Chapter 5
Q: Where do animals drink at the zoo?
A: The monkey bars!
Danny wears his flannel to the brewery, which is covered in Christmas lights and wreaths and playing a distressingly masculinized rendition of “Santa Baby” over the speakers. Mich waves from a booth, and as Danny nears, he can hear her saying, “Danny’s here, I wasn’t sure he’d come, hi, Danny!”
He slides into the booth next to her and sees faces he has not seen since high school but nonetheless recognizes.
No one makes reintroductions. While Danny finds he remembers all the names, he is surprised that no one needs to be reminded of his.
And then he remembers that he now has ten thousand Instagram followers and an app with a dating show.
They gossip about their old chemistry teacher, who is apparently now married to a former student. They talk about their parents, who are aging, and about being back, with all its strangeness.
“No, you guys,” Alex says. “I used to feel the same way, like this place was way too small? But it’s actually so good. Like, we were so lucky. This is a great place to raise a family.”
“Would you ever move back?” Mich asks Danny.
“I mean. I can’t really imagine it right now. My life is kind of fixed in New York.”
“Oh my god,” Mich says. “I’ve been talking and talking. Right, how’s New York?”
“You’re dating that singer,” one of the guys says, and Mich tells him to shut up, don’t be creepy, but also, yes, Eve Olsen?
Danny hesitates because he isn’t sure if it’s an act, but it feels fully genuine. He shows them a picture of him and Eve from Thanksgiving— at Talea, losing at trivia, drinking their beers, wearing hats Chloe knitted with great zeal and minimal skill.
“Oh my god!” Mich says. “Why are you two so cute!”
“It’s the hats,” Danny says. “My coworker said she needed a tactile hobby.”
“If I learn to knit, can I make Eve a hat?” Mich says. “Will she wear it?”
“Probably,” Danny says. “Eve really likes hats.”
“I fucking love ‘Evergreen.’ ”
“Have I heard ‘Evergreen’?” Alex asks.
“Oh my god. Yes, you have obviously heard ‘Evergreen.’ Hang on, let me play it.”
Danny feels like he’s swallowed helium. This is my girlfriend, he says.
The Eve Olsen. She really likes hats. Yes, she’s spending Christmas with me.
No, she hasn’t been to Bozeman before. Right, she’s just flying in from LA the morning of the twenty-fourth.
Oh? A benefit concert. She’s there with her best friend.
In the end, Danny’s work doesn’t come up the whole time. He has no idea whether anyone he went to high school with has ever heard of Pattern.
“We’ll give you a lift home,” Alex says, clapping his shoulder. “You’re still on Emerson, yeah?”
In the car, Danny gets in the back and Mich stomps the snow off her boots and rubs her hands in front of the heater. “I’m so glad you came tonight!”
“Yeah,” Danny says. “Me too. I can’t believe how well everyone remembered everything. To be honest, I wasn’t sure anyone would recognize me.”
Alex laughs. Mich turns fully around in her seat.
“Danny,” she says. “You were the prom king.”
“Yeah, but didn’t teachers pick that?”
“No?”
“Oh,” Danny says. He looks out the window at the lights and the trees; the TVs and fires gleaming in warm windows. “I’m pretty sure it was the teachers.”
Alex says to Mich, “Classic Danny.”
Danny did not know he could be Classic.