I joked about no longer being the youngest patrons, but when I looked at Mayra, she was staring down at the pool table, frowning. I prodded her stomach with the end of a cue, and it was there, under a low-hanging Yuengling lamp, that Mayra finally confessed. “I applied to Cornell,” she said. “Remind me what that is?” I said, massaging a chalk cube onto my pool cue. “A college. In New York.” “I thought we were going to Dade?” That’s what we had decided, with both our butts squished into one computer lab chair, surfing the community college’s website.
