In my college writing class, Grace and I had become very good friends. We were also very flirty, and, though it was entertaining, it seemed to be leading us nowhere. The reason we were at a stand-still is that we were both equally shy and equally awkward. Outside of our midnight pizza, we hadn't really seen each other out of school for a while, and, since the school year was about to end for the summer, we thought it would be best to get the ball rolling.
An opportunity seemed to present itself to me almost immediately as we were discussing our summer plans. She was headed up-island on the weekend to look for something for her sister's birthday, and was uncomfortable with the idea of driving there alone. Naturally, I offered to go with her, under the cover story that I needed to get something for my friend's birthday, which also was coming up soon. Truth be told, I didn't have a friend with a birthday coming up, that's just the excuse I use to buy something for myself and not feel judged for spending insane amounts of money on myself.
This seemed like the easiest way to have a day-date with Grace without actually calling it a date, as she seemed uneasy with the idea of romance. I'm fairly confident that she was uneasy with dating because of her awkwardness, but it's highly possible that it was just me she was uncomfortable with.
The day came that we were headed a few towns over, and I found myself without anything to wear. It was probably on this day that I noticed that all of my clothes were either ugly, torn, ill-fitting, or uncomfortable, so while I was hoping to look casual but put together, I just looked...well, homeless. I could probably have worn pajama pants and it wouldn't have made a difference with my wardrobe. Admittedly, I was a little disappointed in my rags, but I soon found out that Grace, too, was unable to dress herself, so...we both looked homeless.
She came to pick me up, and, before I even got to her car, she leaned out the window and screamed "I HAVEN'T EATEN YET, WE NEED TO GET DONUTS!" and I was all "HELLS YEAH, I LOVES ME SOME PASTRIES, YO!" because, when confronted by sugar, I go totally street.
So we drove down to the coffee house, got some coffees and donuts, and then headed off to our destination. We were driving down the highway for roughly fifteen minutes before our conversation calmed down enough for us to notice that the radio was turned off. She gave me the side-eye and asked if I wanted to listen to music, and I said "sure, music's good," to which she replied, "well, the radio's busted." Uh, thanks Grace, but why did you even ask, then? "If we want to listen to music, we'll have to put in one of my old cassettes.
I didn't bother to ask why the cassette player worked while the radio didn't, but I just grabbed the first tape from under the seat and put it in. She asked which one it was, and, upon scanning the box, I found that the cover had been torn off. I told her I didn't know, and that we would soon find out. Because I live dangerously like that.
Not only was the tape stopped in the middle of a song, but the volume was turned up as high as it could go, so we went from the silence of waiting for the music to start, to having the chorus to the Spice Girls' "Wanna Be" reverberating throughout the car. Instinctively I reached for the volume button, and, since the music was blaring so loudly, was unable to hear Grace shouting "WAIT!"
As soon as I pressed the button, the music cut out entirely. "It can only be either really loud or really quiet," she told me, after a moment of absolutely, incredibly awkward silence. I realized a few seconds later how right she was, as we could hear the faint wailing of the British pop sensation buzzing along to their next track.
Rather than let the situation grow unpleasant, I thought that the best course of action would be to start singing along, loudly, to the songs that I could only half-remember. Thankfully, after a few moments of stunned silence from Grace, she caved in and started screaming along with me. About three songs into the tape we decided that it would be even more ridiculous to start singing with British accents, and it was. It really, really was.
We made it through the entirety of the tape, both sides, twice, by the time we got to our destination. Grace knew exactly what she wanted to get her sister as a gift, and we found it within half an hour of being in town. We then went to the mall and I found a CD that I had been wanting to get for my friend (read: myself), and then we went to lunch.
When our meal was finished we debated what we should be doing next: it seemed like a waste to drive to the city only to be there for two hours, but we couldn't think of anything else to do up there. We talked about seeing a movie, but found that we had vastly different taste and couldn't agree on anything that we might want to see.
We drove around for a half hour looking for anything that looked remotely interesting, but it wasn't long before we agreed to put the Spice Girls back on and make our way back home the way we came: singing.
We talked about doing something else, a little closer to home, later on during the summer, but we weren't yet sure of our schedules. She would be taking a summer semester of classes, and I would be searching for a summer job. But we assured each other that we would be in touch. We wouldn't hear from each other again until September.
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