pay me to do some odd jobs around the place.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Nuns have money?”
“They don’t have priest money,” Joe said. “But a lot of them are good at poker.”
“Hmm, you’re full of surprises,” I said. It was strange how much he was not what I’d first pegged him as, but also exactly how I expected him to be.
Joe shrugged as he went to the counter to get our order in its greasy paper sack. My stomach growled when I saw the bulging bag. “Eh, nuns have good stories,” he said. “I like people with good stories.” He handed me my milkshake and I took a long sip.
“Well, next time it’s my treat,” I said. “But thanks again.”
“You’re welcome again, and deal.” He nodded at me. “So how do you make your money?”
I told him about Kevin, and Randy the Terrible. “If you know any kids who wouldn’t make me certain I never, ever want to have any, please let me know.”
“I’ll get back to you,” Joe said.
Jr’s was mostly carry-out, and the few tables it had were tiny and also occupied. “Do you want to eat alfresco?” Joe asked.
“Who’s Al Fresco?”
“It means eat outside,” he said. He was already pushing through the glass door to the street.
“Did you learn that from the nuns?” I asked as I followed him.
“Actually, I did.” He opened the passenger-side door for me and jogged to his side. “Plus, like, forty ways to cheat at cards.”
We got in and he gave me the bag to hold. The aroma of the food was killing me.
“I have this weird thing where I love to hold a hot pizza box on my lap,” I said. “And especially when it’s cold out. It’s better than a blanket.”
“Well, yeah, it’s pizza,” Joe said. “Pizza is better than most things. But you’re right, it’s comforting and exciting to have something that warms you up but you can’t wait to shove in your face.”
“Exactly,” I said.
It was a warm night, and Joe drove us to Oak Meadows, our soccer park. He pulled a blanket from his trunk and brought it to the middle of the field.
“You have a blanket in your car?” I asked. I imagined Joe taking girls for spur-of-the-moment picnics, or maybe he used it for back-seat makeout sessions on cold nights.
“I put it over my amp,” he said.
“Ah. I never asked what instrument you play.”
“‘Play’ is a strong word, but I sometimes hold a guitar and use it to make noise while I scream into a microphone.”
“You’re probably better than you think,” I said.
“No,” Joe said. “But what the Watergate Tapes lack in quality, we make up for in enthusiasm.”
He laid out the food and we sat across from one another. Once the foil and waxed paper wrapper were off my first hot dog, I demolished it in seconds. Thankfully, we’d both ordered the special, which came with two. I ate the second hot dog slower, savoring every bite.
When we finished, Joe flopped onto the blanket. “Whoa, why are hot dogs so good?”
I settled down on my half of the blanket. “I don’t know if all hot dogs are that good,” I said. “Jr’s is definitely better than when my mom used to cut up an Oscar Mayer and serve it to me in baked beans.”
Joe sat up and looked down at me, his face stricken. “You don’t like that? I loved it as a kid.”
“I’d rather just have the hot dog, not, like, chunks floating in bean juices.”
“When you put it that way, it does sound unappetizing,” he said. “But I’d still eat it.”
He lay back down and we stared at the sky a bit.
“Do you like Powell Park High?” Joe asked.
It was hard to shrug lying down. “‘Like’ is pushing it,” I said. “I don’t want to burn it down or anything. Do you like St. Mark’s?”
Joe laughed. “The weird thing is, I think I do? Or I guess I like knowing it will be over someday, so I try to pay attention to it now, while it’s going on.”
“That makes sense,” I said. “Like, I sometimes think about how I just want to be an adult already, but I don’t know if the adults I know are having fun, so maybe I should make the most of high school?”
“Yeah, and making the most of it might be barely enduring all the assholes but being amused and appreciating that they’re assholes we go to school with, and not assholes we have to work with yet?”
“You’re