Leeza has one eyebrow raised, but her words are firm. “I think he means it.” She leans toward me. “That’s why half of what you say doesn’t make sense.”

“Finally!”

“You can’t believe it—not really …” Chaz is incredulous.

I can see that Ma Elena and Leeza are both near trembling with excitement, wanting it to be true. We’re in this together.

Leeza is excited. “It’s fantastic, right? So, Weese, tell us about the future.”

What to say? I start with Ma Elena. “You’re a nurse and a mom, just as you said.” I don’t mention that her recent ex-boyfriend is her husband or that I’m her son. Instead, I look at Leeza. I make up a best-case scenario. “You’re a pop singer, more Madonna-like than Duran Duran.” I don’t have an answer for Chaz, so I refocus their attention. “But I’m only seventeen then. So … we’re not friends like we are now.”

“Then I have no interest in the future,” Leeza teases.

Chaz thinks we’re all insane. “Are you guys really considering this?”

She laughs it off. “I don’t know. It’s fun. And what does it matter?”

“I half think it’s possible and half don’t,” says Ma Elena. “I mean, it’s not in the Bible.”

Just as quickly as it seemed they believed me, the spell is fading. By tomorrow it will be a silly thing, a little joke between friends who won’t even be together to share it.

A car horn plays “The Yellow Rose of Texas,” and Leeza says it’s her family. Who has musical car horns? And why that song? The fact that they are honking means her dad is royally pissed and her mom is afraid to argue with him. We team up to carry her things to a Lincoln Cadillac as long as a tugboat, helping her red-faced, wordless mother pack up. Her dad never leaves his seat, and every time she passes by in that catsuit, I swear he ages a little more.

Leeza tells us all she’s going to call us and that she means it, keeping her hugs brief but fierce. “See you in New York,” she says to Chaz. “And no more secrets.” When she’s in the back seat, she rolls down the window. “Trust me, Weese, in ten years, I’ll remember you.” She blows us a big kiss and then her dad pulls the Cadillac away, driving her off into the rest of her life.