She nodded. Then she smiled. “Yeah, but you didn’t reject me. Even though I was catfishing you for all those years.”
I smiled back at her. “Of course not,” I replied. “I fucking love you. You’re my best friend. You’re part of my chosen family, which is the only kind that matters. Right?”
She smiled and nodded again, and she was about to respond when she suddenly came to a halt on the sidewalk.
“Quick!” she said, pointing toward some sort of clothing thrift store on the street corner directly in front of us. “We need to stop in there! Hurry!”
The sign above the entrance said MR. MCGEE’S FIVE-AND-DIME. I ran over and tried to open the front door, but it wouldn’t budge.
“No, not that way!” Aech shouted. “Around back!”
Shoto and I followed her around back, and this triggered another needle drop—“Raspberry Beret.” When we got to the rear of the store, Aech was holding open a back door, with a sign on the inside that said Out.
“You can only get in through the Out door,” she explained, waving us inside.
I let out a weary sigh. Then I checked my ONI usage countdown. I now had just one hour and forty-four minutes remaining.
“Is all of this absolutely necessary, Aech?” I asked.
“Yes!” Aech replied, pushing me through the door. “Now, keep moving!”
Aech finished walking me through the elaborate process of purchasing the Raspberry Beret. （First I had to ask the owner, Mr. McGee, for a job. Then Aech instructed me to stand behind the counter and do “something close to nothing” until Mr. McGee told me several times that he didn’t like my kind, because I was “a bit too leisurely.” It felt like it took forever.）
Once we had left the store, Aech forced me to put the Raspberry Beret on my avatar’s head.
“Dude, if I find out that you’re messing with me right now, there will be hell to pay,” I said.
“This is valuable, hard-won knowledge that I’ve been sharing with your ungrateful ass!” she replied, tilting my beret at a rakish slant and then nodding with satisfaction.
A few blocks down Washington Avenue, we spotted a beautiful 1958 Chevrolet Corvette up ahead of us, gleaming beneath the bright streetlights. For some reason, the car was parked sideways, with its front end jutting out into traffic and its rear wheels backed up against the curb, instead of parallel to it like every other car on the street. It was a red-and-white convertible, the top was down, and a set of keys was hanging from the ignition.
“You drive, Z,” Aech said. “The Little Red Corvette won’t start for you unless you’re wearing the Raspberry Beret.”
I jumped behind the wheel. Aech took shotgun, forcing Shoto to hop into the back. The Corvette’s engine roared to life, and I pulled away from the curb and out into traffic. Nearly all of the other vehicles on the road were either a sports car or a limousine.
“Take that freeway on-ramp,” Aech said, pointing up ahead. “Onto I-394 West. Follow it all the way out of town. Drive as fast as you can.”
I did as she instructed and took the on-ramp, then I put the hammer down, pushing the engine up over a hundred miles an hour. As we rocketed west, Aech switched on the car’s radio, and it began to play “Little Red Corvette.” When the song ended, it started over again—apparently it was the only song the radio would pick up. After a few repetitions, we all started singing along with the chorus—until Aech suddenly snapped off the radio in disgust.
“Hold up a second,” she said, turning around in her seat to address Shoto. “Did my ears just deceive me, or were you just singing ‘Living correct’？”
Shoto nodded.
“Yeah, so?” he said. “Those are the lyrics, aren’t they?”
“No,” she replied. “No, those are not the lyrics, Shoto. The title of the song is ‘Little Red Corvette.’ It always has been.”
Shoto furrowed his brow.
“Seriously?” he said. Then he shrugged. “Wow. That really changes the whole meaning of the song for me.”
“Shoto?” Aech asked. “Buddy? Did you happen to notice that we are sitting in a little red Corvette right now? And that no other song will play on its radio?”
“Listen to it again,” Shoto said. “？‘Living correct’ works too. I’m telling you!”
Aech looked up at the sky expectantly.
“I can’t believe that shit didn’t warrant a lightning bolt, but OK,” she muttered.