrier.”
I had no idea who Bella was. Maybe someone from Linwood High—Oakhurst’s neighboring town and rival, where Hunter and Lane were seniors. But they seemed to know everyone at my school, too, plus the local private school and a bunch of college campuses. Always a party, always open invitation.
“Maybe next time,” I said, moving toward the door. “I have curfew. But thanks for the invite.”
“She always says that,” Hunter grumbled to Lane.
“Hey, I go out sometimes.”
“Only when we’re going to Waffle House.” Hunter cupped both hands around his mouth. “It’s senior year, Hancock. Say yes!”
“Have fun!” I called. “Be safe!”
The first time we met, Hunter rattled off the names of his friends at Oakhurst, hoping that I knew them. Aditi Basu? A little—I really liked her. Nate Song? I knew of him. Kara Cisse? I’ll save you some trouble, I wanted to say. At that enormous public high school, I socialize with between three and six other people. I figured Hunter—star athlete with an endless stream of high-fiving friends stopping by the theater—would be glibly nice and not retain my name.
But during the second shift Hunter and I worked together, one of my mom’s PTA friends walked up to the snack counter. I knew, with slow-motion certainty, what was about to happen. And sure enough, she very kindly mentioned that she thought of Aaron often, and of me, and hoped I was well. I said I was; I thanked her. I handed her a box of Sno-Caps.
Hunter didn’t ask what happened because he didn’t have to; everyone in the tristate area knew that an Oakhurst student named Aaron Rosenthal had drowned in a freak accident right before our sophomore year. And plenty of people knew he was my boyfriend at the time. He was sweet and smart and I liked him as much as you can like anyone you’ve known for two months when you’re fifteen. Grieving him was slow, in jerky stops and starts, and it had never become easier to feel people’s thoughts of him like a projector flickering images across my face.
“You wanna hide in the stockroom?” Hunter had asked. “Scarf some Reese’s? I’ll cover for you.”
“I’m good,” I’d assured him. “Although, good guess with Reese’s. Peanut butter is at the nexus of all my emotional eating.”
“The nexus?” Hunter repeated. “Okay, Hermione Granger.”
I tipped my head. “Did you just mock my nerdiness by … citing Harry Potter?”
After that, Hunter invited me to every place he and Lane were cruising off to after work. But I’d always preferred being poolside at Tessa’s, sneaking out to Kayleigh’s rooftop with a laptop, watching a movie under the stars. I visualized myself at one of Hunter’s parties: pressed into the corner of a sofa, praying for someone to talk to me and also fearing that someone would talk to me.
I walked outside into what felt like a screen door of August humidity—heat so heavy it seemed nearly visible. The feeble AC in my car tried its best, more an exhale than a gust. I was finally thinking of the sedan as my car—formerly my dad’s and recently bequeathed to me for my seventeenth birthday. It was ancient, and not a cool car even when it was new. But I loved it—the console stocked with hand sanitizer, wipes for dashboard dust, a few old CDs for the player. Driving home from work was a small pleasure, me and the quiet, tree-lined roads.
When I pulled onto my street, I startled to see my dad’s current car in the driveway so late. I used to consider my parents’ marriage a tragedy, with bitterness that lingered even after they signed divorce papers. So when they started dating each other last year, I could only see a dark comedy. These days, though, even I could admit it had romantic dramedy potential. They were really happy, but obsessed with “maintaining boundaries,” which included my dad staying at his own apartment.
I stepped around a hulking armoire in the garage, then a rolltop desk and a corner hutch, all furniture models posing in wait. After my grandmother died last spring, my mom refurbished her old desk for me, in the kicky red lacquer of a maraschino cherry. Since then, she’d been transforming flea market finds and free roadside furniture in her spare time—channeling grief, I suspected. Our garage looked like a re-creation of Beauty and the Beast’s penultimate scene, servants frozen in household form.