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We settle on Dirty Dancing , as per the will of my ancestors. I flip the light switch, grab the remote, and settle back onto the couch. “Ready? Pressing

play.”

“Don’t forget to picture Amelia’s parents when you’re watching,” Nat adds.

“Okay, first of all, my parents were there in the seventies and eighties. We’re talking a whole different era—”

“Didn’t this movie come out in the eighties?” Mark asks, mid-yawn.

“Yeah, but it’s set in the sixties,” I say, shooting Zora a quick, sidelong smile. “It’s pluperfect.”

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: no one poops out dweeby grammatical metaphors quite like Zora Winston.

Picture this: me and Nat two months ago, tipsy from an embarrassingly small amount of Manischewitz. We’d slipped away to search

for the afikomen, but we ended up on the floor of my bedroom, staring at the ceiling like we were stargazing.

“Okay, okay. Here’s my theory.” Nat rested both hands on her forehead. “It’s about time .”

“I know. I know it is.”

“Time... isn’t linear.” She sounded breathless.

I nodded solemnly. “Yes. Okay.”

“It’s layered ,” she said, raising both arms aloft, stacking one hand on top of the other. “Like, I was thinking about Taylor—”

“Me too. Always.”

“And I started thinking about the rerecords, right? You’ve got the old version, and now there’s this new one. Taylor’s version.

So it’s this cool little juxtaposition of past and present.”

“Yes!” I clasped my hands.

“But it’s not .” She tilted her head sideways to face me. “Like, maybe at the very beginning, it is. But then it stops being the present,

right? Think about it!”

Her cheeks were so flushed when she said it. Might have been the alcohol, might have been a Swiftie thing. But with Nat, it

really could have been the conversation itself. Nat’s always liked the feeling of unlocking things.

And then there’s my galaxy brain. “So. Time... passes?” I’d said.

Boom. Nailed it!

But Natalie nodded eagerly. “Yes! So it carries two moments. Two timestamps. Like—okay—look at Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) .

It’s a snapshot of a snapshot. It’s 2010, but it’s filtered through 2023—which is also the past. I mean, look at Simon and Garfunkel!

” She was propped on her elbows by then. “Concert in Central Park. 1981. But

the songs—‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ came out in, what, 1970? And even on top of that, it would have been recorded in 1969.”

“And if you listen to the Drama Clash cover—”

“We’re living so many moments at once, Amelia. So many.”

I stared up at her. “It’s four different decades.”

“Or five! Because you could also think about the first time you heard it. Which would have been your past self, listening to a cover of a song that was written in the sixties and recorded

in the seventies, performed in the style of a concert from the eighties, and on and on. See?” She beamed at me. “Layers.”

“Time,” I declared, “is a croissant.”

She gasped. “Millie, we have to tell Zora. We have to call her.”

So that’s what we did. We called Zora.

She asked us how the seder was. In response, she got two Manischewitz-level philosophers with a thirty-minute treatise on

the croissantness of time.

But since she’s an actual saint, she nodded along the whole time. “Very cool. Yup.” And when we finally petered out, she said

it reminded her of the pluperfect tense—a concept I apparently slept through in both English and French.

“It’s just a type of verb tense. He had gone, she had walked. So you’re telling a story that happened in the past, but you’re also describing a thing that happened even earlier than your

story. It’s exactly what you’re talking about, right?”

Natalie was speechless. We both were. Here was this infinitely complex, incomprehensibly vast revelation.

And there was Zora, pinning it down with one word.

Edith calls halfway through the dance training montage, just when things are about to get ticklish. I make a halfhearted grab for Zora’s phone, but she’s already standing. “Tell her

you’ll call her back! You’re the one person who hasn’t—”

“Hey.” Zora’s voice is soft and smiley. Her Edith voice.

I huff, and Nat pats my shoulder. “Something something baby in a corner, right?”

“Literally how do you not know the quote? You’ve seen this movie three times.”

“Yeah, but I’m not, like, studying the exact wording—”

“Natalie, everyone knows the quote. People on Mars know the quote.”

“People on Mars, huh?”

“Yup—shh. It’s the tickle!”

“Hey,” Mark says, standing, “there’s my exit cue.”

“Okay, Manly Mark. Sorry you’re too toxically masculine for a tickle.” I point at him, loosely. “Are you twinnifers taking

the bunk beds?”

“I mean.” He glances at the screen. “I don’t want to kick you off the couch.”

“I wouldn’t have moved. Don’t worry!” I shoot him a smile with a side of heart hands.

By the time the credits roll, Zora and Mark are both in bed—or at least they’ve retreated to their respective bedrooms for

the night. I shut the TV off, and the silence just hangs.

Natalie yawns, leaning back, so her hair hangs over the back of the couch. It looks like ink in the dim light, even though

it’s dark brown in the sun. I’m pretty sure it’s been the same length, too, the whole time I’ve known her. Just a few inches

past her shoulders when she’s standing.

I feel very awake, for some reason. My brain keeps flipping between today’s softness and the anticipatory thrill of tomorrow.

I lean back into the cushions, turning toward her. “So. Road trip, day one. How are we feeling?”

“I mean, I think I’ve lived an entire week today.”

“That’s the road trip lifestyle, Nattywhompus. Embrace it.”

“Seize this godforsaken, never-ending day.”

I poke her cheek. “Just you wait.”

She’s quiet for a moment, in a way that makes my brain itch.

I don’t hate silence, but sometimes I find it unnerving. Or confusing. It’s like a language I haven’t quite mastered. And

with Natalie, it’s even more of a mindfuck. Her silence practically has its own syntax.

“So are you, like, so excited to meet Walter tomorrow?” she asks, finally, stretching and yawning again.

I narrow my eyes at her. “Why are you asking it like that?”

“Asking it like what?”

“With that voice!” I let out an exasperated breath. “Are you messing with me?”

“What are you even talking about?” Her brow furrows.

“Do you just hate Walter that much?”

“Why would I hate Walter?”

“You tell me!”

She laughs. “Sorry—because, what—I asked if you were excited to meet him?”

“Because you’re literally always weird about him! You’ve been weird since the first time I showed you one of his videos!”

“I have not .”

I put up a finger. “First you said he has a, quote-unquote, ‘nerdy demeanor.’”

“It was a compliment!”

Another finger up. “And you said he looks like someone who uses the crying-laughing emoji a lot. Like. A lot .”

“That was Mark!”

“Well, you laughed!”

“So did you!” she shoots back.

“Because.” I tip my palms up. “It was funny!”

Our eyes meet; suddenly we’re both fully grinning.

“Okay, the emoji thing is spot-on. But!” I pause. “You’re still a hater.”

She laughs incredulously.

“What?”

“Amelia, you called Claire a poorly written antagonist .”

“Was I wrong? She broke up with you at prom .”

Natalie frowns. “I mean—”

“And before that, Chanukah! How do you dump someone on the first night of Chanukah?”

“Better that than finding she was faking it all week. At least she had the guts to tell me.”

“The bravest Maccabee. Good for you, Claire.”

“Okay, as soon as you’re done shitting on my ex-girlfriends—”

“Only one of them,” I remind her. “But I’m happy to shit on Megan, too.”

“I know. I know you are—”

“Hey, remember when Megan won the sixth-grade science fair and proceeded to mention it literally daily for years?”

“Mm.” She nods. “Remember when your boyfriend wrote a rap about cryptocurrency?”

“Young Crypto Cohen! Wait, is that still on YouTube?”

Natalie raises her eyebrows. “Oh, are we back on the fedora train—”

“Excuse me, I’m not the one still texting my ex.”

“Okay, she texted me —”

“You didn’t write back?” Something twists beneath my rib cage.

She shakes her head, and I smile.

“Good work. Keep it up.” I give her two thumbs-up, and she rolls her eyes in response. But it’s the smiling kind of eye roll.

I think I even spot dimples.