new wood. The walls were painted the school colors: maroon and gold. Next to the banners hanging from the ceiling there was a deflated soccer ball pinned to the rafters.
Julia led them up the plastic bleachers. A group of kids was shooting around, and one of them looked at Dave and called out to him. “Hey, man, we need one more! You wanna run?”
“No, thanks,” Dave said. “I had a really bad dream about basketball once and I haven’t been able to play since.”
The kid frowned, then looked over at his friends who shook their heads and laughed. Dave took a seat next to Julia as the kids resumed their shooting. “I think you’ve used that one before,” Julia said, taking a bite out of her apple.
“I’m kind of offended on your behalf that they don’t ask you to play.”
“They did once.”
“Really?” Dave rummaged through his backpack for the Tupperware he’d packed himself in the morning. “Why don’t I remember that?”
“I was really good. Dunked on people. Scored more points than I did on the SAT. Every male in the room suppressed the memory immediately to keep their egos from disintegrating.”
Dave laughed as he scooped a plastic forkful of chicken and rice. It was a recipe he vaguely remembered from childhood, one he’d found in his mom’s old cookbooks and had taught himself to make. His dad and his older brother, Brett, never said anything about it, but the leftovers never lasted more than two days. “So, you’ve heard from your mom recently?” Julia had been raised by her adoptive fathers, but her biological mom had always lingered on the fringe, occasionally keeping in touch. Julia idolized her, and Dave, who’d been yearning for his mom for years, could never fault her for it.
“Yeah,” Julia said, unable to keep a smile from forming. “She’s even been calling. I heard the dads tell her the other day that she’s welcome anytime, so there’s a chance that a visit is in the works.”
Dave reached over and grabbed Julia’s head, shaking it from side to side. Long ago, in the awkward years of middle school, that had been established as his one gesture of affection when he didn’t know how else to touch her. “Julia! That’s great.”
“You goof, I’m gonna choke on my apple.” She shook him off. “I don’t want to get my hopes up.”
“Her hopes should be up. Her biological daughter is awesome.”
“She’s lived in eight countries and has worked with famous painters and sculptors. No offense, dear friend, but I think her standards for awesome are a little higher than yours.”
Dave took another forkful of rice and chewed it over slowly, watching the basketball players shoot free throws to decide on teams. “I don’t care how great of a life she’s led, if she doesn’t come visit you she’s a very poor judge of awesomeness.”
He glanced out the corner of his eye at Julia, who set her apple core aside and grabbed a napkin-wrapped sandwich out of her bag. He was waiting to catch that smile of hers, to know he had caused it. Instead, he only saw her eyes flick toward the Nevers list, which was resting folded on his knee. They turned their attention to the pickup game happening on the court, each eating their lunch languidly.
For the last two periods of the day, Dave could feel the seconds ticking by, like bugs crawling on his skin. He reread the Nevers list, smiling to himself at the memory of him and Julia stealing the pen away from each other to write the next item. He gazed out the window at the blue California sky, texted Julia beneath his desk, scowled at the two kids in the back of the room who somehow believed that what they were doing was quiet enough to be called whispering. Next to him, Anika Watson took diligent notes, and he wondered how she was mustering the energy. He wondered how many of the items on the Nevers list she’d done, whether she was going to the Kapoor party that he’d overheard was happening that Friday night. Looking around the room, he imagined a little number popping up above each person’s head depicting how many Nevers they’d done.
At the final releasing bell of the day, Dave and Julia met up in the hallway, silently making their way out to the parking lot, where Julia’s supposedly white Mazda Miata should have been glimmering in the California sun but was barely reflective thanks to the year-long layer of dust she’d never bothered to clean off.
Before Julia said anything, Dave knew what she’d been thinking about. He knew her well enough to read her silences, and there’d been only one thing on her mind since he’d found the list. He smiled as she spoke. “What if we did the list?”
Dave shrugged and tossed his backpack into her trunk. “Why would we?”
“Because two more months of this will drive me crazy,” Julia said. She unzipped her light blue hoodie and threw it into the car on top of his backpack, then stepped out of her sandals and slipped those into the trunk, too. “We’ve got nothing left to prove to ourselves. High school didn’t change us. Maybe it’s time to try out what everyone else has been doing. Just for kicks. God knows we could use some entertaining.”
It was one of those perfect seventy-five-degree days, more L.A. than San Francisco, though San Luis Obispo was perfectly in between the two cities. A breeze was blowing, and now that Julia was wearing only her tank top it almost tired him how beautiful she was. It’d been a long time of this, keeping his love for her subdued. It’d been a long time of letting her rest her head on his shoulder during their movie nights, of letting her prop her almost-always bare feet on his lap, his hands nonchalantly gripping her ankles. He’d been a cliché all four years of high school, in love with his best friend, pining silently.
He opened the passenger door and looked across the roof of Julia’s car, which was more brown than white, covered with raindrop-shaped streaks of dirt, though it hadn’t rained in weeks. “I hear there’s a party at the Kapoors’ on Friday.”
Julia beamed a smile at him. “Look at you. In the know.”
“I’m an influential man, Ms. Stokes. I’m expected to keep up with current events.”
Julia snorted and plopped herself down into the driver’s seat. “So, no Friday movie night, then? We’re going to a party? With beers in red plastic cups and Top 40 music being blasted and kids our age? People hooking up in upstairs bedrooms and throwing up in the bushes outside and at least one girl running out in tears?”
“Presumably,” Dave said. “I’ve never actually been to a party, so I have no idea if that’s what happens.”
Julia lowered the top of the car, then pulled out of the school’s parking lot and turned right, headed toward California One and the harbor at Morro Bay.
“So, we’re doing this?” Dave asked. “We’re gonna join in on what everyone else has been doing?”
“Why not?” Julia said, and Dave couldn’t help but smile at the side of her face, the way the sun made her eyes impossibly blue, how he could see her mom on her thoughts. “I’ll come over before the party so we can decide what we’re going to wear.”
“And we can talk about how drunk we’re gonna get,” Dave added.
“And who we’re gonna make out with.”
“Yup.”
Dave turned to face the road and sank into his seat. He lowered the mirror visor and stuck
