“Tell them to buy Microsoft stock,” Maggie said, and they laughed.
They didn’t say goodbye when they left the storage unit. They said “next Thursday.” And for the first time in ten years, Claire believed it. the friends 1994
Claire looked at the photograph. Then she looked at her friends. Maggie’s hands were dry and cracked from too much dish soap at the restaurant she now managed. Leo’s hair was thinning. Paul had a small scar above his eyebrow from a bicycle accident last year. They weren’t young. But they were here. “Tell them to buy Microsoft stock,” Maggie said,
“I have an idea,” Maggie said, breaking the spell. She pulled a dusty bottle of whiskey from a box marked “bar – fragile.” It was the same cheap brand. “One more Family Dinner.” Claire looked at the photograph
“You coming in, or are you just going to air out the place?” Maggie’s voice, still sharp as a tack after ten years, echoed from the gloom.
“And you put the pizza box in the oven to ‘keep it warm,’” Leo added, grinning. “We almost burned the building down.”
They did and they didn’t. Maggie was tugging at a lumpy sofa, her red hair now a sensible bob, her freckles faded. Leo, who’d once sworn he’d die in this very apartment, was carefully wrapping his vintage guitar in bubble wrap. He’d sold his first song last year—a jingle for a breakfast cereal. And then there was Paul.