This was, by far, one of the slowest weeks of my life. It was only Wednesday and already I was praying for the week to end. The time I spent with the band was amazing but far too short-lived in comparison to the dragged-out school day. With Richie all the way across the country in Seattle, it was hard for us to find time to talk. During the four days that he had been gone, we had talked for a total of thirty minutes and sent about a hundred text messages. The hours spent at school felt like days without Richie bumping into me between almost every period.
In other words, I was bored.
It was time for lunch here, which meant that it was still early morning in Seattle. Richie told me that he would have the morning off so he would probably call me during lunch.
Probably.
I leaned against my locker, gripping my phone anxiously. I was looking at the screen every few seconds, not realizing how desperate I must have looked to everyone walking by. It didn’t matter, though, because I wasn’t paying attention to any of them. This proved to be a big mistake when Patrice Johnston swaggered towards me.
“Hey, Rosalina!” she chirped with false cheer.
Quickly putting my phone away, I plastered a smile to my face. “Hi, Patrice.”
“So where’s your boy-toy this week?”
There were many good reasons why I didn’t like her. This was one. “My what?”
“Oh, come on,” she scoffed. “You know who I’m talking about. Where is Richie?”
“Out of town. Why do you ask?”
Patrice seemed a bit annoyed with me, and I didn’t know why. I hadn’t even said anything yet. “You two seem to have gotten very close since school started.”
“Yeah. He’s really nice. So?”
“I don’t get it, Rosalina. Why does he talk to you and not to me? I’m the most popular girl in our class, but he hasn’t said a word to me. I even tried talking to him and he just looked at me. What’s the matter with him?”
Was she insulting Richie? She just added another reason to my list. “He’s just really shy.”
Patrice scoffed again; she was really good at that. “You just want to keep him all to yourself, don’t you? First Nat and then Richie. Why don’t you just pick one already?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You can’t fool me, Rosalina. Just because you’re in a band doesn’t mean I’m going to let you have two gorgeous guys.”
“Whatever, Patrice.” I was getting sick of this conversation and decided that the best plan of action would just be to leave. As I walked away from my locker and Patrice, I felt my phone vibrate, and I smiled.
Perfect timing, as always.
“It’s about time.”
“Sorry about that,” Richie said wearily. “It’s chaos over here.”
“What’s going on? I thought you had the morning off.”
“I do. The band’s been fighting since the beginning of the tour, and I happened to come here right in the middle of it all. The other assistants treat me like dirt here.”
“Why? Is it because you’re the youngest?”
“That and the fact that I don’t drink, smoke, or do anything else stupid like the rest of these junkies. The band got really drunk last night and ended up having a brawl. The crew sent me, the clean-cut newbie, to break it up. It’s wasn’t pretty.”
“Ouch. I don’t envy you right now.”
“Trust me, neither do I. I just can’t wait to get home. The weather here sucks.”
He sounded so tired and worn that I had forgotten all my own troubles. Nothing that was happening to me could ever compare to being treated like a dog by my coworkers and breaking up drunken band fights for a whole week. I tried my best to sound hopeful for Richie. “You’ll be home soon enough.”
“Soon is not soon enough. I hate bands like these. They are everything that is wrong with mainstream rock bands nowadays. I miss the days when I got jobs with cleaner bands.”
“Maybe you should tour with us someday,” I said, smiling a bit at the thought.
“I’d like that.” A loud crash interrupted our conversation. “It looks like the guys are awake,” Richie cursed. “I’ll talk to you later, hopefully.” He hung up quickly, and I didn’t even have the chance to say bye to him.
After shutting my phone, I checked the time and sighed. I had well over half of lunch left to withstand alone. Knowing that Richie was all the way across the country struggling to keep a band from ripping each other’s throats out while trying his best to get out of it alive made me feel even worse. I could only hope that he would stay out of the fray long enough to come back in one piece because Nat and the band were anxious to meet him.
These next few days were going to be very interesting.
