5. Caplan

Late that afternoon, I'm double-parked to pick Mina up from work at Dusty's Books, so I'm leaning on the horn, but really I just feel like making noise. She comes out looking very classically Mina, annoyed, and trying not to laugh. She's also holding a big box.

"You're going to get me fired," she says, sliding into the seat and placing the box on my lap. It says BOOKS FOR MINA in black marker letters. I drive off so fast the tires screech.

"Cap, Jesus."

"You won't get fired," I say. "Sarah loves me."

"Yes, all women of a certain age love you."

"Hey. All women of any age love me."

She rolls her eyes and then puts the window down.

"Sorry," I say, "that was a joke."

"Shut up," she says.

"So, what's in the box?" I ask. "More books no one else wants?"

"No. I labeled it like that so I could hide it at work. It's a present for you."

I pull over and almost jump the curb.

"And get out," she says. "You're unbalanced. I'm driving."

As she stalks around the front of the car, I open the box. Inside is another box, a shoebox, and inside that is a pair of navy high-top Converse with yellow stitching and a yellow tongue. She pulls open the driver's-side door.

"Meen…" I say, picking up one shoe and turning it over in my hands. In more yellow stitching on the heel, it says CAP. She's leaning on the door, watching me.

"You didn't."

"Told you I was sure you'd get in."

"A departure from tradition?" I give her a nudge with the tattered black-and-white high-tops I have on.

"We're making new traditions," she says. "I figure you'll look fantastically douchey in them at tailgates and take many horrible Instagrams."

I get out of the car and hug her, with the one shoe still in my hand. "Thank you."

"It's nothing."

"It's not nothing. You really thought I'd get in."

She twists out of the hug. "I don't think things. I know them." She gets behind the wheel.

"I love when you act bitchy," I say fondly, climbing into the passenger's seat and immediately unlacing my black Converse to put on my new clown shoes. I look over and realize she's fully smiling.

"Get your feet off the dash."

"It's my dash. Why are you smiling like that?"

"Oh, nothing."

"No neverminds."

This was a thing we've said since we were little. With both our families down a man at eight years old, we often started thoughts we didn't want to finish out loud. But it did us both good to get them out, so we started saying no neverminds. Mina's idea. Child genius.

"You just really did listen to me, after all. About the acting-versus-being thing."

"The what thing?"

"I told you once that you were never allowed to call me or anyone else a bitch, but you could say I was acting like one. Or acting bitchy. Like, once a year. As long as I really was."

I think about Hollis, picking apart how I'd said she was being a child, acting childishly, whatever, and realize I haven't told Mina that we're back together.

"Wait, wrong way," I say.

"This is the way to your house."

"No, we're picking up Quinn, too. He's still at school. He had detention."

"What for?"

"Skateboarding in the hallway again, I think."

"Naturally."

As we're parked and waiting for Quinn to come out, Mina's smiling again. This is a lot of teeth in one day for Mina.

"What now?" I ask.

"I can't believe we could go to school together."

"Mina, come on."

"You come on," she says. "You don't think it would be fun to come bother me in the library? How else do we know you'll ever see the inside of it?"

"Mina, you're going to Yale. You're committed."

"I could always back out," she says, like it's all a joke. "I got into Michigan, too, you know."

"Yeah, early, as, like, your backup."

"Michigan was not my backup. I'd be happy to go there. I'd have applied to more schools otherwise."

"Right, but you didn't, cause then you slam-dunked the dream. You got Yale," I say.

"Would you, like. Not want me at Michigan?" Her tone changes all at once. She looks at her hands on the steering wheel.

"No. What? Mina, I thought you were kidding."

Her knuckles are white.

"Hey, come on. Back to earth. Where'd you go?" I pull her hands off the steering wheel and put them in her lap.

"Sorry." She shakes herself. "I'm fine."

"No, stop it. Of course it would be awesome to go to school together. You're my best friend. That would be like—that would be so cool. I can't even think about it. I shouldn't think about it, and neither should you, because it's not happening. You belong at Yale."

"I feel like we belong together."

Something about the way she says it makes my face hot.

"Hey-O!" Quinn's voice comes floating in through the open window. He lopes down the school lawn, his skateboard thrust proudly overhead.

Mina gives me her profile, staring out the other window.

"What just happened?" I say to her shoulder.

"Never mind," she says, starting the car as Quinn gets in the back.

He's pulled the night air in with him. It puts my hair on end.

"I thought they said one more time and they were taking that away from you," Mina says, free and easy as anything, nodding at the skateboard as she pulls off down the dark street. I can't really see her face, though, because her hair is blowing around, hiding it.

"They can't touch me," Quinn says. Then he leans forward and bear-hugs me, practically climbing into the front with us. "LET'S FUCKING GO BLUE BABY!!!!!!!!!!!"

"Put your seat belt on," says Mina.

"You're gonna let her talk to me like that in your car?"

"Yeah," I say, shoving him off me, "I am. Look what she got me." I stick my foot in his face.

"Holy shit," he laughs. "But you guys won't be matching anymore?"

"Bold," Mina says. "Bold of you to bring up my sneakers."

"Hey, come on," Quinn says, "everyone knows boys act like dicks in elementary cause they have a crush."

Mina rolls her eyes.

"But these are sick," Quinn says, inspecting the stitching.

"Jealous?" I ask.

"In your dreams, Captain."

Quinn was rejected from Michigan straight off the bat. He took it well. Quinn takes everything well.

"Red's more my color," he says. "Plus, the girls are hotter at Indiana. Oh, sorry, Mina."

He sits back and clicks in his seat belt.

"That's fine," she says, "don't pretend to be decent on my behalf."

"Oh, no, I'm deeply decent. Down to the bone. I meant I'm sorry because you got into Michigan, too, so obviously the best girls go there."

She sticks her tongue out at me. I don't think I have ever seen Mina stick her tongue out at anyone.

"Well, Mina's going to Yale," I say.

"I told you," she says, "I'm going wherever I want."

"Fuck yeah. Maybe Mina's rebelling," says Quinn. "Maybe she'll fuck the alma mater and finally live a little."

"Exactly," Mina says. "Quinn, you know what? For that, you can play your music."

"We should play my music," I mumble. "It's my car."

"It's your mom's car."

Quinn puts his on, and instead of telling him to quit yelling, Mina rolls all the windows down in the back, too, and sings along: "Oh, baby, you, you got what I need"—she turns to me, letting me back in, forgiving me—"but you say he's just a friend."

Forgiving me for what? I don't even care. The air is cool and brimming with something, like it's the beginning of the year, not the end, and Mina's driving with one knee up, and Quinn's singing at the top of his lungs, arms outstretched and spanning the whole back seat, howling like a wolf at the moon. The streetlights race by, lighting up our little world and then dimming it again like an old movie, the shutter opening and closing: my two oldest friends, the day I got into school, driving me home.