Never Always Sometimes. Adi Alsaid

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      “So this is how tradition falls,” he said, taking a seat on one of the stools at the breakfast counter. “With cupcakes and the Kapoor army.”

      “Better a bang than a whimper,” she said, easing onto the stool next to him. She reached over and brushed something off his shoulder, as if he were the one covered in ingredients. “Plus, don’t be so dramatic. It doesn’t suit you. We’ll watch a movie next Friday, when we get bored of this. And them.”

      Dave nodded, understanding what she was getting at, though maybe not in the exact way she’d meant it. Julia kept mostly to herself at school, and by extension he did, too. He was friendly enough with classmates, though, especially when Julia wasn’t around to draw his attention. There were a couple of guys he might even go so far as to call friends, though he never really spoke to them outside of school. Once or twice he’d hung out with them, gone to lunch and then played video games in a curtain-drawn den. There’d been dog hair on every surface, a stale smell of Doritos in the air. Their conversations had bored him, and within an hour or so he’d found himself longing for Julia’s company, an urge so sharp it felt like homesickness. He had no trouble being alone. But if he was around anyone, he wanted it to be Julia.

      “You’re right,” Dave said, the worry over the party melting away. “I might even try breaking the promise to never go streaking while we’re at it.”

      “I’ll make sure that the picture goes viral and you live the rest of your life in regret and shame.”

      “You’re such a good friend.” Dave put a hand on top of her head and shook lightly. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

      “Show up to parties empty-handed, for one.”

      Dave chuckled, dipping another finger into the frosting. “You have to admit it’s kind of weird, though. Doing this after avoiding it for so long.”

      Julia shrugged, using her pinky to steal the frosting from his finger before he could lick it away. “I don’t think it’ll be that bad. Just see it as a brief social experiment.” She hopped off the stool and went to the oven, peering in through the glass to check on the cupcakes. “My mom did this once.”

      “Went to a Kapoor party?”

      She rolled her eyes at him. “No, goof. She came back to the States, got a regular job. This was when I was around nine or so. She worked at a bank, tried to go back to school. She calls it her ‘social experiment with the sheep.’ Six months later, she’d taken off again, even happier to return to her unordinary life.”

      Julia leaned back against the counter, crossing her arms in front of her chest, not really meeting Dave’s gaze. She knew she was being transparent, but she’d never been good at hiding her feelings when it came to her mom.

      “I see what you’re doing. You’re drawing parallels between us and your mom so I will feel as cool as she is.”

      Julia smiled and tossed a towel at him. “If it is too lame we’ll just leave. We can even have a secret signal.”

      Dave groaned. “Why a secret signal? We could just turn to each other and say, ‘This sucks,’ and then leave.”

      “Will you get into the spirit of this thing, please? Our secret signal will be to start a dance-off.”

      “You’re ridiculous.”

      “And you love me for it,” she said, smirking.

      o o o

      The Kapoor house was near school, about a fifteen-minute walk away. It was a route they were deeply familiar with, having driven it, walked it, and ridden their bikes down it countless times. But the streets took on a strange feel that Friday night, like walking into your own house and finding the furniture rearranged. The trees looked funny somehow, leafier than usual, or taller, or ominous. Okay, they looked pretty normal, but it felt weird noticing them while on the way to the Kapoor house for a party. Even walking next to Julia joking around felt a little strange in this context.

      When they arrived, Dave rang the doorbell, confused by the relative silence coming from inside the house. He’d expected the rhythmic thumping of what passed for pop music. He crinkled the tinfoil covering the tray of cupcakes as they waited for someone to answer. Julia leaned on his shoulder as she stepped into the high heels, the soles of her feet gray from the sidewalks. Once she was in them she grimaced at him. “Why,” she said, not a question, he knew, but a complaint.

      One of the Kapoor triplets opened the door, the collar of his polo shirt popped up, the sight of which always caused a dull ache somewhere in Dave’s chest. Julia let out a short “Ha!” at the sight of the red plastic cup in his hand.

      “Beer’s in the fridge, the sink, and the bathtub. We’ve got a game of beer pong going if you guys want next. Shots of tequila start once someone brings tequila.” He closed the door behind them and then peeked under the tinfoil of the cupcake tray. “You guys made cupcakes?”

      “Um,” Dave said, eyeing the closed door with an increasing sense of regret.

      “Cool,” the Kapoor said, letting the tinfoil drop back down. Then he walked past them through the empty living room and toward the kitchen.

      “I think we’ve made a terrible mistake,” Dave whispered.

      “Of course we have,” Julia said. “That was the point.” Then she started making her way across the shag carpet, gingerly stepping ahead as if tiptoeing through poisonous bushes. She held out her arms for balance, and Dave walked by her side so she’d have him to lean against.

      “I’ll have you know that I’m about to start a dance-off.”

      “Oh, shush. We’ve only had one interaction. And he wasn’t all that amusing.”

      Dave stopped walking, nearly causing Julia to tip over. “Julia. A red plastic cup full of beer and a popped collar. On a polo shirt. The only thing that would have topped that introduction to the party was if he WOOHed at us.”

      “Your standards are too low. This might be the only high school party I ever go to. I want to see plenty of it.”

      “So you can look back fondly at the glory days?”

      Julia poked him in the stomach, which he kind of took as the equivalent of when he grabbed her head and shook. “Goof.”

      They stood there in the empty living room for a second, mostly just smiling at each other. Dave imagined that if anyone walked into the room at that point it might look like they loved each other in the same way.

      “Come on,” Julia said. “The night is young. We have a lot of people to make fun of.”

      In the kitchen, the two other Kapoor triplets stood at one end of a plastic lawn table. They were setting up red plastic cups into a triangle on the table, pouring little measures of beer into each one. They, too, wore polo shirts, though each a different color and with the collars blissfully kept down. Three other guys, vaguely recognizable from school, lingered by the table, arguing about who had called “next.” A girl was at the speaker system choosing songs. She was wearing sneakers, not high heels, but Dave decided not to point that out.

      “Not СКАЧАТЬ