(Another Kentucky musician friend. Alex embellishes info about Nathan, so now he’s worried. Unsuccessfully tried to makeme sing or play guitar in front of people but bailed me out of trouble a few times when I was a teenager. Creeped my dad out with his biker-ish appearance. Win-win.)
Jude Daniel (Take a Sad Song and Make it Sexy) Crawford:Car start ok? Wake Jace up if you have any problems.
Me:Car started great. Thank you again. But I wouldn’t wake Jace if I were DYING.
Annie:I looked up that Real World song. Dang. That was accurate. Thought you might enjoy these.
Before I can open whatever Annie sent me, I get anotherping.
Moose:Here help
(Sam can’t text. Big thumbs and no patience.)
Me:Coming. Help with what? Are you ok?
Moose:Good park south.
Chapter 15
School's Out for Summer
Ispeak fluent Sam text. He’s telling me he’s not in danger—good—and where to park—south. No, I don’t know wheresouthis, but there’s a sign, and I am an excellent reader. He probably wants help with his fall schedule or to review for the quiz, but I won’t know until I find him because this is as much information as I’ll get by text.
I take mostly hybrid classes for the sake of time and because people-ing exhausts me.Mypeople are great, but I need book time too. I took two classes this summer and convinced Sam and Annie to do the same so they could have lighter schedules later.
Sam’s brilliant, but he struggles with writing-intensive classes or, to be honest, anything not music-related, so I picked up American Literature and Interpersonal Communications to take together. These check off some general education requirements for his Music/Audio Production major and my Psych/Creative Writing at the same time. We meet on campus weekly but do the rest online.
I’m Sam’s unofficial advisor, and Annie’s been following my lead as well.
It’s kind of fun.
I finally snag a parking spot, then play a text version of Marco Polo with Sam until I find him in a study lounge near our class. We have forty-five minutes to review our notes, and I spend the first ten taking pictures of job postings taped on the wall while I wait for him to stop socializing.
“What are we doin’, Squirrel?”
“Checking the job wall, Moose.”
Instantly he’s behind me, pulling my hands up to puppet-dance me while singing “Wonderwall.” Then I start singing too, and dang it, we’re both distracted now.
Last winter, we went to get over-the-counter cold medicine and tissues for Annie and the guys when everyone got the flu but us. He started singing Bon Jovi’s “Bad Medicine,” which I love, so it became a duet … and then he put me in a shopping cart and pushed me through the aisles while I grabbed tissues, cough drops, and various canned soups and juices.
We were a hit, if I do say so myself.
I can’t help it. Sammy’s my musical crush. He hates to be alone, and his extrovert energy makes him a higher-maintenance friend, but sometimes I need a random grocery store duet partner.
My social battery dies before he’s even warmed up, so I try to keep our adventures brief and spaced for optimal recovery time. Minus the razor-sharp sarcasm, he makes a good stand-in for Alex, my high school best friend back home.
We weren’t all that menacing in high school, but wewereannoying. I may or may not have a collection of table tent signs from The Tastee Ice in my guitar case, and I’m sure the owner of Donatello’s Pizza misses our Friday night jukebox karaoke.Not that Donatello’s everaskedfor jukebox karaoke, but no one sings power ballads quite like Alex and me.
“Hey, Sam, how was our grade on the literary analysis?”Nothing. “Sammy?”
Aaaaand he’s gone.
He knows EVERYONE and has yelled, “Dude? How ya been?” at least three times. I seem to have lost him. “Sam… Samuel … SAMUEL ELIAS!”
It’s just an arbitrary multiple-choice quiz for extra points to close out the class. But Sam probably needs these points, so we’re reviewing modernist poetry. He finally sits at a small study table when I get my notes out.
Within seconds, he fidgets, picks up, and touchesEVERY. BLASTED. THING. He’s hugged me, tugged at the wisps of hair falling from my bun, commented on my grown-up clothes (points for noticing), created a rhythm with my backpack zippers, and changed the background of my phone to a picture of his face with his nose pushed up like a pig.
