I throw my fist in the air. “I’m gonna live the motherfucking Grant College Experience!”
“That’s the spirit.” He laughs but he looks a little confused like he’s missed something.
I shrug. “I guess you had to be there.”
“Apparently.” He chuckles sleepily.
“Do epic.”
“Do epic,” he repeats.
“I love you, Gus.”
“Love you, too, Bright Side.”
“Good night.”
“Good night.”
Monday, August 29
(Kate)
The first day of classes is outstanding. I know I made fun of The Grant College Experience, but I had goose bumps all day. I was living it. I walked around campus with the dopiest smile pasted across my face. For so long I’ve dreamed about going to college, a real college. I never thought it would happen, but here I am. I literally crossed it off my bucket list this afternoon. My list isn’t in any particular order, but “Go to college” was number five. I figure now is a good time to remind God that I’m happy with the way things are going. Happy Monday, God. So, I just wanted to say thanks, you know, for Grant. It’s a gift. Peace out.
Shelly is in full-blown flower-arranging mode when I arrive at Three Petunias at 2:30pm, but she stops long enough to ask, “Where’s your iPod? I brought my dock today. Let’s see if you’ve got anything good.”
“Is that a challenge?”
“Take it however you want.” It’s a challenge all right. And suddenly I feel the need to defend my music’s honor. I fish my iPod out of my bag, hook it up, and put it on shuffle.
The first song that plays is Mozart. Shelly pushes the button to advance to the next song and looks at me almost apologetically. “I play that stuff all day long. I love it, but I need to listen to something else when I’m at work.”
“No worries.”
The next song rips through the speaker. I start dancing right there behind the counter, and Shelly watches me, nonplussed. “Come on Shelly. Shake what your mama gave ya.”
She shakes her head. It’s adamant.
My feet stop moving but the rest of my body cannot stop. “What? Don’t tell me you don’t dance?”
She shakes her head again, and I can tell that she’s blushing. Damn, that’s something I never thought I’d see.
“Well, we have to do something about that.” I smile playfully. “You know I’m gonna get you out dancing before the end of semester, don’t you?” This girl needs to do something she’s never done before, something out of character. Suddenly that becomes my new goal.
The blush is fading and she shakes her head again to add conviction to her declaration. “I do not dance, Kate.”
“And I think your inner dancing queen wants to be set free. She’s screaming Shelly. I can hear her, and she’s pissed. Next time Clayton throws a rave in his room I’m inviting you.”
“A rave?”
“Okay, well, so it’s minus the hordes of people and the drugs and the glow sticks, but it’s still fun.”
“And who’s Clayton?”
“He’s my neighbor. He lives across the hall.”
She nods as I continue to sway my hips to the beat. She’s demonstrating terrific restraint in the this-girl-is-entertaining-the-hell-out-of-me-but-I-can’t-let-on department. “So what you’re saying is it’s really just you and your friend Clayton dancing to your iPod in his dorm room.”
I correct her. “His iPod, he’s got some good shit. But, yeah, that’s pretty much how it goes down.”
She shakes her head and a small but genuine smile emerges. It’s the kind of smile that you give someone you like, someone who makes you happy. I have a feeling that Shelly doesn’t hand these out too often. I feel honored. “Kate, you’re too much.”
Smiling, I dance back over to my station and get to work, toning down the dancing to mere head-bobbing; my body cannot be still when I’m listening to good music. It’s like it runs through my veins and I physically can’t disconnect from it.
Every few songs, when she thinks I’m not watching, Shelly leans over and glances at my iPod to read the screen. I smile discreetly. I have quite a bit of European music and some of it isn’t in English. I don’t speak any of the languages: French, German, Dutch, so I have no idea what the lyrics mean. But it doesn’t matter; the music is phenomenal even if you have no idea what they’re singing about. One of those songs has just started.
She intentionally looks at the screen and then looks at me. “What the hell is this?”
“It’s French hip-hop. You like?” I know she does or she wouldn’t be interested.
“It’s all right.” She grabs a piece of paper and a pencil and writes down the artist and song. I notice that she jots down six or seven other songs from memory. “Where do you find all this?”
“My best friend and I have been collecting music for a long time. It’s kind of our hobby.” I couldn’t live without it.
When the next song begins, I ask. “So Shelly, do you have a boyfriend?”
She nods, smiling a sweet vulnerable smile. I think I just discovered the chink in her armor. She’s whipped. “Yeah.”
“Yeah? You’re gonna want to write this one down. If an album was ever made specifically to fool around to, it’s this one.” Because it is. This band has a dark ‘80s vibe and the front-woman’s voice is super sexy.