I started punching my fingers rapidly at the keyboard display.
Riley! I never got a new number for you. How are you??
Again, she replied in less than a minute, and we developed a steady rhythm in our text conversation. She said she was still living in Seattle with her cousin, that she loved being back in the city and working. She asked me—again—how nursing school was, and I told her about having finished up Fall Term and how I’d be graduating in the spring.
You made me a deal, she wrote after we’d more or less caught up. I didn’t take you for a deal breaker, Drew Caldwell. Are you a deal breaker?
Puzzled, I simply typed in and sent a few question marks.
You don’t remember? You said you’d visit me!!!
It was coming back to me. Our last day of high school. In the parking lot. Right after Riley told me about her post-high school plans, I remembered, she had said, Come visit me. Or else.
Oh crap, I texted her back. I remember now. Sorry, I’ve been so busy with school!
Well… You have the next month off…? Come visit me! I wanna see your face!
Normally, I would have spent a whole day considering such a proposal. I would have thought about any plans I already had in place, any obligations, how comfortable I felt driving to Seattle by myself, how much money it would cost for gas and eating out.
But I was not feeling normal right then. With everything that had happened in the span of that one day, I was not in the mood for planning or weighing pros and cons or being so constantly, tiringly mega-type-A.
Let’s do it, I wrote. What day should I drive over?
Chapter 11
It was like I had gone to another planet. There was no snow. There was no college campus in sight. Instead, there was rain, and there were cars and people and noises. And, on top of all that, there was Riley Banks sitting across from me at a table, a girl I hadn’t seen in over three years and hadn’t heard from in over two.
Riley Banks was exactly the same. Actually, looks wise, that wasn’t really the case. Her formerly long locks had been chopped off, transformed into a blunt bob that ended just at her narrow chin. She wore her hair stick-straight, and her ashy blonde color had been accented with dark roots. Her clothing was reminiscent of her old, high-school style, but it was like it had been ramped up to eleven. Her denim overalls were distressed. They covered a striped T-shirt, and a poppy-red rain jacket covered the overalls.
Despite these outward changes, she was the same. I could tell right away, when I met her in a coffeeshop on Capitol Hill. I had made the three hour drive the Monday after she texted me. Before leaving, I had asked Cambria if she wanted to join me, but she declined the offer, saying she had plans to meet with old friends of her own. Truthfully, I had been relieved to know I would be going on this trip by myself. That way, it would be just me and Riley, just the two of us talking and getting to fully reconnect.
And reconnect we did—right away. I arrived at the coffeeshop first, and five minutes later, she showed up. In a whirlwind of excitement, Riley and I laughed and hugged, ordered drinks and found a table by a window, the gray light from outside having no hampering effect on our exhilaration.
“This is amazing.” Riley placed her hands palms-down on the table, displaying a myriad of rings across her fingers. “You’re finally here, dude. My beautiful Mermaid Dragon.”
“And you, still my glowing Cinderella.”
“Yeah, right.” She took a sip of her espresso and gave me an evil smile. “Took you long enough to get over here, Drew. But I guess I can forgive you.”
“I know. Seriously, I’ve been so busy these last few years.”
“Tell me about school, Nurse Drew,” she prompted. “Of course, you got accepted into the program and are killing it.”
A queasy sensation rose up in my guts.
“I’ll tell you about it later,” I said. “I’m so sick of thinking about school. I want to hear about you—how’s work as a hairstylist? How’s life back in Seattle?”
“I’ve been loving it here. I didn’t realize how much I missed it ‘til I moved back. Small towns are just not my thing. I crave the speed of the city, you know what I mean?”
I peered outside the window and gestured toward the unmoving traffic out on the wet streets. “It doesn’t look very speedy to me.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Well, yeah, okay. Not the traffic. You’ll see what I mean, though, smart ass. I will make you see. Actually, I was thinking we could all go to a concert tonight. If you’re up for it.”
“A concert?”
“You’ve heard of The Cure, haven’t you?”
I set my coffee mug down on the table too loudly.
“Are you for real?” I said, the pitch of my voice unusually high.
“Yes, I am, Drew. I am very much for real.”
“You got tickets for us to go see The Cure? They still go on tours? Wait, and you said we could all go to the concert?”
Now the smile on her face was a proud one, and she leaned back in her chair.
“My boyfriend works at the performance venue. So, yes, The Cure still goes on tours every now and then, and my boyfriend hooked us up with tickets. It would be me, you, him. Maybe some other people.”
“Your boyfriend? When were you going to tell me about this?”
“It’s no big deal, really. We’ve been together for . . . six months, I think.”
“Six months?” It occurred to me then that I had been speaking entirely in questions over the last few minutes.
“What about you, Mermaid Dragon? Any special guy in your life?”
I saw David in my mind. His beautiful smile, button-up shirt, khakis. Then I saw him heading out the door of my apartment, telling me he’d see me again in January. I considered telling Riley about him, but after the way he and I had left things three days ago, this was yet another part of my life I didn’t want to discuss, or even think about.
I shook my head and tried changing the subject.
“So, you haven’t said anything about work. How’s that going, being a hairstylist?”
She raised an eyebrow, reluctant to let me off the hook so easily. Then, she inhaled.
“You know,” she started, “I actually love it. Getting through beauty school was annoying, getting bossed around all the time. After that, my first year of work was kind of hectic. I kept switching salons, like, every three months. But, anyway, now I’m at this place here on Cap Hill. It’s called Strike Salon, and it’s pretty awesome. Brick walls, pink-haired colleagues, the works. My cousin, Teresa, got me hooked up there.”
“That sounds perfect,” I said. “I’m really happy for you, Riley.” And that was the truth.
“You done with your coffee yet? I live five minutes from here. We can hop in your car and head that way?”
I gulped down the rest of my beverage and stood up, my chair squeaking on the concrete floor.
“Let’s go,” I said.
◈ ◈ ◈
“This is where you live?”
Riley was correct in saying she lived only five minutes away from the coffeeshop, but it had taken an additional five minutes for us to find a parking spot on the crammed street. Ultimately, we had to park a few blocks away and walk the remaining distance to her place. I was surprised when she pointed to where she lived. It was a quaint, Victorian style, two-story house. Its walls were the color of toothpaste, with thick, white trim.