I wondered how many days it had been since their last call. Did they have shared jokes? Would she ask him if he needed anything? Make sure he was eating well? What did mothers do when they were away from their kids?

I unwrapped my burger, watching him through the plate glass windows—pacing, smiling, frowning . . . walking away. “Um.”

A minute passed before he came barreling through the Burger Barn door, clutching today’s copy of the Times instead of his phone.

When he reached the table, he set the paper down and started flipping page after page. I pulled his burger out from underneath.

“My mom says hi,” he mumbled, turning to the next section.

“She knows about me?”

“Last week she asked if I’d made any friends and I said I had a girlfriend.”

“I wasn’t your girlfriend last week.”

He glanced up. “To me, you were.”

My smile was no longer stifleable. “Well, hi back to your mom.” I sipped my soda. “Sounds like a dis, totally wasn’t.”

“My article came out. The . . . interview thing.”

“Oh my God, awesome!” I reached over to see how far he’d gotten. “It’s the weekend paper, so it’ll be in the Magazine or the Arts—”

“Mom said Arts section. She was . . .” His hands stilled, pressing the pages as he breathed. “Weird about it? Excited but . . . I don’t know, I need to see it. I told her not to worry . . .”

I scooted my chair around so I could sit closer, then pulled the paper gently from him and pointed. “Top right.”

He startled, seeing his name. “It’s short!”

“It’s good, though, Oscar. It’s In the Wings.”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s all people they think are going to be important one day. Win was in there after he got his first conducting spot. Lin-Manuel Miranda, Virginia Cheng—”

“Who?”

“She’s a painter. This is across all arts. It’s really cool!” I scooted my seat back, swiping a fry.

“Ah, this is . . . exciting.” He kept scanning it, a frown etched into his forehead even as he kept grinning. “I can’t believe that interview took like two hours and there are only five questions on here. Oh. The intro. That must be . . . huh.”

I read it again, upside down.

Oscar Bell, 17

Hometown: DC

Discipline: Classical composition

I blinked at him. “Is it the composition thing? Do you not feel like you’ve—?”

“The DC. I’m from Bethesda.”

A smile wavered on my lips. “Isn’t that fairly close to DC?”

“It’s not the same place. But, yeah, I mean . . . that’s not a big deal, right?”

That gossip piece about the two of us sprang to mind. “Is it that ‘mean streets’ thing you’re worried about? I doubt Times readers overlap much with the Post.”

“I’m not worried.”

His finger landed later in the write-up.