I wondered what Foster was going to tell me next: Ezra’s shoe size, or whether he preferred boxers to briefs. Maybe Ezra’s opinion on foreign policy in the Middle East, or what he had for dinner last night.
“Night,” I said, heading up to my room before he had a chance to go on. I knew my mother would be happy to listen to Foster expound upon on the many talents and opinions of Ezra Lynley. I think she’d be happy listening to Foster read the nutritional contents of a box of cereal, so long as he was talking to her.
It was endearing, in that way that almost ached sometimes, how much my folks wanted Foster to be okay. And I think even more than I did, they wanted Foster to be normal. For me, being normal meant fitting in. For them, I think, it just meant being happy.
Cas took his car to the coin-operated car wash every Saturday afternoon, sort of like a postgame ritual. He had a shitty black two-door he bought used off a senior back in sophomore year, and he absolutely worshipped it.
Everything in the coin-operated car wash worked on a time limit; the more quarters you put in, the more time you got. Cas had an entire system worked out to get a maximum clean with minimum cash, but it was a two-person system. So more often than not, I found myself at the coin-operated car wash on Saturday afternoon. I didn’t mind it; I’d take mine along and we’d wash it, too. But unlike Cas, I knew no amount of ultrashine dry coats could make my old Toyota look any more glamorous and any less used.
After doing the interior, Cas positioned his car in the little open-air garage and I stood by the metal box on the wall that controlled the kind of wash you wanted. There was one knob that you turned to get conditioning coat, rinse, and ultrashine. You had to put in a dollar surcharge, and then every quarter after that bought thirty seconds. Cas reckoned the entire thing could be done for a dollar seventy-five. This was rarely the case, but it was a nice dream.
“Time?”
The rinse always tripped Cas up. “Twenty seconds.”
“Shit. Switch it.”
The ultrashine was my favorite. It smelled the best. I turned the knob and Cas blasted away. Soap was still dripping from the tires.
“You want me to put another quarter in?”
“No. I’m going to make it.”
“You don’t want to have to pay the buck again.”
“Time?”
“Nine seconds.”
He had only made it halfway around the car.
“You want me to put another quarter in?”
“No!”
I put another quarter in.
Cas finished the ultrashine, and the hose automatically shut off when the clock ran down. “I could’ve made it,” he said, jamming the wand back into its holder. “We wasted, like, ten seconds there at the end.”
“Next time.”
He pulled the car through to the back lot. Mine was already there, washed, dried, and shining in the sun. I unrolled the windows and turned the radio on as Cas parked and got out.
“I’ll be wet-dry and you be dry-dry,” he said, and threw me a towel. I was always dry-dry.
I followed him around the car and retraced the tracks left by his towel. My car radio chattered with itself as we cleaned, commercials for laser hair removal and resale clothing stores. I glanced up at Cas periodically as we worked. I loved his faded T-shirts. He’d been wearing today’s since the eighth grade. It hung too loose back then, but now it was just the right amount of tight, the screen logo long since peeled away, the color now a perfectly faded shade of blue. A lot of the ones my mom bought for Foster at the mall tried to imitate this color, but Cas’s was the kind you couldn’t buy for ridiculous mall prices, or any amount of money, really. Cas earned that color with time.
“What?” he said, after we started on the windows.
“Huh?”
A smile split his face. “Why’re you looking at me funny?”
“I was just thinking.”
“About what?”
I invented fast. “The party last night. D’you have fun?”