While Chris fills me in on more details than I’d really prefer, I check my watch. I’m fifteen minutes late. My friends are going to kill me. A bunch of us are meeting outside the Starbucks and then going to some bar they love in Jamaica Plain, and they made a big deal about everyone having to be exactly on time. We’re meeting up with their friend Andy, the president and cofounder of Harvard’s Student Anti-Starbucks Alliance, so we have to move fast. Being seen next to an actual Starbucks is not politically advisable for Andy.
“The problem is, I’m getting all paranoid,” Chris says. “He keeps dropping these hints about guys he’s friends with at school. I have this weird feeling, like maybe instead of this being about us taking the next step, it’s kind of like, I don’t know. A preemptive goodbye or something.”
I take a long breath. Long enough to suppress the urge to say I told you so.
“That’s absurd,” I say. “No way would Steven fly all the way across the country just for a pity screw.”
Chris laughs. “Thanks a lot.”
“Look, Steven adores you, okay? Besides, no Stanford guy could ever be anywhere near as hot as you. Not even Elvis.”
Chris laughs again. “Well, yeah. I mean, obviously.”
“On that self-aggrandizing note, I have to go,” I say.
“No! Wait! I have a ton more to tell you.”
“Sorry, I’m already late. Can you get online later and tell me the rest?”
“Where are you going anyway?”
“Just out with some friends. I have to be exactly on time. I think it’s a weird hazing ritual.” I haven’t told Chris about Derek and the others. I don’t want those two worlds colliding yet.
“Okay, fine. But be prepared to receive an epic email with a lot of embarrassing details in it. I have to gush somehow or other.”
I concede to this plan, get off the phone and half run to Starbucks. Derek and Eli are there, along with Pete, Kartik and a couple of other guys from the UBA. I’ve met them before, but I don’t know them very well. It’s weird hanging out with such a big group when I’m really only friends with Derek and Eli. Also, no one’s ever actually told me where most of the other guys are on the trans spectrum—they might be totally cisgender for all I know—and it kind of stresses me out not knowing how to categorize them.
“Where’s Andy?” I ask.
“He went to hide in 7-Eleven while we waited for you,” Eli tells me. “He thought he saw someone trying to take a picture of him by the Starbucks sign.”
“How is 7-Eleven better than Starbucks?” I ask.
“Don’t ask Andy that,” Derek says. “He wrote thirty pages on it last year for his corporate social responsibility seminar.”
We cut through the food court and find Andy by the Slurpee machine.
Andy glares at me. “I know you’re new here, T, but punctuality is key. One picture in the Crimson of me by that stupid green logo and my life is over.”
“I’m sorry.” I hold up my hands. Andy’s the only person in our friend group who not only tries to look like an aggressive, stereotypical frat boy but actually succeeds. It makes me kind of nervous. “It was an emergency.”
Andy sips a Slurpee with narrowed brows. “Tell me your excuse. I’ll judge if it was an emergency.”
“It was Chris, my best friend,” I say. “From high school, I mean.”
“Oh, right.” Kartik chuckles. “You’re a freshman. You still talk to your high school friends.”
“Leave him alone, dude,” Derek says, even though Kartik was only joking. Derek does stuff like that. “So, Toni, what was your friend’s emergency?”
“Uh.” Well, Chris didn’t say it was a secret. “Maybe it wasn’t technically an emergency. Well. My friend just had sex for the first time.”
Andy whoops and holds the Slurpee high. “Great! We’ve got an excuse to celebrate. Tonight, we drink in honor of Toni’s high school friend’s devirginification.”
I cheer at that with the rest of them, but as we leave the 7-Eleven I remember I don’t know how the alcohol part is supposed to work, exactly. None of us is twenty-one except for Eli, and Eli doesn’t like to show ID because Eli’s license still has an F on the “sex” line. No one seems worried, though, so I don’t bring it up.
“Is Nance coming?” I ask as we take the steps down to the T.
“She’s at a thing for the Dems,” Derek says. “They’re making phone calls to Texas about another abortion ballot measure. She’ll meet us at the bar later with some of the other girls.”
When we get on the train, I ignore Derek’s warning and ask Andy about the 7-Eleven versus Starbucks issue. I spend most of the trip listening to Andy talk about sustainable agriculture, which actually turns out to be really interesting.
Everyone else in the group has clearly heard the speech many times before, though. They keep sighing and generally indicating dramatic boredom.
After we’ve transferred to the Orange Line and Andy has shown no sign of letting up in the agriculture rant, Derek barks, “Okay! He gets it! Now please let’s talk about something else!”
Andy, who’s sitting on the other side of the aisle from us, mutters something about geniuses never being appreciated in their own time.
I turn to Derek. There’s something I’ve meant to tell the guys for a while.
“So, for the record, I don’t actually use male pronouns,” I say.