He closed the door, turned the ignition back on. “Excellent. Just tell me where to go.”
“That way,” I said, pointing in the only direction I wanted.
Of the 24,000 some-odd 7-Eleven stores in the United States, the top ten are named in order each year on a list compiled at headquarters and, then, apparently, made public. And every year, hovering right around number five, is the 7-Eleven located on the corner of Popham and Garth just outside of Scarsdale Village. Part of the reason for this particular Sevies success was that Scarsdale High students long ago adopted this place as their local hangout. Any weekend night—and most weeknights—you’d find the parking lot full of cars you’d recognize: other students picking up cigarettes or listening to music in their cars, sitting on their hoods. I missed so much of that, in the end, missed so much of my high school ending, because I was with Matt.
We tended to go to our own place—this all-night diner over on Central Avenue, where they’d let us order cheap white wine, the very cheapest, the kind that came in the small bottles they’d serve on airplanes. We just preferred it that way, being alone together, than spending time with my friends. We even made a habit of coming back there once I’d moved to the city, once we moved in together. We’d still split six-packs of little airplane bottles, and a large Belgian waffle, and half a container of syrup. We’d just sit there, talking all night about nothing, our legs touching under the table, lightly, the whole time. A whole time ago.
“I can’t believe we’re here,” Justin said, as he passed the bright 7-Eleven sign, parking the car by the old pay phone, under the old rock wall. “It’s too weird, you know? It’s a little too weird.”
I stared out the window, taking it all in. It was great to be back here. I had it all planned out. We’d get a couple of Slurpees and a pack of Parliament Lights and some corn dogs. And then sit in the corner of the parking lot and smoke cigarettes and pretend we were sixteen again.
I felt a smile growing on my face, just thinking about it. The first real smile all day—my house, and everything waiting back there, a little less pressing. But no, that wasn’t true. It wasn’t the first smile. I had been smiling that morning by the lake with Grace, hadn’t I? But was that really just this morning? I wasn’t entirely convinced that was even possible.
“You know,” Justin said, “I really hate to burst your bubble here, as your excitement is very nice. But my little brother says that the kids don’t even come here anymore. They go to the Golden Horseshoe instead. They hang out there behind Seven Woks.”
“Near the Dumpsters?”
He nodded. “Someone put up a tepee or something.”
“I don’t want to know that,” I said. “Who wants to know that?”
But I started looking around the parking lot. We were, in fact, the only car in there. There could have been a million reasons for that, though. It was a holiday weekend. It was still pretty early.
“What would you do differently now . . . I mean if the gods came down, and made you sixteen again?”
I shook my head, trying to think about it. What were the right answers? Would I not take the chances I took? Would I take different ones?
“Maybe you should give me the magic potion now,” I said, “And I’ll end up a decade back in time, waking up in my bed all Freaky Friday like. I’ll race to the mirror to check out my face and start screaming.”
“Except that you look exactly the same.”
“Not exactly,” I said.
“Except exactly.”
“Anyway . . . I’d get to wish really hard again that I was just right here with you. And that everything was turning out just like it was supposed to.”
I said the rest in my head, because it sounded too silly out loud. And I wouldn’t make any mistakes this time, and everyone would still love me, and I’d live happily ever after. But somehow Justin heard the rest anyway, because he reached for my hand and squeezed it. Then he got out of the car and walked around to my side to let me out too.
“You know, Everett,” he said, putting his arm around me. “I’m beginning to think it’s a good thing we broke up. It seems a little like you have troub
le letting yourself be happy.”
I thought of Josh, all the trouble he’d managed to get himself into for the same reason, or something approaching the same reason. I thought of what could be going on back at the house—what probably wasn’t: anything zeroing in on honesty, or resolution, or a good-bye.
“It runs in my family, maybe.” I said, holding on to his waist. “But at least now, I don’t have to feel so badly that you dumped me with no apparent reason in the universe for it.”
“No, you should probably still feel bad. That decision had nothing to do with my sexual preference. Really. It wasn’t about that at all.”
“What did it have to do with?’
“You wouldn’t let me kiss you,” he said.
I looked up at him, having only the vaguest memory of what he was referring to, an image that I wasn’t even sure I wasn’t making up right then—of Justin standing before me on the steps, reaching out.
“Don’t you remember? Everyone in our homeroom played that game where you had to pay the toll to go inside for attendance? Peter Peterson was the head gatekeeper. And the toll was a kiss, and you made an extremely big deal that you’d rather have gym with Mrs. Gallagher two periods in a row than even do that. Than even kiss me on the cheek.”
I didn’t know what he was talking about beyond a vague recollection popping into my head of Peter Peterson wearing a Jets jersey. He was standing in the homeroom doorway, his arms crossed, yelling at me about something.