During the school week he never had time to veg out because of homework, and on weekends his mom always wanted to spend “quality time” together. He knew it was because she was stressed about him going off to college, and he was trying to be empathetic and just do what she wanted. But luckily his dad was less sentimental and let him do as he wished. He would never tell his mom, but he preferred his dad’s downtown neighborhood. He had just seen two foreign films, a Jean-Luc Godard double feature—Pierrot le Fou and Alphaville—in the Village. He then walked to Corner Bistro and ate a hamburger. He was now trying to decide what commercial blockbuster he should see next. Dustin felt that to be a true film lover, one needed to see both highbrow and lowbrow movies.

A few minutes later, he got a text from Steven about a party at a club in the Meatpacking District this Saturday night. Dustin assumed it was an errant text as he and Steven were not weekend friends. But then he received a follow-up text that said: Renting limo STOP Kimmie will b there STOP ur presence mandatory! STOP. Dustin smiled at the text, knowing the “STOPs” were in his honor. He once said to Steven, during an American history homework session about the use of telegrams in the early 1900s, that it was one of his personal regrets, being born into the age of smartphones as opposed to telegrams. He found telegrams to be much more dramatic. Steven’s response had been, “You’re a weird fucking dude, but I like it. You almost make nerds cool. Almost.” Dustin had liked the compliment and thought about it from time to time.

A picture of a super cheesy white stretch limo straight out of a John Hughes movie appeared. The superrich were just different. They could do things on a whim like rent vintage limos for the night. Out of curiosity, Dustin googled the limo service and saw that a twenty-four-hour rental with a driver was running Steven two thousand bucks.

Dustin shook his head and sighed. People were starving, wars were being fought all over the world, so many people were suffering, and yet here was an eighteen-year-old dropping two Gs on some bullshit like it was nothing. It didn’t seem right that some people had so much when others had so little. He knew he shouldn’t go on principle, but when it came to Kimmie, Dustin’s convictions were like a bunny getting batted around by a bear. He sighed and then texted back two words: I’m in.

My spot 8 for grub, leave @9 to cruise in limo, cuz we straight ballin’ 2nite. Dress code 90s hip hop