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told me that my point was “mute.” At our five-year high school reunion, he asked a roomful of alums what they thought of his “chick” jeans. Manny wouldn’t know chic if it smacked him upside the head. I told him white dungarees aren’t appropriate after Labor Day, but that he still looked “fetching.” Manny told me to shut up, then went home and “prolly” looked up
fetching
in the dictionary.
    I sign for Gregory’s packages. The box secured with twine has neither postage nor a sender’s return address, just Gregory’s name.
    “Gimme,” Gregory says about as nice as you can say that.
    I reach over the counter and he quickly snaps the box from me with a shaky hand.
    “Emmanuel, pull your truck around back. Andrew will help you unload.”
    I meet Manny in the back alley. It takes him ten minutes to back up ten feet. He can’t risk scratching his baby—our love for cars may be the only thing we have in common. Right after we graduated from high school, Manny bought, repaired, and repainted a vintage 1965 Superior Cadillac ambulance and launched his own delivery service. Gregory gave him his first break. Soon, another independent pharmacy in Hercules signed on, along with a few grocers and a handful of restaurants that wanted to do takeout. It’s been nearly eleven years now, and to his credit, Manny’s carved out a decent little business for himself. Over the years, Gregory’s made plenty of cutbacks, but he’ll never drop our prescription delivery service. Partly out of loyalty to Manny and partly because Gregory thinks that it’s the little things that distinguish his independent pharmacy from the evil corporate chains.
    Emblazoned across the side of Manny’s ambulance and embroidered on every white cotton short-sleeved shirt he owns is that lame slogan: “Milken Deliveries: Delivering More Than Milk-In California.” He thought that up all by himself. Just ask him.
    If he backs his car up any slower, Gregory will have my head.
    Let’s go, let’s go
, I wave my hands.
    Since his years as high school lead tackle Manny has let himself go. He now sports one of the biggest potbellies I’ve ever seen on a thirty-year-old. These days, Manny must be pushing 280.
    He pops the trunk and taps on the boxes with his clipboard. I begin unloading the toiletries and prescription meds. Manny, of course, supervises.
    “The original version of
The Haunting
was on Turner Classics last night,” he says, scribbling something down—I can only assume smiley faces or basic geometric shapes. “Man, is that movie terrifying. Paige would have loved it.”
    Paige does love her horror flicks.
    “I was going to tell her to watch it, but I didn’t have her number handy,” Manny explains.
    Gotcha. Why don’t I hustle those digits right up for you?
    “Just tell her that we need to talk.”
    “I’m writing that down,” I say, pretending to record the urgent message in thin air.
    Manny Milken has spent the better part of his life pining away for Paige. It’s Manny’s fault that Paige and I didn’t get together years ago.
    Back in the early ’80s, Paige and I went from
Star Wars
to star-crossed, seeing very little of each other in the decade that followed that fateful Halloween. It wasn’t until ninth grade that we actually became true-blue friends: Paige being “Day,” and me being “Altman,” we shared homeroom together, but it was Ma dame Kuepper’s French class where things really came together.
    Madame Hedwig Kuepper still teaches at Willow High, a fireplug of a woman from Normandy, France, no taller than Dr. Ruth, with streaked blond hair tightly pulled back and pasted to her head like a sculpture.
    I remember the first day of class. Paige was sitting right there behind me. It was first period. I was half asleep. Madame Kuepper turned to write something on the chalkboard, and I leaned back over Paige’s desk and silently let out a huge yawn. At the height of my stretch, Paige playfully poked me in both