“I think the CDs are in here,” Steph said, opening the closet. It was jammed with clothes—hers and Lisa’s—and shoes piled on the floor. She reached up to the shelf above the clothes and pulled down a cardboard box. Inside it was a mess of spiral notebooks, yellow bubble envelopes, Sharpies, and tape. She opened one of the envelopes and said, “I forgot about these.” She handed me a postcard-sized flyer for Madchen, and I realized the name must be related to that movie poster on Steph’s living room wall. The postcard featured a photo of the band taken on a beach. Steph was on the left, dressed all in black, with her hair gelled into a fauxhawk. Roxy stood next to her in a hot pink tank top, ruffled black miniskirt, and those steel-toed boots. On either side of them I recognized the other band members, Talia and Jasmine.

“Here it is,” Steph said, pulling a CD out of another padded envelope. “I still have a few.”

The CD cover used the same photo, with MADCHEN printed across the center. “Can I borrow this?” I asked.

“You can have it. I’m not selling them anymore.”

“Thanks.” I stacked the CD on top of the book, and when Steph didn’t ask for the postcard back, I tucked it inside.

As Steph returned the cardboard box to the shelf, she said, “I hope you had a good time tonight? Hope the movie wasn’t too weird.”

“It was weird, but I liked it. It was unexpectedly philosophical.”

“What do you mean?”

“Remember the beginning? It starts with that voice-over where they’re like, Welcome to this town in Arizona, where everybody is so sure of the future.” I pitched my voice lower.

“Future voice,” she intoned, turning back to me with a smile.

“Exactly. But then the future turns out to be not so certain. They thought they knew what would happen, but nobody knew anything.”

“That’s why I don’t plan ahead. If you plan too much, you’ll just disappoint yourself.”

“But you have to make some plans. Otherwise how can you work toward your goals?”

She laughed slightly. “I bet you have your whole life planned out.”

“Not my whole life. But definitely the next few years.”

“You didn’t know where you’d be this summer.”

“True,” I admitted.

“Disappointed?”

I was still holding the Adrienne Rich book and the CD, and I pressed the hard corner of the plastic case against my fingertip, reminding myself that this was real. I was in Steph’s bedroom, and she was looking at me with a curious light in her eyes, a smile on the edge of her mouth, not quite there, but maybe I could tease it out.

“I’m not disappointed,” I said softly. “Not anymore.”

There was the smile.

Chapter 17