Last Thursday, or maybe it was Wednesday – all the days last week have kind of become a blur – I was at Brews Brothers in the morning, before work, and Heather wasn’t there and I was just eating a cookie and drinking some iced tea and reading (I’m now reading Tourist Season by Carl Hiaasen, which was recommended to me by a friend) and suddenly I felt someone come up behind me and start scratching my back, and I turned to see who it was and it was Heather.
I said something lame about not having seen her for awhile, and she said that she was just getting back into the swing of things after being ill for several days. And I said something lame about her calling me the next time she was sick so I could bring her chicken soup, and she laughed.
Then I said, “What are you doing this weekend?” and she said she didn’t have any real plans, maybe grilling with her friend Charlie, and I said, “You should definitely come to my party,” and then I handed her an invitation and she said, “I will definitely be there.”
So, yeah, I was even more excited for Saturday than I had been previously, and I had been pretty damn excited about it.
Saturday Devon and I went and picked up the kegs – six of them – in the morning while Derek and his flavor of the week – one of Rich Girl’s rich little bimbo friends – strung up white Christmas lights. The boat’s in now, so after we got the kegs situated we did a little bit of wakeboarding. It was my first time out this year so I got tired pretty quickly, but it was a good time and I did a couple of 360s. No flips yet – I decided not to kill myself the first time out.
People started showing up about 5 and we threw a bunch of hot dogs and brats on the grill, tapped the first keg, and the festivities began. The great thing about the lake being so close to Sheffield is that cabs will come out, so most people had people drop them off with the intent of cabbing it back to town, or brought sleeping bags with the intent of passing out in our living room or yard. As long as nobody drinks and drives, I’m happy.
By the time Heather showed up I had done a couple of keg stands and was feeling pretty good. She came with Dana, and Dana immediately ran into a bunch of people that she knew and Heather came over and interrupted the game of beer pong that I was miserably losing. I hope I didn’t seem too excited to see her, I don’t want to come off as overeager, but I was. And she looked awesome in this long flowy tan skirt and blue tank top. It’s the first time I’d seen her in casual clothes – aside from the dress (that dress…) that she wore to her recital, I’d only ever seen her in Brews Brothers polo shirt and apron.
So after she showed up I made a point to finish losing beer pong, and got Heather a beer and we went and sat on the dock and talked. And talked. And talked. Aside from getting up to refill beers, we talked nonstop the entire night. I now know that Heather has two brothers (older) and one sister (younger) and that she loves yoga and used to collect My Little Ponies when she was younger. I know that her parents are divorced and that she grew up in Denver, where she lived with her dad, and that her mom has lived all over the place but now lives in South Carolina somewhere. I know that she decided to go to Sheffield U because her grandmother lives nearby and Heather loved the campus growing up, and she also wanted to be close because her grandmother had never really gotten to hear her sing before, and her grandma hasn’t missed a single performance in Heather’s college career. And I know that someday she wants to teach music, but she’s not ready yet, and that she’s a cat person and a dog person. I know those things, and a lot of other things, because we talked forever. But it flew by and it felt like we had only been talking for five minutes, not five hours, and before we knew it things were starting to get quiet and Heather said, “Well, I’d better get going.”
“You can’t drive home,” I said.
“Dana and I were going to take a cab home,” she replied.
We started walking through the yard, picking up cups and paper plates as we went, and there were lights on in the basement, which was promising. There were a few people sleeping on the floor, most of whom I didn’t recognize, and Brett and some other guy were playing PS2 while Ambrosia slept on Brett’s lap. “Hey, have you seen Dana?” I asked.
He nodded toward the back corner, where Dana was sprawled across an air mattress. Heather sighed. “You’re more than welcome to stay here,” I told her. “There’s no sense in you calling a cab and going back into town by yourself.”
She nodded. “Do you have a t-shirt and shorts or something that I could wear?”
So we went upstairs to my room (more people passed out there, and a couple on the deck outside) and I found her a clean pair of mesh shorts and a Sheffield U t-shirt, and she went into the bathroom and changed and said, “Thanks, that’s much better.”
Then she sat down on my bed and smiled and said, “You don’t mind if I sleep up here, do you? Dana snores something fierce.”
“Of course you can,” I told her, silently thanking myself for washing my sheets earlier in the week and for not being a complete slob like Devon. So she laid down and I laid down next to her, and she thanked me and I said, “You’re welcome.” Then I started to drift off, but not before she kind of scooted over and nestled her head into my shoulder, so I put my arm around her and we fell asleep.
In the morning, she was gone.
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