“Except for when we waited tables together at Max’s for a summer,” Letty said.
“Right. I always forget. I was so fucking bad at that.”
“He had no customer service voice,” Letty told Sana. “He would walk up to the table like, ‘Hey, I’m Carver. What do you guys want?’ Just all business, immediately. And we pooled tips, so the rest of us were always busting his balls.”
“I can sympathize, though,” Sana said. “Like, can’t I just bring them the food? Why does there have to be theater?”
“See, but the theater is actually the easy part, keeping track of the food is what’s hard,” Letty said. “I was always happy to do as much theater as they wanted, ‘cause then they’d forgive me if their food was late.”
“But I was never late, is the thing,” Carver said, tapping his temple.
“Yeah, we should have teamed up likeRatatouille.” Letty glanced at Scott. “You came by a few times to visit us, didn’t you?”
Scott felt Carver’s gaze on his face. “Uh, yeah,” he said.
“I remember you riding up on your skateboard,” she said with nostalgia. “And you’d order a large iced tea and take up a booth for hours, and distract us when we walked by. I think Debbie hated you.”
“Nah, we were cool,” Scott said, smiling. “I saw her at ShopRite before graduation, she remembered me and we talked for a bit.” Suddenly he realized that he’d absentmindedly tucked the new joint into his shirt pocket after rolling it. He produced it, to everyone else’s happiness.
“I totally forgot I was yelling at you to roll this,” Letty said, accepting the joint and lighter.
“Because you’re already high,” Sana said.
“Baby, how dare you? But yes.”
“I think Debbie hatedme,” Carver said. “I always felt like she wanted me to act like waiting tables at her restaurant was my life’s calling.”
“I think it was more that you made it obvious the opposite was true,” Letty said, laughing and exhaling smoke. “You were always like, ‘Debbie, of course I can’t pick up a Saturday shift, are you insane? That’s my SAT prep class day.’”
“Carver, you would feel so at home in NoVa,” Sana said, running her hand through her dark hair’s shaggy layers. “Should we all say our SAT scores?”
“Uh, no,” Letty said, passing her the joint.
“1430,” Carver said. “Both times I took it.”
“Nice,” Sana said.
“And yours?” he said. “Since you’re asking?”
Sana grinned sheepishly. “Um… 1470.”
“Well, fuck you then,” Carver said, and she laughed.
“I’d prefer not to say mine,” Scott said. “Actually, I don’t remember it.”
“I remember you actually got a slightly higher verbal score than me,” Carver said.
Scott dropped his gaze, suddenly self-conscious. “Did I?”
“Yeah. I was pissed ‘cause you didn’t even study.”
“But I tanked the math part completely.” The joint entered Scott’s field of view, and he accepted it from Sana. “I was never any good at math.”
“Only ‘cause you have some kind of learning disability,” Letty said. “You mix up numbers.”
“How’s that different from not being good at math?”
“Because even when you put the work in, you’re still at a disadvantage.”
