“I’ll use it,” Lisa said from the living room. I heard her footsteps crossing the wooden floors, and then a door closed.

Mel was wearing long, baggy blue shorts and a short-sleeved yellow button-down printed with pineapples. “I’m glad you decided to come,” she said to me.

“I hope I don’t embarrass you with my straight ignorance,” I joked.

Mel smiled at me. “We all gotta start somewhere.”

She shared a look I didn’t quite understand with Steph, whose mouth twitched into a sort of smile.

—

Mel drove the black Jeep, and I sat up front with her while Steph and Lisa took the back. Mel played Rihanna and Icona Pop on the drive down to San Francisco, and as we crossed the Golden Gate Bridge I gazed out at the glittering Pacific and remembered driving the other way with my dad only a week ago. Time felt both stretched and compressed in that instant, and then Mel hit repeat on “I Love It,” and it was impossible to not be there in the Jeep at that moment, screaming the chorus with these three women I hadn’t even known seven days ago.

San Francisco was all sunshine and steep hills. When the Jeep careened up and over Divisadero, Lisa let out a whoop. I thought I knew the city from previous visits with my dad and grandparents, but as Mel maneuvered her way across Market Street, which was hung with dozens of Pride flags, I realized I only knew a small slice of it. We were heading for the Mission District, and I didn’t think I’d ever been in that part of San Francisco before. The streets were unexpectedly flat, with long blocks that reminded me of New York, but the buildings were mostly three or four stories with bay windows jutting out over the sidewalks. They were painted pastel shades of blue and yellow and pink, all of them slightly grimy and a little worn. On the ground floors were taquerias and vegetable markets, bars and bookstores, their doors open to the sunny day.

The parking garage was accessed down an alley behind a Pakistani restaurant, and Mel drove up a very steep, dark driveway to the rooftop, where she tucked the Jeep into a cramped corner parking space. Outside, the air smelled of asphalt and gasoline, and behind that came the scent of curry.

“We should pick up some drinks,” Lisa said, flipping down her sunglasses. “It’s such a nice day.”

“We got lucky,” Mel said.

“God loves Pride,” Steph said, and they all laughed. I joined in a little late.

—