The bell finally rang. Summer. Everyone else rushed out of the room as fast as they could, leaving me to take my time. For everyone else, summer meant trips to the beach, time with friends, all of the troubles and toils of school gone. Not for me. I was being shipped from my home, Silverburg New Jersey, just outside my beloved NYC, forced to leave behind my heart and soul while my parents kidnap me and take me to Tennessee.
I guess I should start from the beginning. It started with Jason, my ex. My story began a few months ago, in April. I really don’t want to relive the experience, it’s something I’d much rather keep quiet. We had been dating for about a year, and I totally trusted him with everything. I never expected he could ever betray me like he did. I don’t know how he could have completely deceived me, who did the jerk take me for?
The whole ordeal upset me a little, okay a lot. I began to mope around at home, which drove my parents and little sister, Kayla, completely nuts. First thing my parents have ever noticed. They live in a three-person marriage: with each other and their law firm, Selben and Selben. Kayla, unlike my parents, seems to notice everything. She’s only thirteen, but she has this incredible ability to sense when something’s wrong. There’s nothing I’m able to keep from her.
While I was still lost in my thoughts, Ally and Ellen, my two best friends, ran up behind me, nearly scaring me to death. I’ve been a bit jumpy lately. Ally spoke up first, “So how do you think you did on that history exam? It was a killer, eh?” Ellen, who we call Elle interjected before I could speak, “Oh come on it wasn’t bad. Maybe if you had actually studied you wouldn’t have had to worry about it.”
“You know I had dance last night.”
“What kind of excuse is that? We got out at one yesterday. Maybe next time you should study before dance.”
Ally is the dancer. She pours every piece of her soul into it, at the expense of her grades. She is also a talker and can talk her way from D’s to B’s within five minutes. Her smooth talking also ensures that she always had a gorgeous boyfriend to match her looks: Tall, blonde, and dangerous.
“Nice try. Not gonna happen though. So how do you think you did, Rose?”
Augh. Anything but history. If I failed anything, that would be it. I am a singer, a songwriter, a guitarist, with the requirement to lock myself inside the persona of the Selben line of attorneys. I am an artist who was been laden with the burden of being the captain of Eastman Cross Preparatory High School’s mock trial team. People would kill for the position that I’d trade in a heartbeat for the spot as the school’s coffeehouse manager. The coffeehouse is the school’s sole showcase of artistic talent. My ancestry comes with more curses than blessings. “You guys know I can’t memorize anything. If there’s no give or take, I fail. You should see the stack of flash cards I made for the test. I swear I went through them fifteen times and I still failed.”
“Oh you did not fail Rose,” Ally started, “You always do well on exams.”
“Funny. Every time you say that, I fail. You really need to stop cursing me.”
“Oh come on. That’s not true.”
“Remember those Rome quizzes? The four I failed? You told me I’d do fine.”
“Well… That’s in the past now right? We just have an awesome summer to look forward to, right? Even if we don’t get to spend it together?”
“Yeah,” I forced a smile. My summer would be anything but fun, great, any positive adjective.
Elle started again, “Well as much as I want to go to the environmental engineering school in Alabama, I wish I could be with you guys.” Elle is a prodigy. She is also Asian, which partially explains it. She would be spending a month doing environmental research for college credit. I’m sure she already got straight fives on her four AP exams, which could add up to fifteen hours of college credit before she would even start senior year.
Ally started again, “And looks like I’m the only one who’ll be here the whole summer, but I have nothing against teaching dance to the little kids, plus I get paid for it. And Rose, aren’t you at least a little excited to be going south? A whole new place, some cute guys maybe?”
“Oh, please, meeting guys is the last thing I want to do. Looks like my days are going to be filled with guitar, and talking to you guys all day. Every day. The whole summer. Nothing new. So you’d better be there when I call. Or I’ll go insane.”
Speaking of calls, Ally’s phone went off. Her mom, of course, “Yeah we’ll be there in a moment, mom… No I don’t need to go check my locker, I got everything out yesterday… Okay, okay we’re coming,” She put her phone back in her pocket, “Looks like we have to go already. Mom doesn’t want to leave my brother home alone long. Ugh, why can’t she just make him come. She’s so OCD about that kind of thing. We’d better get going.” Being a prodigy, Elle had skipped fourth grade and wouldn’t turn sixteen until the end of the summer. She could more than afford a car, but couldn’t drive yet. Normally, Ally drives Elle home, but Ally’s parents took her car because she broke curfew last Saturday. By four hours. Then they both smothered me in a huge hug, and Ally started, “I’ll miss you so much.”
“I can’t believe we won’t see you all summer.”
“You have to call us. Every day. Or text. Anything.”
“Just keep in touch.”
“Well you guys still need to have fun without me.”
A tear came to Ally’s eye, did I mention she was dramatic? “Nothing will be fun without you.”
“Don’t say that! You’ll still have a good summer. You can still call me whenever you want. I have plenty of time, don’t worry about that!” I gently pried my two best friends off of me, “Seriously, you guys had better get going before you get in trouble. I really don’t want that to happen again.”
“Oh god, Ellen said, “Don’t remind me of that,” Elle’s mom honked her horn. “Okay, we’d better go. I’ll miss you so much. Bye Rose!”
A chorus of goodbyes and well-wishing followed them as the two made their way toward the SUV, where Mrs. Elle’s mom was waiting with an impatient expression in her sleek black Escalade. But I wasn’t going to go home yet, not without finding Jake first. He was my best guy friend, and he stuck with me as much as Ally and Elle. Neither of us ever thought of dating; we didn’t want anything to screw up our friendship in the three years we knew each other since the beginning of high school. Jake Carson was my only friend who knew anything about guitar, or rather, music in its entirety. Elle and Ally are great, but they would never understand the moment of horror when a shoulder strap slips off an acoustic. Thank God, my prized acoustic had escaped, miraculously, with only a small dent on the bottom.
I couldn’t find him anywhere in the junior hallway or outside, so I walked down to the band room, and sure enough, there he was retrieving his saxophone. He spotted me first, “Hey Rose, excited for summer?”
“Why do you even have to ask,” I rethought the response to sound less harsh, “Well, Tennessee should be interesting.”
“Better than sticking around here all summer.”
“I really don’t understand how you find Silverburg boring.”
“It’s just too perfect. Nothing ever happens. It’s always the same stuff all the time. I wish I could be going somewhere else for the entire summer. I want to travel.”
“Trust me, you don’t want to go. Although if it made you happy, I wish you could go instead of me, but either way, we won’t get to see each other at all. So are you doing anything interesting this vacation?”
“Nothing new, just working down at Strum and Pick like last year.” Strum and Pick was the local guitar shop, and Jake was always able to get me a discount whenever I needed anything. “You won’t have much of a problem finding a guitar shop down South I don’t think. Banjo and bass shop, anyway. And by bass I mean standard.”
“Oh shut up. You’re not making me feel better.”
“Seriously, don’t worry. There has to be some place that has strings. But just in case, bring an extra set.”
“Don’t worry I will.”
“Just drop in the shop before you go and I’ll sneak you a set or two.”
“You do that.”
He smiled and walked over and hugged me, “I’d better get going,” he said, “I’ve got to teach a lesson at two. So I’ll see you at the shop tomorrow?”
“Yeah,” I said, still hugging him, “Jake I’m gonna miss you so much.”
He released me.
“Well if you have a new song you can always call. I’d love to hear anything you come up with.”
“And the same for you. Don’t forget to drop by and get those strings.”
“Don’t worry I won’t.”
“See you around then, Rose, Bye!”
“Bye Jake. Later!”
Jake walked out of the band room to his car, and I headed toward my Mustang on the other side of the school. I really wanted a used car, something from the 90s or so, but no, my parents had insisted on a new one. It really made me wonder if they really had nothing to spend money on, or it was just their guiltiness for never being able to spend any time with me.
I started my car’s engine and pulled out. Tomorrow Kayla would be leaving for a horse camp in Vermont for eight weeks. Rather, it was more of a boot camp to prepare her for the winter circuit in January in Florida. The parents really wanted us gone for a while, and it’s a miracle we weren’t shipped off to boarding school during the year. I had just three precious days left in Silverburg until Monday’s flight of doom to Nashville, and from there a drive to Middleton. More like Middle of Nowhere.
