Hanin passed me the joint. I took an ambitious hit and suppressed some coughs. Irvine looked over at me and raised her eyebrows. I met her eyes and took a second hit, then passed it to Steph, who was still explaining Irvine’s comics about the lesbian aliens. The joint went around the circle again, and by the time I had hit it again I was floating a little away from myself, barely listening to Steph’s monologue.

“We’re going over to Jean’s place,” Hanin was saying suddenly. Them and Irvine had stood up. “They’re gonna shoot off fireworks.”

“It’s not even July anymore,” Steph said meekly, already following them.

As we walked a couple blocks to Jean’s house, Hanin and Irvine walked in front of Steph and I, so I couldn’t help watching Irvine. Staring a stoned stare at her. It dawned on me that she wasn’t really all that stoic, that was just her work persona. Here, her voice was an octave higher, she talked with her hands, and at one point she giggled when Hanin got to a good part of their story.

“How was your time in New York and Philly?” Steph said from next to me.

“Sort of boring,” I said, not looking at her. “I was addicted to drugs.”

“Sure,” she said gently. I think she expected me to keep going. I started to tune in to Irvine’s conversation with Hanin.

“Steve is an ally,” Hanin was saying, laden with sarcasm.

Irvine turned around and smiled at me. “Sorry to be talking about your dad right in front of you, Cay,” she said. “I was just telling them that I think he, like, understands my gender in a way? Like, he holds doors open for me, but he also says, ‘what’s up, duuuude,’ whenever I see him.”

“He does that to me too,” I said.

Hanin laughed. “Okay, that’s a demerit on his ally card. But I’m assuming you’re not out to him?”

“No,” I said. “That one is on me.”

“It’s not on you,” Steph said, with a motherly sweetness. She was reassuring me. “It’s not your fault,” she added.

“I think in this case, it is,” Hanin said, and returned to their conversation with Irvine.

“Coming out is hard,” Steph said. She tossed her cigarette butt into the street and lit another one immediately.

“I bet it is,” I said.

When we got to Jean’s house, we cut around it into a little gravel alley ringed with garages. Two women with big, frizzy hair and a lot of tattoos on their bare arms were sitting in lawn chairs there.

After some introductions, Steph and I sat down together in the gravel and watched Jean and Irvine fiddle with bottle rockets.

“Welcome to my home,” Jean said. “I promise I’m not always doing this sort of bullshit.”

“More often than not,” Hanin said.