She’d only been sitting for two hours, but she was so bored she could hardly stand it. She could literally hardly stand; even her blood vessels were bored.

She’d brought lots of books. (She’d planned to read Star Wars books whenever she had a quiet moment in line.) (Which was every moment so far.) But the wind kept blowing the pages, and the paper was so bright in the sun that reading made her eyes water.

None of that seemed to bother silent Gabe, who read his paperback without seeming to notice the sun, the traffic, Troy, Elena or Elena’s mom, who kept driving by slowly, like someone trying to buy drugs.

“The Imperial March” started playing, and Elena answered her phone.

“Why don’t I pick you up now?” her mom said. “Then you can get back in line when there are more girls here.”

“I’m fine,” Elena said.

“You don’t even know these men. They could be sexual predators.”

“This doesn’t seem like a very good place to prey,” Elena whispered, glancing over at Gabe, who was still absorbed in his book. He was pale with curly, milk-chocolate-colored hair and rosy cheeks. He looked like Clark Kent’s skinny cousin.

“You know you have to be extra careful,” her mom said. “You look so young.”

“We’ve been through this,” Elena said.

They’d been through it a lot:

“You look twelve,” her mom would say.

And Elena couldn’t really argue. She was short and small. She could shop in the kids section. And the fact that she was Vietnamese seemed to scramble non-Asians’ perceptions of her. She was always being mistaken for a kid.

But what was she supposed to do about that? Act like a kid until she looked like an adult? Start smoking and spend too much time in the sun?

“Just because I look twelve doesn’t mean you can treat me like I’m twelve,” Elena would say. “I’m going to college next year.”

“You told me there’d be other girls here,” her mom said.

“There will be.”

“Good. I’ll bring you back after they get here.”

“I’ve gotta go,” Elena said. “I’m trying to conserve my phone battery.”

“Elena—”

“I’ve got to go!” Elena hung up.

The first theater employees started showing up around two. One, who looked like the manager—a Latino guy in his thirties, wearing maroon pants and a matching tie—stopped in front of the line and crossed his arms.

“So we’ve got a new addition, huh?”

Elena smiled.

He didn’t smile back. “You know you can buy your ticket online, right?”

“I already bought my ticket,” Elena said.

“Then you’re guaranteed a seat. You don’t have to wait in line.”

“Um,” Elena said. “That’s OK.”

“You can’t talk her out of this,” Troy said. “She’s a true believer.”

“I’m not trying to talk anybody out of anything,” the manager said, looking harried. “I’m just explaining that this is an unnecessary gesture.”

“All the best ones are,” Troy said. “Now open the doors. My bladder is about explode.”

The manager sighed. “I don’t have to let you use the restroom, you know.”

“Give it up, Mark,” Troy said. “They tried that during Phantom Menace, and it didn’t work then either.”

“I should make you hoof it to Starbucks,” the manager said, walking towards the front doors and unlocking them.

Troy stood up and made a big show of stretching. “We take turns,” he said to Elena, “in line order.”

She nodded.

The manager, Mark, held the door for Troy, but he was still looking at Elena. “Do your parents know you’re here?”

“I’m eighteen,” she said.

He looked surprised. “Well, all right. Then I guess you’re old enough to waste your own time.”

Elena was hoping Gabe would open up a little while Troy was gone. They’d been sitting next to each other for hours now, and he’d only said a few words. She thought maybe he was being so quiet because he didn’t want to get Troy going on one of his stories. (Troy had so many stories—he’d camped out for every Star Wars opening since The Empire Strikes Back—and he was clearly pleased to have a captive audience.)

But Gabe, with his navy-blue peacoat and his gunmetal glasses, just sat there reading about the history of polio and ignoring her.

When Troy came out with an extra-large sack of popcorn, Gabe nodded at Elena. “Go ahead.”

“I’m fine,” Elena said. “I just got here.” She wasn’t fine; she had to pee so bad she was worried she was going to leak when she stood up.

Gabe didn’t move. So Elena got up and walked into the theater. The manager kept an eye on her the whole time, like she might sneak in to see a movie. She should. It was so warminside the theater.

When she got back outside, Gabe took his turn.

“We have to save his spot,” Troy said, “and look out for his things as if they were our own. Code of the Line.” He held his bag of popcorn out over Gabe’s sleeping bag.

Elena took some. “What invalidates the code?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Like, are there any circumstances where someone loses their spot?”

“That is a fine question,” he said. “I mean, some things are obvious. If someone takes off, without telling anyone or leaving any collateral—they’re out. I think there’s a time limit, too. Like, you can’t just go home and take a nap and expect to come back to your spot. Everybody else is here, earning it, you know? You don’t get a free pass for that. Though there are always exceptions . . .”

“There are?”

“We’re human. We had a guy in the Phantom Menace line who had to leave for therapy. We saved his place. But another guy tried to go to work, he said he was going to lose his job . . . We pushed his tent out of line.”

“You did?” Popcorn fell out of Elena’s mouth. She picked it up. “That’s brutal.”

“No—” Troy was grave—“that’s life. We were all going to lose our jobs. I camped out for three weeks. You think I got three weeks’ vacation? At the zoo?”