A girl pushes open the front door of the café and pokes her head out. “Are you here for the meetup? I’m calling us the Microbrew crew, by the way. Just made it up.”

No, I want to say. A newspaper vending machine on the sidewalk holds copies of the New York Times and the university paper. I just stopped to look at the newspapers. “Yes,” I say instead, forcing a bright smile. “Am I in the right place?”

“Yes!” Her purple hair is on top of her head in a messy bun, and that shade of purple perfectly matches her wide grin. “I thought I would come out here and make sure nobody got stranded. I was doing the same thing fifteen minutes ago. My name’s Grace. What’s yours?”

“Jane Mendoza.”

We shake hands, and she laughs at the formality. “We’re outside. Is that cool with you?”

“Totally cool,” I say, and follow her through the café to the patio in the back.

The patio is fenced in with wooden slats that fail to keep the foliage around them at bay. Plants reach through the gaps in the fence. Fairy lights are wrapped around poles running overhead, like a semi-open roof. Grace leads the way to a group of three wrought-iron tables pushed together to form a weird, bumpy shape.

“Everybody, this is Jane,” Grace announces. “Jane, this is everybody.” She rattles off the names of all seven people at the table. “Sit here, by me.” I take the seat next to an empty chair, and Grace sits back down.

“I’m sorry,” I say to the guy I’m sitting next to. “I don’t remember your name. It happened fast.”

“Kevin,” he says. He’s handsome, with blue eyes and dark hair. “Welcome. What’s your major going to be? If you choose this school, anyway.”

It almost sounds like he might be joking. Like all the people at this table are sure they’re going to be accepted, and they’re even more sure they’ll attend.

“I’m going into social work. If I get in, and if I accept.”

“Really? I’ve heard that’s a great program. They run some really good on-campus services. If I wasn’t already committed to pre-med, I might have done that instead.”

“Stop him,” says Grace. “If you don’t stop him, he’ll tell you about his hopes and dreams for medical school literally all night. He already has his acceptance letter. He just hasn’t officially accepted. Someone applied to twelve million places.”

“I like talking about hopes and dreams,” I say, which is maybe the wrong thing. I want to fit in. I’m not sure I do fit in, though.