Hiro was in the passenger seat, flipping through her CDs and murmuring at their names. He had been doing this for nearly thirty minutes, which suggested two things to me. First, Hiro had a distinctive capacity to marvel over things before he chose them, and, second, he was dreading the actual songs. So was I. Yegina favored nineties hardcore, the more caustic the better. The harsh chords made something spring loose inside her, and her head would bob, her chin would jut, her black hair falling in her eyes. Suddenly, late-twenties, business-casual Yegina rewound to her rebellious teen years, when she would sneak out of her house in leather pants and steel-toed boots to jump into mosh pits at a bowling-alley punk club in Highland Park. Instead of progressing past this musical phase like the rest of the sane adult world, Yegina had become an obsessive collector of its history.

“The Mormons,” Hiro said, pondering one disc. “Are they really Mormons?”

It was a dumb question in a way, an easy setup for a snappy comeback from my quick-witted best friend, but Yegina smiled at him. Hiro had a shy, sincere manner that made him difficult to mock, and the two of them had become very close in the months that I’d been gone. Wedged in the back seat next to their heaps of possessions, I felt my imposition more than ever. I was grateful for their friendship and for the ride to Wonder Valley, but I chafed at being a third wheel.

“You sure you want us to just drop you off?” Yegina said, as if she sensed my feelings.

I nodded. “There’s only a couple of scheduled screenings. I don’t want to miss them.”

“We could stay for the first one, couldn’t we?” Yegina said to Hiro. “It’s Brenae Brasil.”

“Um,” he said. It was clear the name didn’t register. “My cousin said six o’clock.”

There was a silence.

“Okay, that’s a no. Let’s keep it simple,” Yegina said to me. “We’ll take your bag to your hotel for you. If we see you tonight, we see you. I hope we see you. If not, we’ll swing by at noon tomorrow for the ride back.”

Our plans weren’t simple, but they were pure Yegina, well intentioned and multitasked. They were going to dinner at Hiro’s cousin’s house in Twentynine Palms, then visiting some of the art pieces on the festival’s extensive map before checking in at their hotel. I was meeting Janis Rocque and her girlfriend, Dee Rager, at The Oasis to watch a screening. I would get a ride with them to their hotel, where I had a room, too. Tomorrow, I would carpool home with Yegina and Hiro. I had no car, iffy reception on my cheap phone, and a giant desert to get lost in, but I had my friends.

I hoped I had my friends.