IT’S THE MOST FUN THEY’VE EVER HAD, even more fun than the musical itself, thinks Charlie, who’s driving, who’s the sober one, who was planning to go home early by himself and watch Bake Off until Claire found him in the lighting booth and asked him if he was coming to the afterparty, and she smiled as she asked him, because she really hoped he would come, hoped maybe tonight he would ask her out, and Charlie said of course he was coming, because he wanted to keep talking to her, thought maybe tonight he would ask her out, so he offered to drive everyone in the college’s minivan, which he still had the keys to for one more night, and Claire ran off to get the rest of the cast, or at least all who could fit, which was way more people than Levi felt comfortable with, being the largest of them, the one who tucked his long legs into the third row as they all sang the opening number from the show that just closed, the show that introduced KiKi, the “greatest voice of our generation,” or at least the greatest ass, according to Laura, who squeezed into the van next to KiKi, their legs touching from knee to hip, and she couldn’t wait to get to the party because she knew tonight they would kiss for real, not a stage kiss, and she passed a bottle back to Levi who was trying to put on his seatbelt, but he gave up to take the bottle just as Rico launched himself through the door and onto their laps, and they all kept singing, and Rico thought he’d never been happier, ever, than this moment, and he wished his high school self could see him now, with his body pressed against his friends, so many friends, and then in came Marty and Luca and Willa and Kimberly and Shawn and finally Pen, who wasn’t even in the show, but nobody cared because they were Pen and Pen was who everyone wanted to be, to be near, with their platform Doc Martens and their purple hair and their denim jumpsuit, and then they were all inside the van and Pen slid the door shut and Claire yelled for Charlie to go, to get them to the party, and Levi thought about texting his mom to tell her he was going to be out late, maybe out all night, but not to worry because he’d be on time for his interview at the bank, and Willa did text her mom to say she’d see her in the morning and she included three emojis, a heart and a unicorn and a lightbulb, which was an inside joke, and Kimberly, who had already been cast as the lead in a show in New York, even though she hadn’t told anyone yet, not even her boyfriend who was arriving from London tomorrow night, started everyone singing the big finale song just as they pulled onto the interstate, and Charlie put on his blinker to merge and sang as loud as the rest of them, and Claire put her hand on his thigh and he thought, this is it, this is the beginning. •





Emily Rinkema lives and writes in northern Vermont, USA. Her writing has recently appeared in Fictive Dream, Okay Donkey, JAKE, and Frazzled Lit.

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