The tiny car icon in my Uber app twists around in circles, its location three blocks from where I stand outside Evelyn's house in the Catalina Foothills. Like all houses in the neighborhood, Evelyn's modest three-bedroom sprouts unobtrusively from the Sonoran Desert. Each residence up here is a different take on ancient Pueblo architecture-stucco exteriors in various shades of sand and dirt, perpendicular lines that disappear like a mirage in the right light.

I take in the expanse of Tucson stretching endlessly to the south-by most standards, a truly killer view. But I know better. The most killer view of the city can be found on its west side—at the top of Tumamoc Hill—and it's this view I'm chasing this evening. If my driver ever finds me, that is.

My driver, Reynold (red Toyota Camry, 3.8 stars), turns around, idles, turns again. My driver's test can't come soon enough. Two more weeks.

The car on my phone reminds me of those plastic cars Evelyn and I used to fill with blue and pink peg children in the Game of Life. He's two minutes away-no, now it's three. I think about running inside for one more swig from the massive Costco-sized bottle of vodka I've hidden beneath the heating vent in my old bedroom.

Maybe Reynold is as buzzed as I am. But of course that's not it. I'm used to waiting twice as long for an Uber as I should. The streets in the foothills are mazelike, and when I lived here with Evelyn, I'd often have to walk halfway to River Road to meet up with my buddies, their parents apt to give up and drop them off just north of the Zinburger near Campbell.

I wipe a bead of sweat from my temple-feeling moisture in way too many other places—and grin as the flash of red comes around the corner. I wave. Wish I'd stored some extra deodorant at Evelyn's house-summer in the Old Pueblo means short shelf lives for showers. I pop open the passenger-side door and hop in, energized by the blast of air-conditioning.

My head feels light from the alcohol, and the friendly-dad look on Reynold's face makes me sure he's about to become my new best buddy.

Reynold says, “I thought my phone was going to have an aneurysm trying to find you. These foothills. Pretty up here, but...” He flips a U-turn on the lane—more an asphalt driveway. A single zombie apocalypse is all it would take for the cacti and desert brush to reclaim the road for nature.

"Yeah, man. My friends' parents have gotten lost a thousand times. Thanks for persevering, though. This is a nuggs emergency of epic proportions."

"Why don't you just DoorDash?”

Some sober part of my brain thinks I shouldn't be so forthcoming with this stranger, that I should get a new Uber from Wendy's—and another new one, and another new one after that. That I should only talk about what I'm doing right now with Ms. Finch at school because she's the only one I ever talk with about what I'm doing right now, and even then just barely. But Reynold is a cool dude. I can tell.

“Actually,” I say, “I'm going drunk drive-thru’ing. It's no fun if you don't go through the drive-thrus."

“Drive-thrus? Plural?” Reynold gives me parent eyebrows. I don't like those eyebrows. "Aren't we a bit young to be drinking?”