Page 38 of The Summer of ’98

“Guess that’s why you don’t want another relationship, then?” I continued.

Noah shrugged, standing on the other side of the table while he spun his handles around. “Couldn’t care less about what Anna did. Like I said, I don’t feel like having a girlfriend. Can we drop it?”

“We can.”

We didn’t talk for the duration of the game, instead staying focused on hitting the small plastic soccer ball with our designated players. Back and forth, back and forth, the table shook, and my palms were aching by the time Noah finally threw his arms up and claimed victory. There were no surprises there—he’d held the championship between us from the time we were kids. There was some sort of calculation involved in the game; at least, that was what he told me. He said that was how he won. Whether that was true or not, I had no idea, but I liked the fact that he won because he never expected to. Me being the athletic sibling, he used to assume his loss would be inevitable, and being who he was, I expected him to be an insufferable winner. He wasn’t. We surprised each other, and it was always a subtle but tender moment that neither of us ever spoke on. We just accepted it.

We were onto our third game of air hockey—we preferred air hockey to foosball, it was smoother—when a couple of girls that I vaguely recognized from school sidled up to the table, zeroing in on Noah.

“Hey, Noah.” The first one leaned her elbows on the edge and watched the puck bouncing between us. She had thick black hair with two bright-pink strands in the front and a tongue piercing that she pinched between her lips.

“How’s it going, Mel,” he winked and looked at the other girl who was wearing thigh-high socks, combats, and had her blue hair in pigtails. “Ernie. This is my brother Leroy.”

“We know,” they smiled and waved at me. “You didn’t come to club the other night. We waited up.”

Noah straightened up and abandoned the game. “I told you I wouldn’t be there. I had to go to Eric’s farewell thing.”

Mel seemed amused at the mere thought of it as I made my way over to the three of them. She snorted and folded her arms. “You went to that jock gathering. For real? You and Eric don’t even get along.”

“We get along,” Noah mumbled, but he knew she was right. Eric and Noah were civil and never addressed the obvious distaste for each other. But it was there.

“What club?” I asked.

“Nothing,” Noah said.

“It’s not a club exactly,” Ernie said, twisting a pigtail around her fist. She had an ethereal voice, delicate and dainty as if her octaves floated on air. “It’s just a group of us that hang in Mel’s basement and green out while we talk about the corrupt and unjust movement of antifeminism in political America.”

I raised a brow at Noah.

“We don’t always talk about politics,” he said.

“That’s true,” Mel said, winking at him.

“We should go out sometime,” Ernie bent over and tugged on the top of her sock. “The four of us. A double date.”

“I have a girlfriend,” I said.

Ernie didn’t seem fazed at the brush-off. She shrugged and linked her arm through Mel’s, preparing to leave.

“We’re gonna go find the girls,” Mel said, sticking her tongue out. She seemed to do that a lot. “See you around, Noah.”

We watched them leave, and then I looked at Noah, shaking my head.

“What?” he said.

“You a regular at these feminist meetings in Mel’s basement?”

“She’s hot. I went once or twice to score. It worked.”

“You’re literally the opposite of what those girls are about.”

“That’s not true,” he said as we started walking away from the table. The timer had run out and we’d been there long enough. “I’m all for women’s rights. I just laid it on a little thick. No harm. You see what I mean, though? I can get all of that and more, and I can do it without guilt if I stay single. You’re missing out.”

“No, I’m not. I love Ellie. She’s my best friend, the most beautiful girl that I’ve ever met, and losing what I have with her for a bunch of meaningless nights with random girls isn’t worth it to me.”

He didn’t say anything to that, and we beelined for an empty Pac-Man machine. We spent the rest of the afternoon in the arcade, wasting time on game after game until eventually we decided to head home and get ready for our evenings. Ellie was still out when we got back. I thought about going to get her, but there were still hours before it was dark and I didn’t want to interrupt her girl time.

“I’m going to make a milk shake,” Noah said when we wandered into the kitchen. He opened the fridge. “Do you want one?”

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