Emily heard the shouted “Christ!” from fifty yards away. She smiled as Blake shoved Nardo, then Clay stumbled, then they were all jostling each other back and forth along the sidewalk like pinballs bouncing around a machine. She was overwhelmed with love at the sight of them—their youth, their easiness, their abiding friendship. Without warning, tears sprang into her eyes. She wanted to hold onto this moment forever.
“Emily?”
She turned, surprised but not surprised to see Jack Stilton sitting on the steps outside the police station. He had a pen in his hand and a notebook in his lap with nothing written down.
“Cheese,” she said, offering a smile as she wiped away her tears. “What are you doing out here?”
“Supposed to be writing a paper.” He tapped his pen on his notebook, clearly agitated. “Dad and me have been staying at the station.”
Emily’s heart sank. Her own mother could be cold and imperious, but at least she wasn’t a crazy alcoholic who occasionally changed the locks on the front door. “I’m sorry. That really sucks.”
“Yeah.” He kept tapping his pen, warily glancing down the street at the boys. As a group, they could be very unkind to him. “Anyway, don’t tell anybody, okay?”
“Of course not.” She thought about sitting on the steps beside him, but Clay had already seen her. There was sure to be teasing about what he called Emily’s collection of broken toys. “I’m really sorry, Cheese. You know you can always sleep in our gardening shed. My parents never go back there. You don’t have to wait for me to offer. I can put a pillow and blanket in there anytime.”
“Yeah,” he repeated, nodding his head. “Maybe.”
“Em!” Clay bellowed from down the street. He was holding open the door to the diner, but he didn’t wait for her because he knew that she would come.
She told Cheese, “I should—”
“Sure.” Cheese put his head down, scribbling lines onto the notebook.
Emily felt bad, but not bad enough to do anything about it. She tucked her hands into her coat pockets as she jogged the distance to the diner.
The bell over the door clanged when she pushed it open. Too-warm air enveloped her. There were only three paying customers, all sitting far apart from each other on swiveling stools that lined the long counter. The clique had already taken up their usual semi-circular booth at the back. Ricky winked at Emily as she walked past with a tray full of sodas and milkshakes. Big Al glared from his perch in the kitchen. Even in the off-season, he didn’t like the clique taking up space in his restaurant, but he’d decided it was worth the sacrifice to have his eyes on his two grandchildren. Also, Nardo always picked up the tab.
“You’re not listening.” Clay grabbed a milkshake off Ricky’s tray, but he was talking to the boys. “Are you all being purposefully obtuse?”
Nardo had just jammed a fistful of French fries into his mouth, but he answered anyway. “I prefer being hypotenuse.”
Ricky laughed, but everyone else groaned.
“That’s exactly what I mean.” Clay pulled a straw from the dispenser. “The world is falling apart, people are starving, I’m calling for a revolution, and all any of you jackasses can think about is sports cars and video games.”
“That’s not fair,” Nardo said. “I think about sex quite a lot, too.”
Blake said, “We always want what we can’t have.”
Ricky giggled, then slapped Blake on the shoulder. He sighed dramatically as he stood up so Ricky could take her spot between him and Nardo.
Emily quietly tucked in beside Clay but, as usual, he didn’t move to make space for her, so she was forced to hang onto the booth with one butt cheek.
“You know,” Blake said. “Now that you mention cars, did you guys see that Mr. Constandt got a DeLorean?”
“Actually,” Nardo chimed in, “It’s called a DMC-12.”
“For the love of God.” Clay dropped his head back and stared up at the ceiling. “Why do I waste my time with you senseless, boring plebs?”
Emily and Ricky exchanged a much-needed eye-roll. There were only so many times they could hear talk of revolution, especially considering that the worst thing that had ever happened to any of them was a few years ago when Big Al made Blake and Ricky work at the diner nights and weekends to help the restaurant get back on its feet after a devastating kitchen fire.
Clay groaned as he righted his head. His lips pursed around the straw. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. The setting sun in the plate glass window gave an angelic glow to his beautiful face. Emily felt a stir of desire at the sight of his features. He was undeniably handsome, with thick brown hair and a sexy, lush Mick Jagger mouth. Even as he drank, his cool blue eyes moved around the arc of the booth. First Blake, then Ricky, then Nardo. His gaze avoided Emily, who was perched at his left elbow.
“All right.” Nardo was always the first to break the silence. “Finish what you were saying.”
Clay took his time, slurping the dregs of his milkshake before pushing it to the side, which happened to put the glass directly in front of Emily. Her nostrils flared. The smell of milk was noxious, almost spoiled. Her leg started to shake up and down. She felt slightly ill.
“What I was saying,” Clay continued, “is that the Weather Underground did things. They trained like soldiers. They performed drills and practiced the art of guerrilla warfare. They transformed themselves from a bunch of college kids into a proper army for changing the world.”
“They blew themselves up, along with a very expensive brownstone.” Nardo was clearly delighted to be the bearer of this news. “That’s hardly a winning strategy.”
“They hit the Capitol.” Clay counted out the targets on his fingers. “The State Department. They knocked over a Brinks truck. They threw Molotov cocktails at the pigs and went after a state supreme court justice.”
Emily smoothed together her lips. Her mother was a state judge.
“Come on!” Clay said. “They bombed the fucking Pentagon, man.”
“To what effect?” Nardo looked more imperious than usual as he pushed a lank of his wispy blond hair out of his eyes. He’d been the only one of the boys who’d gotten an ear pierced. The diamond was huge. “None of those actions accomplished anything. They blew up some empty buildings, they killed some people—”
“Innocent people,” Emily interjected. “Who had families and—”
“Yes, all right.” Nardo waved her off. “They killed innocent people, and it didn’t do a damn thing to change anything.”
Emily didn’t like being dismissed. “Didn’t they all end up in prison or on the run?”
Clay looked at Emily, the first time he’d done so since she’d walked into the diner. She normally basked in his attention, but now she felt weepy. He’d been accepted to a college out west. Emily was going to school an hour away from home. They were going to be thousands of miles apart and she would pine for him while he probably forgot all about her.
Clay turned his attention back to Nardo. “Read the Prairie Fire manifesto. The point of the Weather Underground was to overthrow US imperialism, eradicate racism, and create a classless society.”