After a few more songs, when I was starting to feel light and warm and sort of pretty, I heard them coming up the stairs, laughing. I unbuttoned my top button. The door opened, and there was Stacia, a pale fairy in overalls, there was Maddie, her hair now dry and alight with red, her lean arms pulling Stacia’s hand, there was Dale, his freckles pulsing, his vintage shirt tucked into polyester, and there was Stuart.
He wasn’t wearing his usual black. He was in gray—gray jeans and a gray sweatshirt. His skin was darker than I remembered, dark brown, and his black hair was the same, shorn short and old-fashioned.
“Hey!” he said right away.
“Hey!” I said. Mimicry, I remember thinking. Just mimic the way everyone is talking and you’ll get by.
“Hi, Sammie,” Stacia said in her almost-whisper, folding herself on Maddie’s floor.
“Samantha,” Dale said in a robotic, sort of British voice. “Samantha McCoy, the reigning monarch of Hanover High.”
“The monarch? What do you mean?” Then, to make it sound nicer, I let out a “ha-ha.”
“The villa-Victorian!” Dale answered, twirling his fingers.
The valedictorian. I swallowed my instinct to correct him, and reminded myself what a joke was, and that people made jokes.
Maddie glanced at me with the trace of a smile and said, “Stu, do you know Sammie?”
“Not really,” Stuart said, sitting next to Stacia and extending his hand. “I remember you, but I don’t think we ever knew each other.”
I remember you, he said. I shook his hand. It was the shape and texture of a human hand but it almost burned me.
“That’s right,” I said, and when I took my hand away, blood was beating through it.
He was still looking at me. Maddie and Stacia passed around the bottle. Dale went to change the music.
“Yeah,” he continued, “you were in Ms. Cigler’s class when I was a senior. She read our entire AP class your essay on Huck Finn. She was like, look at this sophomore. Y’all better step up your game.”
“Huh,” I said, and nodded. I vaguely remember Ms. Cigler asking me for permission to share my essay, but I thought it was just for the other sophomore class. The thought of him admiring my work gave me goose bumps. I wanted to ask him about his writing, or how he liked being back in Hanover, but by the time I had picked which question and started to form the words the correct way, Maddie was passing him the bottle.
Stacia began to sway to the music, her dangly earrings swooshing. Maddie gave one of them a little tug.
“Ow!” Stacia said, and laughed. She flicked a spike of Maddie’s Mohawk. Maddie raised her eyebrows at me. I uncrossed my arms.
Stuart took in Maddie’s room. “Who’s playing?” he asked Maddie.
“The Knife,” I said before anyone else could answer.
Stuart nodded with a small smile, a smile like the clerks at the Co-Op give to Mom when she tries to ask them about how their day is going during a rush. Just let me do my job, it said. When his gaze came back to me, just for a second, I jumped on it.
“You’re in New York?” I asked.
“Yes. I love it. Maybe a little too much.”
“Me too,” I said. “I mean, I’ll be there, too, next year.”
“Oh?”
“At NYU.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Congratulations.”
On the end of his words, I couldn’t help it, I got intense. “What do you love about New York?”
He tilted his head to the side. “God, what a question. I mean, there’s the stuff everyone loves, like the history, the nightlife, whatever. But I have a feeling you want to know about what I, specifically, love about it, and I haven’t thought about that in a long time.”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I want to know,” I said, and took a swig. He was matching the intensity. Maybe he didn’t like small talk, either.
He looked at the ceiling, thinking. He had a long, smooth neck. Finally, he held up his hand, as if he were cradling his answer in his palm. “I love everything and everyone pressed together. I love being on the elevated part of the Q or the N. The windows of the upper stories of buildings are right there, just feet from you, and you’re right there, so close to someone else’s life. Or, like, when people fight or kiss on the subway right next to you. I think I just like being close to other people’s lives.”
“Without having to mess with them,” I offered.
He laughed. “Exactly.” Making Stuart laugh was like making something burst open, that satisfying feeling when you pop bubble wrap or bubble gum.
Right then, Dale jumped up and clapped his hands. “All right, last shots, you winos. I’m ready to head to Nervig’s.”
In Maddie’s tiny two-door Toyota, as if in a dream, Stuart and I ended up in the back, next to each other. The music blared so we couldn’t talk. Our legs didn’t touch except on turns, when he put his arm around the back part of my seat, saying, “Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I said back, and looked out the window, savoring his solidness next to me.