Then
"Yep, keep doing it, keep doing it, yup! That's it! That's perfect! Don't stop until it erupts!"
"Thompson, we are lighting a campfire, not planting a bomb," Tambry says, giving me a glare. I let out a chuckle. I was going to miss Tambry's sarcasm, along with her blue highlights and violet nails. Surely those three will bring great things to Paris.
Wendy rolls her eyes and grabs the bag of marshmallows. "Okay everyone, grab a marshmallows, because tonight we dine with s'mores!"
Our s'mores ended up gooey and messy. But we didn't care. It was still delicious nonetheless.
Wendy's backyard was not an unusual place. We had been there countless of times. But tonight, with a campfire warming us, stars above us like they were winking, the place felt magical.
Tonight was the last night of the summer of 17. The next day, Wendy was packing her bags and moving all the way to Pennsylvania. What would it be like? I wonder, lying down on the grass with my four best friends. It was always the five of us. How would it be like with just four, then three, then two?
The thought irritates me, so I move on to a new thought. What was Pennsylvania like? Would I ever go there? What movies or books have been set in Pennsylvania? Pretty Little Liars, Magic Tree House, Love, Stargirl...
"I can see the big dipper!" Leena says, pointing at the sky.
"Well, don't get excited, 'cuz it's the only constellation you'll see tonight," Tambry says as-a-matter-of-factly. "So much light pollution in this world. Our stars are in the shadows."
"Way to depress the group, Tambry," Robbie says, making us all laugh.
Then, Wendy says out of the blue: "What's in your bucket list?"
All of us go silent for a while. Then I ask, "What's that, Wendy?"
"Well, when you think about it, we're only 17," Wendy says. "If we're lucky, we'll live up to be 70. Maybe even 80 if we're really lucky. So if that's true, we have 60 something years left to do anything we want. What do we do with those 60 years?"
"We live," Leena says.
"And how do we do that, Leena?"
"Well, first of all, I want to finish college at Kirs and finally get my degree in HRM," Leena says. "Then I'll set up a restaurant, a wonderful restaurant that serves delicious food. And there's always going to be a table that has a reserved sign. And the only time the reserve sign's not there is when we're sitting in it."
This gets all of us smiling. "Well, I hope there's table for more than five, Leena, because what I want to do with my life is grow old with this girl right here," Robbie says, looking towards Wendy.
"Cheesefest," Tambry says, and we all chuckle.
"What about you, Thompson?" Wendy asks me.
"Hmm...well, I'd travel a lot," I say. "New York. Monte Carlo. Istanbul. And then I'd take pictures. Lots of pictures. I'd still have my old DSLR though, the one I have now, no matter how much money I make. Why, you ask? Because you guys use it as well. I don't even consider it mine anymore, just the caretaker. That camera belongs to all of us."
"Tambry?"
Tambry ponders for a while, then says, "I don't know. I don't think I have a bucket list right now. I don't even have a college to go to like you guys. Maybe I'll just wing it, you know? Take whatever chances I can get and somehow figure it out in the long run. Hey, like you said, I have 60 years. No need to figure it out now."
"What about you, Wendy?" I ask.
Wendy remains silent for a while, then says, "I have a million things I want to do with my life. I want my own art show, and show everyone my paintings. And I want my own art studio, so I can paint. And I want to travel, like you, Thompson, and I want to travel back here too, and visit Leena's restaurant, and use Thompson's camera, and marry Robbie and so many other things."
The five of us say nothing, only stare at the starry sky. We had our whole future ahead of us, our 60 years left to live.
I would know these people 'til I was 70.