“Did the nineties have a different standard for measuring good movies? I mean, this was the decade of Furbies, so something was obviously going terribly wrong.”

“Really, it all comes down to the possession scene,” said Roscoe, ignoring me “It’s maybe the best scene in any movie, ever.”

“Oh boy. Here we go.”

Calling it “the possession scene” was misleading. That made it sound like a cool movie, which it wasn’t. It was more accurate to call it the “dance scene.” I mean, it was a Patrick Swayze movie, c’mon.

“Swayze just wants to touch Demi Moore one last time. Demi believes he’s there, in the room, with her. Whoopi Goldberg lets Swayze possess her—wear her body—as a means of touching Demi. And when they do, Demi can f—”

“Fill the mandatory dance scene quota in a Patrick Swayze movie?”

“—feel him! She can see him! Even with her eyes closed, even while she’s dancing with this woman she barely even knows, she knows his touch. She knows it’s him. She can see him with her heart. And even though death has torn them apart, they can share this moment together.”

Roscoe was rapidly disintegrating.

“All because Demi can… she can see him,” he said. “She can see him with her hh… with her hhh…”

With her heart.

Roscoe cleared his throat. Hastily wiped his eyes with his sleeve.

“Anyway,” he said, “Whoopi Goldberg was fucking fantastic, and don’t you dare tell me otherwise.”

I forced a feeble smile. “She was good.”

I knew I shouldn’t ask the question I wanted to ask.

But I asked it anyway.

“How did it happen?” I said. “The accident, I mean.”

Roscoe bit his lip. His whole face became fragile all over again.

“Unless you don’t want to—”

“No, it’s fine,” he said. Cleared his throat. “Um. We were at a party at a friend’s house. Low-key, family-style stuff. I mean, everyone was bringing their kids, so… But there was alcohol. And I was drinking, and Josie was drinking, and—”

“Josie was drinking?”

“Well, yeah. Otherwise she would’ve driven.”

I was kind of shocked. This was the first I’d heard of it.

“But it’s not like we planned it that way,” he said. “I was in one part of the house with my friends, and she was in another part with her friends, and when we were finally wrapping up and getting ready to go, well… Josie was sloshed. And I’m kind of a heavyweight when it comes to drinking. I thought I was fine, and we only lived a couple minutes away. If Josie was sober—if she had a clear mind—she would have told me no. She would have stopped me. We would’ve gotten a ride, or taken an Uber, or literally done anything else. But she wasn’t. So, I drove.”

Silence filled the delicate space between us.