The Pizza Place

7:12 PM

For a while, the two of them stand just outside Slices, peering in through the fogged windows at all the unfamiliar faces.

“Didn’t take them very long to move in, huh?” Aidan says, squinting at a corner booth that used to belong to some of his lacrosse buddies and that is now occupied by a cluster of sophomore girls all huddled over their phones.

“Out with the old…” Clare says lightly, though she feels a bit unsettled, too. After two weeks of goodbyes—two full weeks of sending their friends off one at a time—it feels like the town should be empty now. But here, it looks like any other night, the place completely packed, full of laughter and gossip and noise.

It’s just that it’s no longer their laughter and gossip and noise.

Aidan turns to face her, his blue eyes bright. “Let me guess,” he says, rubbing his hands together. “First place I spilled something on you.”

Clare shakes her head. “Nope.”

“First place you saw me trip over my own feet? First time you saw me eat four slices of pizza in under ten minutes? First time I did that trick with a straw wrapper?”

“First place we talked,” she says, stopping him, because she knows this could go on all night. “Not that it was much of a conversation, but it was the first time you spoke actual words to me.”

“Oh, yeah,” he says. “I remember now. I’m pretty sure I said you were the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen, and then asked you out right there on the spot.”

“Close,” Clare says with a smile. “You asked me to pass the Parmesan.”

“Ah,” he says. “One of my lesser-used pickup lines.”

“Worked on me,” she says as he pulls open the door.

Inside, the restaurant is thick with steam and filled with the smells of tomato and mozzarella. There’s exactly one middle-aged couple in the far corner, hunched over their pizza and looking hassled by the chaos all around them. Otherwise, pretty much everyone is under the age of eighteen. That’s the way it’s been for as long as anyone can remember—this place isn’t so much a restaurant as an off-campus lunch spot, an after-school meet-up point, a weekend hangout for the high school crowd. With its cracked leather booths and basic brown tables, the row of aging video games along one wall and the ironclad rule that slices come plain only, it’s always sort of belonged to the town’s younger population.

Just inside the doorway, Aidan stops short, and Clare sees that their usual table is occupied by a few of the underclassmen from the lacrosse team. When they notice Aidan, they start to scramble to their feet, but he waves them back down again.

“Sorry,” one of them says. He looks like a younger version of Aidan, round-faced and broad-shouldered and easygoing, but all the confidence drains right out of him at the sight of his former team captain. There’s a note of awe in his voice as he apologizes. “We thought you’d already skipped town.”

“Just about,” Aidan says, clapping him on the back. “I’m headed out tomorrow.”

“Do practices start right away?”

Aidan nods. “Preseason.”

“Well, good luck, man,” he says, and a few of the others chime in with well wishes, too. “Can’t wait to hear all about it at Thanksgiving.”

As they walk away from the table, Aidan takes Clare’s hand, and she gives his a little squeeze. She catches sight of their reflection in the darkened window and realizes how lost they both look, like they’ve walked into a familiar room to find that all the furniture has been rearranged. But then they recognize a voice over near the register, and they both turn to see Scotty, leaning against the counter and scraping his pocket for coins.

Aidan steps up beside him, slapping down a five-dollar bill.

“It’s on me,” he says, reaching out to punch his friend’s shoulder, but it doesn’t quite land because Scotty manages to dodge him, cuffing Aidan’s ear before ducking away again. Clare hangs back as the two of them tussle the way they always do, circling each other like boxers until they notice Oscar—the hulking, largely silent cashier who has been there forever—watching them from behind the counter, looking entirely unamused.

“How many?” he asks, raising one eyebrow.

Aidan coughs, straightening up again. “Five,” he says. “Please.”

Oscar skulks off toward the oven without another word, and Scotty reaches over and gives Aidan’s arm one last thump. “Thanks, man.”

“I feel like I should start some sort of charity pizza fund for you before I go,” he says. “I’m worried you’ll starve without me.”

“I’ll manage,” Scotty tells him, pushing up his thick-framed glasses. His dark eyes move between Aidan and Clare. “So,” he says, “this is it, huh?”

Aidan nods. “Last night.”

“For a little while, anyway,” Scotty says.

Clare gives him a reassuring nod. “Just for a little while.”

“And you two are, uh, doing okay?” he says, though it’s clear what he’s really asking is this: Have you two decided what to do yet?

“We’re fine,” Clare says, exchanging a look with Aidan.

“Who’s fine?” Stella asks, appearing at their side. She’s wearing all black, as usual, from her boots to her jeans to her shirt and all the way up to her earrings, two feathery-looking things that get lost against her jet-black hair. She always manages to look as if she’s preparing for a burglary, and Clare can’t help feeling conspicuous next to her in spite of the fact that she’s wearing a completely normal spectrum of colors: a blue sundress with a green cardigan.

“Where’ve you been?” Clare asks. “I thought you were coming over this afternoon.”

“Oh,” Stella says, twisting her mouth up at the corners. “Yeah. Sorry about that. I got caught up with something.”

“With what?” she asks, but Stella’s eyes have drifted over to Scotty, who is busy pouring oregano directly into his mouth. Most of it lands down the front of his Batman T-shirt, and he coughs and pounds on his chest, his eyes watering as he attempts to swallow the rest.

“It’s like watching a toddler try to figure out how food works,” Stella says, shaking her head. Scotty glares at her as he wipes the flakes from his shirt, and as always, Stella glares right back. She has a couple of inches on him in the staggeringly high heels she always insists on wearing, and after a moment, Scotty just shrugs and returns to the oregano.

The fact that the two of them have never gotten along usually isn’t a problem. But with most of their friends off to school already, their crew has been whittled down to an awkward foursome: Scotty and Stella, already sniping over things that don’t really matter, and Aidan and Clare, still at odds over all the many things that do.

Clare turns back to Stella. “You do realize I’m leaving tomorrow morning, right?”

“Uh, yeah,” Stella says after a second. “And I’m leaving the next day.”

“So where have you been?”

She frowns. “What do you mean?”

“Where’ve you been the last few days?” Clare repeats, ignoring Scotty and Aidan, who are looking back and forth between them as if watching a tennis match. At the moment, she doesn’t care. All she wants is for Stella to snap out of whatever it is that’s been going on with her lately. Because this is a big deal—leaving for college—and Clare could really use her best friend right now.

This is part of the job description, after all: the unspoken contract between all best friends. Clare is required to be there for Stella—to help her with college essays or tag along during endless thrift-shop excursions, to listen to her complain about the lack of interesting guys at their school, or her trio of exhausting younger brothers—and in return, Stella is supposed to be there for Clare, too. Even if it means giving her a hard time.

“You do know,” she’d said once, earlier in the summer, interrupting one of Clare’s frequent musings over what to do about Aidan, “that you’re gonna break up with him eventually, right?”

They were in the car on their way to a movie, and Clare had flicked her eyes away from the road to meet Stella’s, surprised. “Why do you say that?”

“Because,” Stella said, propping a foot on the dashboard, “it’s the truth. If it doesn’t happen at the end of the summer, it’ll happen a few weeks later, or at Thanksgiving, or Christmas, or next summer. It’s inevitable.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do,” Stella said, sounding maddeningly confident. “And meanwhile, you’ll spend your whole freshman year sitting around watching your idiot roommate—”

“Beatrice,” Clare said, exasperated. The moment she’d received her new roommate’s contact information, Stella—who had herself requested a single room—immediately decided she didn’t like the sound of her. And once they started texting, it only got worse. Stella insisted on scrutinizing every message that popped up on Clare’s phone, rolling her eyes at the steady stream of band names and tour dates Beatrice was constantly mentioning.

“Fine,” Stella said. “You’ll be sitting around watching your idiot roommate, Beatrice, getting ready to go out to all those totally dope shows she likes so much while you’re stuck back at the dorm in your flannel pajamas reading a book because you don’t want to have any fun without Aidan, who—by the way—will be out in California getting convinced by his idiot roommate—”

“Rob.”

“—his idiot roommate, Rob the surfer—”

“Rob the swimmer.”

“Whatever,” she said, clearly impatient. “Rob the swimmer, whose only concern is apparently whether Aidan is cool with getting a mini-fridge for their room, which I’m guessing is not so they can keep their veggies crisp. You know he’ll definitely be dragging him out to meet girls. And even if he doesn’t, Aidan will meet them anyway. Trust me. That’s what college is all about.”

“Aside from the whole learning thing.”

“That’s a very distant second,” Stella said matter-of-factly. “The point is, do you really want to spend the next four years feeling guilty because you went out with your roommate one night and got all moony-eyed over some drummer with great hair and killer eyes?”

Clare laughed. “When have I ever gone moony-eyed over a drummer?”

“Well, you haven’t,” Stella admitted, giving her a sideways look. “But maybe that’s just because you haven’t let yourself imagine there are other possibilities out there.”

“You mean besides Aidan.”

“I mean,” Stella said, “besides high school.”

But all this was early in the summer, when Stella still cared enough to be honest. And when she had time to listen. Lately, she hasn’t been around to do either, and even though they’re both still here—at least for one more night—it sort of feels to Clare like her best friend has already left.

Maybe it’s that Stella has been trying to give Clare and Aidan time to figure things out on their own, or maybe she’s just been busy getting ready to leave herself. Or maybe it’s that everything is coming to an end, and it’s easier to pretend it’s not. Stella’s never exactly been great at this sort of thing, anyway; she’s allergic to sentiment and wary of emotion, so trying to get her to appreciate the significance of a milestone like this is a bit like trying to hug a skittish cat.

But still, after fourteen years of friendship, Clare refuses to let her slink off to college without some sort of meaningful goodbye.

Now Stella is leaning against the counter, absently pulling napkins from the dispenser, avoiding Clare’s question. Finally, she shrugs.

“I don’t know,” she says. “I’ve been around.”

“Not really,” Clare says, shaking her head. “You haven’t been returning calls, you’ve been showing up late—”

“Maybe she can’t tell time,” Scotty jokes.

“—you haven’t been returning texts—”

“Or type,” he chimes in again.

“Shut up, Scotty,” they both say at the exact same time, and then they can’t help themselves: As soon as their eyes meet, they start to laugh.

“I’m sorry,” Stella says after a moment. “There’s just been a lot going on. But we’ll make up for it tonight. Really.”

“You promise?” Clare asks, and Stella grins.

“I double-pinky promise,” she says, holding out her fingers the way they used to do when they were kids. Clare smiles grudgingly, then hooks her pinkies around Stella’s.

“Okay,” she says as, behind them, Oscar thumps a fist on the counter. They turn to see that their slices are ready. Aidan grabs the tray, and they all walk over to an empty table by the window.

As soon as they sit down, Scotty takes a huge bite of his pizza. The cheese is still steaming, and he winces, dropping it back onto his plate. “Too hot.”

Stella rolls her eyes. “You’re a numbskull.”

“Word of the day?” Clare asks. Ever since taking the SATs, Stella has become obsessed with neglected vocabulary, picking a new word to work into conversation every day.

But she shakes her head. “Nope, that’s just what he is. Today’s word is gobsmacked, though I can’t imagine I’ll have a chance to use it, since there’s never anything to be gobsmacked about around here.” She glances over at Scotty with a grin. “Except maybe how much of a numbskull you are.”

“Is that the kind of vocabulary that got you into a fine school like Florida State?” Scotty asks, picking at the crust of his pizza while he waits for the cheese to cool, and Stella—still a little sensitive about her only acceptance—gives him a withering look.

“Says the guy going to community college,” she shoots back, and everyone goes abruptly still. Beside Clare, Aidan lowers his pizza, his mouth still half-open, and Stella, immediately realizing she’s gone too far, turns pale.

For months now, this has been the one thing nobody has said. They’ve all spent the summer tap-dancing around the subject, and even now, on the eve of their departure, it feels somehow wrong to mention it.

Because of all of them, Scotty’s the only one not going anywhere tomorrow.

Not that they didn’t all have their share of rejection this past spring. As much as Stella’s now looking forward to the warm weather in Florida, what she’d really wanted was to be closer to home, just downstate at the University of Illinois. Aidan hadn’t gotten into Harvard, even as a legacy. And though Clare had been feeling confident about her chances at most of the places she’d applied, in the end, she’d gone only four for twelve.

Scotty, though, hadn’t gotten a single yes. After a high school career spent coming up with ever more creative ways to escape his classes, it shouldn’t have been a big surprise. But he and Aidan had spent so many months dreaming of conquering California together that it had taken Scotty weeks to get around to telling them, and when he finally did, they could all see how much it hurt. Since then he’s done his best to make a joke of it—as he does with everything else—but Clare suspects that the only thing harder than leaving is being left behind.

His face is blank now, his ears pink at the tips, and his wiry frame is folded over the table in a way that makes him look even scrawnier than usual. Scotty’s personality is normally big enough to make people forget about his size, but now it’s like the air has gone right out of him.

Stella looks uncharacteristically earnest as she lays a hand on his shoulder. “Hey,” she says. “I’m sorry. You know I didn’t mean—”

“Forget it,” he says. “It’s fine.”

Clare is struck by a memory of Aidan, sometime just after they’d started dating, suggesting they set up Scotty and Stella. He was still new then, still clueless about the subtle dynamics of the eleventh-grade population, and still unaware of the fact that the two of them had been sparring—more or less uninterrupted—since kindergarten.

“But Scotty’s so much fun,” Aidan had said, which was true. Most of his other new friends were on the lacrosse team, but he’d met Scotty in art class, where they were the only two guys. Their first assignment had been to do a charcoal drawing of an object that was important to them. All the girls had sketched heart-shaped lockets and old clocks and ornate diaries. Aidan had drawn his lacrosse stick. But Scotty, of course, had come up with a Picasso-like rendering of a Mr. Potato Head, and when Aidan leaned over to compliment it without a hint of irony, they became instant friends.

“Yeah, but he’s not right for Stella,” Clare had told him. “Trust me. I’ve known them both a lot longer. They’re oil and water.”

But that wasn’t exactly true. The problem wasn’t that they didn’t match; it was that they matched almost too well. They were both loud and funny, fearless and loyal, completely and utterly magnetic. It’s just that they’d spent the better part of their lives repelling each other.

“Really,” Stella is saying now, her hand still on his shoulder. She looks genuinely sorry. “That wasn’t—”

“It’s okay,” Scotty says again, finally looking over at her. “I mean, it’s what’s happening, right? You guys are leaving and I’m staying here. It’s not like ignoring it’s gonna change anything.”

Clare leans forward. “Yeah, but…”

“Really, I’m fine with it,” Scotty says, and then his face cracks a little. “At least it means I won’t have to share my pizza with you guys anymore.”

“Your pizza?” Aidan asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah,” Scotty says with a nod, looking more cheerful already. “You guys’ll be off eating your second-rate pizza in your totally untested new pizza places, and I’ll still be here… with all this to myself.”

Stella laughs, though Clare can tell it’s more out of relief than anything else; she’s just happy she didn’t inadvertently tip the whole night off-balance. Scotty gives her a quick sideways glance before turning back to Aidan.

“And you know what the best part is?” he asks, his grin widening. “Once you finally hit the road, I’ll be free and clear to ask a certain someone out. Maybe she can even come help me eat all that extra pizza.…”

It takes a second for Scotty’s meaning to register, but when it does, Aidan frowns. “Dude,” he says, shaking his head. “This is the last time I’m gonna say it. You’re not allowed anywhere near my sister.”

This is a joke that only Scotty ever seems to find amusing. For Aidan, it’s still a sore subject, and any reminder of last year’s spring formal—when he and Clare had ducked out early to find his best friend kissing his younger sister in a darkened hallway—is enough to make the vein near his temple start to jump.

Aidan has always been protective of Riley, and even once the full story came out later—how her date had abandoned her, and Scotty had been nice enough to keep her company, and then one thing led to another—he was still furious. They didn’t speak for weeks after that, Aidan and Scotty, in spite of Clare’s attempts to patch things up between them. And though their friendship eventually recovered—helped along by Riley’s admission that she was the one who kissed Scotty, and Scotty’s frantic promises that it would never happen again—the subject is still a sensitive one for Aidan.

Most normal people would tiptoe around something like that, avoiding it like a conversational pothole. But not Scotty, who still insists on dredging it up from time to time, apparently hoping it will eventually get funnier. Which it hasn’t.

“Too soon,” Clare says, tossing a balled-up napkin at him. Across the table, Stella is flashing him a look that very plainly says: “Stop being an idiot.”

Scotty’s smile falters, and he gives them a shrug. “Okay, okay,” he says to Aidan, holding up his hands. “I was only kidding. I promise your sister is off-limits.”

“Not like you’d have a chance anyway,” Aidan says with a grunt, folding his arms across his chest.

“Hey,” Scotty says, glancing up after an attempt to blow the wrapper off his straw fails completely. “I’m a catch.”

This makes Stella laugh until she coughs. She pounds her chest a few times for effect, and Scotty’s face clouds over again.

“What?” he says to Stella, a challenge in his voice. “Because you think I’m an idiot who couldn’t get into any real colleges?”

“No,” Stella says firmly. “Because I think you’re an idiot with a big mouth and a thoroughly distorted sense of self-confidence.”

As the two of them begin to bicker again, Clare glances over at Aidan, who is usually the referee in these situations. But at the moment, he’s just watching them with an unreadable expression, his head tilted to one side. When she catches his eye, he gives her a weary smile, but in spite of everything, she can tell there’s a part of him that’s secretly enjoying it. This is just what he’d been hoping for tonight—something normal. Something light and silly and meaningless. Something that doesn’t feel like an ending.

“I’ve got a brilliant idea,” Clare says, and Scotty and Stella turn to her as if they’d forgotten anyone else was there. “Let’s play the quiet game.”

“I forfeit,” Scotty says with a shrug, and Stella says, “Of course you do,” and just like that, they’re off again on an unending circuit of teasing and arguing.

Clare leans back in her chair, looking around the tiny restaurant, where the light is warm and yellow. It would be impossible to count the number of nights that had begun or ended here, how many evenings had followed this very same pattern. She lets the blur of it all wash over her: the chirp of the video games and the girls singing tunelessly at a corner table, the smells of garlic and cheese, and the fluorescent lights of the sign in the darkened window, a red so electric it burns her eyes.

When she turns back again, Aidan is smiling at her.

“Hey,” he says, leaning to bump her shoulder gently with his.

“Hey,” she says quietly, so quietly it’s almost lost in the noise of the place, a noise that no longer belongs to them. But Aidan hears her anyway.

“Any chance,” he says, “that you could pass me the Parmesan?”

She reaches out for it, handing it to him with a little smile. But later, when nobody’s looking, and the pizza is gone, and the shaker of cheese has been forgotten, she can’t help herself: She picks it up again and slips it into her bag.