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He was so familiar to Shiloh. Standing close to him was so familiar.

They could be standing by their lockers. Standing by his mom's station wagon. Standing in line at a movie theater.

"It's so weird to be talking to you," Shiloh said. She tried to laugh when she said it—like, Isn't it weird? Isn't it funny?

Cary looked hurt. "It is?"

Shiloh felt her face fall. "It's so weird to be talking to you," she said again without laughing, "and not know, you know...anything."

Cary pushed his tongue out over his bottom lip.

And not know everything, Shiloh thought.

A waitress swung around their table with a serving cart. She picked up two plates and looked at the elderly couple. "Chicken? Chicken?"

Shiloh looked at Cary. She had to make this less weird. This was their first conversation in fourteen years, and she didn't want it to end like this. She didn't want it to end. "Maybe we can catch up more..."

 

"Chicken?" The waitress was pointing at Shiloh. "Yes," Shiloh said, "thank you."

"Chicken," Cary said, raising his hand.

The waitress dropped two plates on the table in front of them. Shiloh turned to him. "Don't you have to sit at the head table?"

"No one will miss me," he said.

"I think you probably get special food up there..."

"Special chicken?"

"And free beer."

Cary pulled out her chair. "No one will miss me," he said again.

CHAPTER FOUR

They were squeezed into the front seat of Cary's mom's car because the back seat was always full of junk. Like, bags of stuff that his mom bought at the thrift shop and then didn't bring into the house until it was all broken from being sat on or thrown around. It was a bad cycle, but Cary tried to ignore it. Shiloh wondered if his house was like this, too. She'd never been inside.

Cary always drove, and Mikey sat in the passenger seat, and Shiloh sat in the middle. She leaned more on Cary, because leaning on Mikey would feel weird. And also because it wouldn't bother Mikey.

It bothered Cary. Shiloh messed with him while he drove. There was a hole in the seam of his Army surplus pants, on the outside of his thigh. She poked at it, and Cary tried to pull his leg away. "Don't rip my pants."

"They're already ripped."

They were going to see a movie—Delicatessen. Omaha only had one art-house movie theater, and the three of them saw pretty much everything that came there. Mikey was into arty stuff. And Shiloh was kind of into it...even though most of the movies they saw didn't make any sense, and they were usually sort of embarrassing. (European people smoking on balconies. Or having sex in dirty kitchens.) But the movies were confusing in a way that made Shiloh feel smart. Like, at least she knew enough to be there, on the cutting edge of something. Of the three of them, Cary was the most likely to walk out of the theater afterwards and say, "Well, that was garbage." But he still kept going along. He still kept driving. Kept covering Shiloh when she couldn't buy her own ticket. (Cary worked weekends at a grocery store.)

Cary always sat in the middle at the theater. Because he and Mikey had to sit together, to crack each other up. And because Shiloh had to sit by Cary, because she just did.

When Delicatessen was over, Cary said, "I could have used less cannibalism."

"Or maybe you could have used more cannibalism," Mikey said. "There's really no way of being certain."

"All right, sure," Cary agreed. "Either way, it had an unpleasant amount of cannibalism."

"I think the cannibalism was a metaphor..." Shiloh said.

"For what?" Cary asked.

"I don't know. I'm just saying I think it was probably a metaphor."

"Well, I'm hungry," Mikey said.

Shiloh laughed.