Nina had never been to P. J. Mortimer’s before. It sprang up in the middle of a shopping center parking lot, and it had opened while she was away. She sat in her SUV with the engine off and stared at it. The building was dark brick and had green awnings and seemed kind of sunless and prisonlike. Her own summer had been so academic and Californian, with the bay and palm trees and beautiful buildings—she’d never thought about the fact that her friends had spent most of their time cooped up. No wonder they had so little exciting news to report. It wasn’t exactly a romantic hot spot. She would have hated to spend the summer at a place like this.
It was very dark inside. She approached a guy in a green shirt who was standing at the host stand. He didn’t notice her at first because he was trying to assemble a little tower out of match-books and had already gotten up to the fifth level.
“Welcome to P.J. Mortimer’s, where our Irish eyes are always smiling!” he said, his head jerking up as Nina approached. He was a tall guy with a young, smooth face—he looked like he only had to shave once or twice a week. Though his eyes were small and dark brown, they shone brightly.
“Can I talk with Mel and Avery?” she asked.
“Um … sure.” He looked around, as if checking to see if he could leave his post.
“I don’t want to bother you….”
“No,” he said, holding up his hand. “Hold on.”
He opened up a cabinet behind him, hit a button, then quickly closed it and spun around. There was a strange winding noise, like the cranking of an oversized jack-in-the-box, then a heavy, pounding drumbeat. After a minute, somewhere in the depths of the restaurant, a piano started playing some kind of Irish tune. Then there was a ripple of sound, like someone running their finger down the keys, and the music stopped.
“I know who you are,” he said, yelling slightly over the noise. “You’re on the council, right? You’re Nina.”
Nina didn’t want to yell, so she nodded back.
After a moment Avery came striding over. She wore a similar outfit, except her suspenders were laden with small pins, which Nina guessed were for various bands.
“What the hell?” Avery said angrily. “Nobody has a birthday.”
He smiled innocently and knotted his hands together in a prayerlike fashion, setting them primly on the host stand.
“I hit it by accident,” he said, straight-faced. “I was trying to get to the CD player. I thought it was skipping.”
“Liar. I will get you, Park.”
He nodded toward Nina. Avery turned around in surprise.
“Hey,” Avery said, “we were going to call….”
“We’re going out,” Nina said with enthusiasm. “My treat. You still off at nine?”
Normally the words going out and my treat practically caused Avery to break out in applause. Now she just pulled on her suspenders and gave a half smile.
“Yep. Only twenty minutes left,” she said.
“Can you tell Mel?” Nina asked. “I can wait here until you’re done.”
“Sure.”
Avery disappeared into the back, and the guy leaned over the stand.
“You’ve got very cool friends,” he said.
Nina couldn’t help but smile at that. It was true.
Mel came around a moment later and greeted Nina with a huge hug.
“This is Parker,” Mel said, indicating the guy at the stand. Parker nodded and waved, then seemed to notice something going on back where the tables were. He disappeared into the restaurant.
“Can we bring him?” Mel asked quietly.
“Who? That guy?”
“He’s off in a few minutes too,” Mel said, nodding.
Nina was about to say that this was their night and that she wanted to spend time with her best friends, but there was an eagerness in Mel’s eyes that told her there had to be a good reason for her to ask.
“Sure,” she replied. “Great. Bring him.”
Nina decided to wait outside for Mel, Avery, and Parker. Avery escaped first. She yanked off her green shirt to reveal a Ramones T-shirt underneath and pulled a pack of cigarettes from her apron pocket.
“I was hoping you’d quit,” Nina said, stepping back. “I thought smoking was just an experiment.”
“Those public service announcements don’t lie,” Avery said, lighting up. “It really is addictive. Don’t start.”
Nina looked through the front door to make sure the coast was clear, then she stepped a bit closer to Avery, trying to stay downwind of the smoke.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“With what?”
“With Mel and that guy? Or is it you? I thought you said there was nothing.”
“Who, Parker?”
“Why did she ask him to come?”
“Oh …” Avery turned around and stared at the front door. “I didn’t know she asked him.”
“He’s cute.”
“Park? Park’s great.”
Avery was sucking so hard on her cigarette that Nina could actually hear it burning down with a little sizzling sound. She seemed a little edgy now. Before Nina could ask anything else, Mel and Parker joined them. Avery threw her cigarette to the ground and hurried over to her old blue Volvo.
“Meet you at the theater,” she said, waving Mel in. Parker and Nina were left staring at each other.
“I guess I’ll follow you,” he said. “Unless you want to ride in the Roach.”
“The Roach?”
Parker pointed to a corroded red VW Bug with a taped-up back window.
“Why do you call your car the Roach?”
“She will outlive us all,” he explained, swinging his key ring around his finger. “In the end, it’ll just be some rocks, Styrofoam, and-my car.”
“Right,” Nina said. “I’ll just take my car.”
By the time Nina got to the theater, Avery had already chosen a movie for them and she and Mel were in line for snacks. Once they got these, they handed them over and she and Mel headed off for the bathroom. Nina and Parker were left behind again. This felt very odd to Nina, but Parker didn’t seem to notice a thing. He simply suggested that they go into the theater to stake out their seats.
“You go to AHH?” Nina asked as they claimed part of a row. “I’m not sure if I’ve seen you around.”
“I just moved here a year ago,” he explained.
“From where?”
“Buffalo. My grandmother invented the wings.”
“She did?” Nina asked.
“I wish. No. My grandma is the only grandma in the world who can’t cook We eat at Arby’s when we go to her house for Thanksgiving. We go to the nice Arby’s, though.”
“The nice Arby’s?”
“There’s this Arby’s in her town that has a fireplace, and a waiter, and tablecloths, and real plates and silverware. But it doesn’t cost more. It’s just the really nice Arby’s.”
He seemed genuinely excited just thinking about it.
“So you were at Stanford, right?” he asked, picking through his tub of popcorn and plucking out the butter-soaked pieces. “That sounds like major advance planning.”
“It was just a summer program.”
“Still. It’s, like, college. Which is, like, impressive. See. I didn’t go. This is, like, what you sound like after a summer at Mortimer’s.”
He pushed his popcorn in Nina’s direction, but she declined. She was a strictly Junior Mints kind of woman.
“So, what did you have to do there?” he asked. “Describe it. What’s college like?”
“I guess the weird thing is, since you’re not in class as much, I thought there’d be more time. You know—you think three hours of class is nothing. But it’s so much, and it takes so much time afterward.”
“Well,” he said, plunging his hand deep into the popcorn, “I have this plan. I want to major in graphic art, to make cartoons and stuff. That way I can screw around and surf the Web and watch Cartoon Network for research. And it’ll be totally legit.”
“Do you draw?”
“I do computer animation,” he said. “And other experimental art.”
He cocked an eyebrow dramatically.
The room darkened, and the green screen for the first preview came up. Parker craned his neck back over his seat, then turned back around to Nina.
“Girls’ bathrooms scare me,” he said.
“Yeah,” Nina agreed. “Where are they?”
She was pretty sure that Mel and Avery were powwowing over this whole Parker thing in the bathroom. She wished she’d been included in it somehow—or at least told what was going on.
They sat through four previews. The last one was for a movie about a renegade cop who thwarts a terrorist plot. Parker leaned over to Nina’s ear.
“That looks so good,” he whispered. “A cop? Who breaks rules? And still gets the job done? And has an angry boss who yells at him? That’s groundbreaking. No one’s ever made a movie like that.”
Nina giggled and shushed him.
“I mean, a cop!” Parker continued, dropping his voice lower. “Cops are the people who hold up the rules. So, if you have a cop who doesn’t follow the rules, that’s irony, right?”
The trailer ended with a huge explosion. Parker touched his heart and then rolled his eyes to the ceiling in ecstasy.
“Irony is the word that I forget the meaning of the minute after I look it up,” he said as the green screen announcing the next preview came up. “But I kind of think I live in a constant state of it.”
Mel and Avery finally rejoined them just as the theater intro rolled before the movie. They took the two seats at the end of the row. Parker accidentally formed a barrier between Nina and them. She thought about switching seats, but the movie started at that moment.
Nina spent most of the movie trying to figure out whether it was Mel or Avery who was interested in Parker. He acted a lot like Avery, but Avery didn’t necessarily like guys who were like her. Mel, however, seemed to like people who acted like Avery—kind of snarky, lots of commentary. And there was something about the way that Parker had flashed glances at Mel as they’d been waiting in line for tickets that seemed to confirm the theory. It also made sense, now that Nina thought of it. Mel was shy and wouldn’t mention any interest in Parker if there was preliminary flirtation going on.
By the time Nina had completed her analysis, the movie was a third of the way over and she really had no idea what was going on. It was a very Avery kind of movie anyway, so she just zoned out and waited for any kissing or good outfits. When it was over, Nina had every intention of heading out for some late-night ice cream, but Mel and Avery were very conspicuously yawning. Since she didn’t work (and since she’d gotten up so late), Nina didn’t feel like she could complain about cutting off their big reunion night at eleven-thirty.
“Shopping day tomorrow,” Nina said. “Pick you up at ten?”
“Ten.” Avery nodded.
“Shopping day?” Parker asked. “Do you guys do everything together?”
“Pretty much.” Nina smiled. She noticed, however, that Mel and Avery didn’t.