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Ignore her, Katy said with a sigh. It totally means something.
“What about you? Are you going to college?”
My stomach sank, the way it always did when I thought about what would be happening in about a day and a half. “Yeah. I’m going to Stanwich College.” I tried to sound like a normal incoming freshman would, excited about going to school—like Russell had just sounded. I tried not to think about what it would actually mean when I showed up there, or about the note on the brochure that had been sent to me. I pushed all that away and took a breath to begin my explanation, which always seemed to be necessary, since most people on the West Coast hadn’t heard of a tiny liberal-arts college in a nothingburger state. It’s in Connecticut. About an hour outside New York City. Yes, it will be a big change in weather.
“In Connecticut, right?”
“Yeah—you’ve heard of it?”
“My—Montana, a friend of mine, knew someone who went there. She talked about it a lot.”
I nodded, trying to pretend like I hadn’t even noticed that my. I just silently hoped that he was talking about his ex and not a current girlfriend. Because otherwise, would he be out here with me right now? Would my heart be pounding this way if he wasn’t feeling something too? I decided this Montana had to be his ex. It didn’t make any sense otherwise.
“That’s a long way from home,” Russell said, then frowned. “Wait—where is home? I assumed LA, because of the bus, but…”
“LA,” I confirmed, a little bit shocked that we’d gotten this far without establishing this. But I also kind of liked it. It was like, for once, I wasn’t being defined by who I was or where I went to school or the people we had in common. Like I could just be. “We’re in Raven Rock. Me and my dad.” Russell didn’t say anything, which wasn’t that shocking. A lot of people hadn’t heard of our town, a tiny, peaceful pocket in the northeast corner of the city. One main street, farmers market every Friday, and more frozen-yogurt shops than made any rational sense. “It’s about as far east as you can be in LA without crossing into Pasadena. College of the West is there. Basically,” I said with a laugh, falling back on the analogy I’d heard my dad use more than once, “picture Brentwood. Then take away all the assholes, drop down a few tax brackets, and that’s Raven Rock.”
Russell looked down and frowned and I wondered if he’d just noticed how dusty his Chucks had become. “I think I’ve been there,” he said, sounding distracted. “There’s that hot dog place, right?”
“Walt’s?”
“I think so? With the pinball machines?”
“Yes! That’s the one.”
“It was so good.”
“It really is… wait, where are you from?” Was there a chance that he lived in Glendale or Highland Park, just a few towns over from me? It didn’t seem possible. I felt like I would have heard tell of him—this cute, smart, pun-appreciating guy—if he’d been anywhere near my orbit. Russell stopped, stared down at the state of his shoes, and sighed. “I did try and tell you.”
“You did.” He looked up at me and shrugged. “Ah well. There’s something kind of creepy about too-perfect sneakers anyway, don’t you think? Like you can tell they’ve just been boxed away and never worn.” He frowned, like he was trying to call something to mind. “Sorry, you asked me something?”
“Where you’re from.”
“We live in Ojai,” he said, naming a town two hours’ drive outside LA. “Me and my mom and dad.”
“Ojai there,” I responded immediately, which was the joke I made basically when anyone said the name of that town. “Sorry. I bet you’re sick of hearing that.”
“You get used to it. It’s practically the town motto.”
“I can’t believe you live there.” I’d only been once, two years ago, when my dad and I went there to attend his friend Dave’s second wedding. But it had immediately seemed magical—the rolling green hills; the tiny, perfect downtown; the outdoor bookshop; the people riding around on beach cruisers. All at once, I could picture Russell there—biking through downtown, the breeze ruffling his curls.
And the fact that he lived in Ojai meant we definitely didn’t know any of the same people. A second later, I realized how much I liked this. I didn’t want to play who do you know. I didn’t want to find out that Russell knew Katy’s former soccer teammate or Didi’s ex-girlfriend’s sister. We were in a historic downtown in the middle of Nevada, late in the afternoon on a Sunday, with the most beautiful mountains I’d ever seen surrounding us. There was nobody else around, and in the light that was just starting to fade, it seemed like maybe we were the only two people on Earth and that all of this had been conjured just for us.
“So have you always been in Ojai?” He looked over at me and I shrugged. “It just seems like a long drive for hot dogs.”
“I mean, they were really good hot dogs.”
“This is true.”
“We’re in LA occasionally—I think my mom had read about Walt’s somewhere and wanted to make a pilgrimage. But yeah, it’s just the three of us in the same house I grew up in.” He laughed. “Pretty boring, huh?”
I shook my head. I could see it—Russell riding his bike up to a cute cozy cottage, a perfect small-town life. “Your parents are still married?” I wasn’t quite able to keep a note of something—envy? longing?—out of my voice when I asked this.
“Yes,” he said, then hesitated. “I mean… kind of? They’re still together, but they weren’t ever technically married.”
“Oh,” I said, not sure what to say to this. Russell looked over at me and laughed, then started walking again. I fell into step with him, our feet falling at the same time, like it was the easiest thing in the world.
“They thought they were. They were on this boat, and got married by who they thought was the captain, but then later they found out it was just a random waiter who didn’t have the authority to marry anyone.”
