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you sure you guys don’t want to, you know, just leave him alone?”
    All casual, no hurry, just a suggestion really. Which, amazingly, they took. And that’s how we met. We’d been best friends since.
    “My ankles are still blue,” I admitted.
    Miles laughed, shifting gears. We roared past pines and oaks and overgrown shrubbery. Large houses with many-car garages were set off in the woods.
    “They still smell, too. Just don’t let Ellen too close.”
    “Ha-ha,” I said. “Where’s Cari?”
    “Meeting us there.”
    “Where is
there,
exactly, anyway?”
    “Adam Pratt’s. His parents are skiing in, like, Aruba or something.”
    “Aruba is an island in the Caribbean,” I said. “I doubt they’re skiing.”
    “Okay, Good Will Hunting, so they’re snorkeling.” He reached into the backseat and then handed me a can. “Want a beer?”
    Have I mentioned yet that I’ve never been drunk? Probably not. It’s embarrassing. I mean, I’ve tried a couple of times, but I almost immediately start feeling queasy and then more or less give up. Miles keeps insisting I’m just not trying hard enough. I’ve had plenty of chances to prove him wrong, but for some reason, don’t. Miles always had beer, and always offered, and I always said no.
    “No.”
    He handed me one anyway. “C’mon, Culkin. A man’s gotta get thirsty
some
time.”
    I put the can on the floor between my feet. Maybe I was scared of having too much and making a fool of myself. On the other hand, since I made a fool of myself all the time sober, there wasn’t a ton of logic there. Also, beer smelled like Keith. Anything that smelled like Keith, especially if it wasn’t actually Keith himself, I wanted at least a hundred yards away at all times.
    “Whatever,” Miles said.
    “Miles, who’s gonna be at this party?”
    He reeled off the usual names, Amanda and Wendy and Sarah and Todd with two
D
’s and Jed with one
D
and the five different Conners and the four different Liams and the three different Ians, but no Stan.
    “Who else?”
    Miles shrugged. “I dunno. You’ll see in a minute.”
    “No . . . I mean . . . is Chad Chilton going to be there?”
    “Oh, Lord,” he said. “Will you give that a rest? Huh? Chad Chilton joined the marines or something. That guy is long gone.”
    “I know,” I said. “Probably.”
    “There’s no probably about it, Shaggy,” Miles insisted. “You think that guy cares enough about you to hang around this town?”
    “Not likely,” I admitted, secretly thinking he just might. For one thing, he’d promised. For another, I was not the world’s luckiest guy. If there were a two-person Lotto, I’d always come in second.
Oooh, just missed!
If a meteor fell, it would land on my bike. If you had to pull names out of a hat, I’d get
Stan.
“But lots of weird things have been happening.”
    “Oh, yeah? Like what?”
    “I’ve been trying to tell you. Like tonight, for instance, someone tried to run me off the road on purpose.”
    “On purpose? On your bike?”
    “Yes,” I said, knowing I sounded like a moron. “I think it was him.”
    “For such a smart guy, you sure have a one-track mind,” Miles said. “You think if Einstein was worried about Chad Chilton all the time he would have invented television?”
    “Einstein didn’t —”
    “Or the toaster? Or the ozone layer, or whatever?”
    “But . . .”
    Miles turned on the stereo.
    “Not Nirvana!” I said, just as Nirvana filled the car like a broken Weedwacker. They were his favorite band. His only band. It was all he ever played. It was okay at first,
years ago,
but now I couldn’t stand it. Kurt sang in his sad rasp and delivered his sad lyrics buried under a thousand miles of sad distortion. Miles had driven all the way to Seattle, nonstop for three days, to attend Kurt’s funeral with a hundred thousand other goatees-in--mourning. At least he did in his mind, since he was about five when it happened. Still, he insisted he