TWO DAYS LATER, I TOOK THE CALTRAIN INTO PALO ALTO one last time, to say a proper goodbye to Adam.
He’d offered to come to Redwood City and pick me up at Aunt Elise’s. But I didn’t want to make him spend that much time in the car. He and his parents were catching up on time with CJ, and helping her recuperate.
Me: We don’t need to meet at all, if it’s too much of an inconvenience
Adam: Gotta eat anyway. And CJ’s resting. She’d be creeped out if I sat there and watched her sleep.
He said we should meet at Round Table Pizza, which was the pizza place he’d mentioned a week earlier, when we were deciding where to go to lunch that first day. Apparently there were Round Table locations all over the Bay Area, and one of them was right on University Avenue. I got there a half hour early and picked up a present for Juno at Retro Planet before heading to the pizza place. Adam was already there. He stood up from a booth in the back and waved his arms to signal me. We hugged hello in the stiff kind of way you do when you’re hugging someone who’s not quite a stranger.
“Thanks for coming all the way down here,” he said.
“It’s no problem at all,” I said. “Thanks for meeting me.”
“What’d you get?” he asked, nodding toward the brown paper bag I was holding.
“It’s a present for Juno. An old-fashioned-looking map of the Bay Area.”
“She’ll love it,” he said.
“I hope so,” I said. “I have some things to make up to her.”
“I have some things to make up to you,” Adam said. “I’ll start with pizza. The way this place works, you go up to the counter to place the order and pay, then they bring the pizza to your table.”
“Oh, it’s not just slices?”
“You worried we can’t house a whole pizza?”
“We’re only two people.”
“Trust me, when you taste this, you’re going to eat more pizza than you heretofore thought you were capable of eating.”
“Heretofore,” I repeated. “You sound so serious.”
“I’m always serious about pizza. Now: toppings. I usually get peppers and mushrooms, but we can get whatever you like.”
“I like plain,” I said. “But I can just pick things off.”
“Plain works for me.”
“But I want you to get what you want.”
“I want you to get what you want, too.”
“How about half and half?” I said.
“The perfect compromise,” he said. “Hold my place. I’ll be right back.”
“Hang on,” I said. I dug into my pocket. “I want to pay for my half.”
Adam held up his hand. “No, Sloane,” he said. “I’m treating. And don’t worry; I’m not being benevolently sexist. My mom gave me money as I was walking out the door. She was pissed I’m taking you here and not somewhere nicer.”
“Oh, pizza’s fine,” I said.
“Good, because it’d be a shame for you to go back to Minnesota without having Round Table. It’s a staple out here. But you should know how grateful my parents are to be back in touch with CJ, and I’m grateful, too. You can’t imagine.”
“I think I can.”
“Yeah, you probably can. Let me order and I’ll be right back.”
A few minutes later, a large pizza was delivered to our table. Adam was right about how much we were able to eat. Granted the slices were cut quite thin. But still, I barely took a breath before I polished off my third, and then I reached for a fourth. “You were so right about this pizza. I’m eating so much more than I heretofore thought was possible.”
“I was going to bring you here last Sunday, but you said you’d had pizza the night before.”
“I remember.”
“Still, I should’ve taken you sooner. I should’ve done a lot of things sooner.”
“Listen, I’m officially letting you off the hook on all of that, okay? We did things the way we did them, and I ended up learning what I needed to know anyway.”
“That’s really generous of you,” Adam said. “And probably more than I deserve, but I’m glad it all worked out. It’s amazing the way one thing led to another. How did all those coincidences happen?”
“Talley said what we think of as coincidence is just about math,” I said. “Like how you’re more likely to meet someone with your same birthday than you think you are.”
“There were two other kids in my kindergarten class with my same birthday,” Adam said.
“Case in point,” I said. “If Talley were here, she’d explain all about the probabilities that made that happen. I always thought Talley was right about everything—and she usually was. But on the coincidence thing, sometimes I think it’s more than just math. After everything that happened, it feels like more than just math that I’m sitting across from you right now.”
“It definitely feels like more than just math to me, too,” he said.
“I don’t know if Talley left that list for me to find on purpose,” I said, “but if she did, I’m pretty sure I solved the puzzle in ways she never could have anticipated.”
A few minutes later, we’d finished up the pizza. I knew Adam had to get home to his family, and I had to get back to Aunt Elise. We had less than a day left of quality time to spend with each other.
“You feel okay about going home?” Adam asked.
“Oh yeah,” I said. “I’m sort of looking forward to it. I understand things better now. When I left, I was grieving so hard. Grief is such a personal thing. My dad was grieving too, but he didn’t know how it felt for me, and I didn’t know how it felt for him. It’s a little like how we’ve all agreed yellow is yellow and blue is blue, but who’s to say what looks like yellow to me looks like yellow to you, and the same for blue?”
“You know, I’ve never thought about it like that,” Adam said.
“We made a pact to try to talk to each other more,” I said. “I used to always go to Talley when I needed to talk something out, and if she wasn’t available, I had Juno. My dad was in the background. He took care of the kinds of things parents take care of, and I took care of what I thought I was supposed to take care of—I studied hard, I made my bed every day, I never broke curfew. It was like we’d negotiated conditions, but we never did it out loud, and I think those are the worst kinds of conditions. The ones no one says out loud. So now we’re going to try to be more up front and honest about things. Talley’s gone and it’s the worst. It’ll always be the worst. We don’t get a happy ending. But things are already better between us. We agreed if they start to feel bad again, we’ll do our best not to turn away from each other, and just keep talking.”
“My family had a long talk about open communication going forward, too,” Adam said. “CJ gave her doctor permission to talk to our parents if they have questions about the medical stuff.”
“Oh, that’s good,” I said. “She deserves to have support from people who know what’s going on.”
“I think we should make open communication a goal, too,” Adam said. “I mean, you and me.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Okay. Well . . . this week—it’s been a year, hasn’t it?”
“At least,” I said.
Adam slung an arm around my shoulder and pulled me in for a hug, a real hug, close and comfy. I could smell his shirt, and I thought of Juno’s attachment to Cooper’s shirts, and the Proust phenomenon, and I knew I would always remember this moment. It would always mean something to me.
“You know, Sloane,” he said. “I’m really going to miss you.”
“Me, too.”
“I hope we can keep in touch.”
“We have to if we’re going to have open communication.”
“That’s right. Good point,” he said. “And if you ever find yourself back here, I expect some quality time on your dance card.”
“I’ll definitely be back here,” I said. “My aunt lives here, after all. And if you ever find yourself in Golden Valley, Minnesota, I’ll expect time on your dance card. Not that that’s a place you’re likely to visit.”
“Oh, I’d say it’s a distinct possibility,” he said. “Because you’re there, and I’d love to visit you.”