Six Months with Irene | ✓

//ORION//36

Chapter Thirty-Six

ORION

The rest of June was a flurry of activity for Orion; getting up at seven to drive to Providence with Erin and spend half his day at the docks and the bait shop, driving home at three and rushing to get a shower and get the stink of fish off him before driving to the coffee shop downtown and sit in one of the over-sized armchairs to watch and listen to the band practice their sets. Irene had joined them for a couple of small gigs in Providence, but she was still trying to learn their songs and thus had been reduced to playing only covers--though Orion had to admit that she was also pretty good at bullshitting her way through a song she didn't know, good enough to convince newcomers that she knew what she was playing. However, because her drumming style and David's were so different, the guys actually ended up changing the beat on some songs, and Irene was picking those up amazingly fast.

Orion loved watching the full band play again, and there were several fewer fights between this group than there had been when David was still drummer. Irene didn't force her opinion like Dave had, and she was open to suggestions, even from Eric (who she still held a grudge against from the whole lunchroom incident with the rubber band).

He suspected that if he hadn't been so tired by the time he got there, Sean would have called him up to practice with them for the shows he was guesting--his first one of the Summer was actually just a week away. But as it was, Orion usually managed to stay awake for only half an hour or so before he dozed off in one of the chairs and was gone to the world until Carson would come over and hold a cup of coffee under his nose and wake him up.

But, that was okay with Orion--he liked singing with the band, but Irene had never heard him sing before and the thought of singing in front of her made him nervous. He knew it would happen sometime (in a week) but he preferred to wait until it was absolutely necessary. Besides, he sang better in front of crowds than in small groups, where he had more time worry.

Orion sat in one of the chairs in the coffee shop now, listening to Karen play the beginning of their song "Stone Shore", nursing a cup of coffee and trying his best to stay awake. He'd had particularly long day that started with waking up late and throwing on a pair of dirty jeans that still smelled like fish and river, driving to the shop and having to hop on a boat to go out with Corey and help haul fish in. He'd gotten a call from Erin when they were on their way back in, asking him to pick Eliza up from her friend's house and bring her to the shop so that Erin wouldn't have to risk them running late to the airport. Picking her up had been fine, but halfway back into the city, Eliza informed him that she 'forgot' her travel bag and they had had to turn around and get it, and mysteriously, Eliza couldn't find it when she got there. It took an hour for them to finally find it, and when they did it was in the back yard, hidden behind Mrs. Edger's flowers.

Orion had been less than pleased.

When they finally got to the shop, Eliza had started pitching fits about how she didn't want to go, causing a ruckus in front of customers, and Orion had been forced to haul her into the office and explain to her that it was that kind of behavior that was the reason that she was spending the rest of the summer with their grandmother.

After a couple hours of babysitting, Erin finally put their bags into her car and left for T.F. Green with Eliza, promising Orion and Corey that she would be back the next afternoon.

That alone was enough to wear Orion out, but to top it off, on his way home from work, his phone rang with a call from his dad. He'd reluctantly answered, and forty-five minutes later, severely regretted his choice. He spent fifteen minutes trying to evade Johnathon's questions about college, before he finally just told him that he'd decided not to go. Then he had spent half an hour arguing with his father that he did not have to go to college, and he already knew most of what he needed to know for photography, and what he didn't know could be learned through experience and speaking with other photographers. Johnathon insisted that his son needed to further his education and not just focus on photography, that he should be prepared and have a back-up plan in case 'the whole photography thing fell through'. Orion had hung up before he had to hear his father tell him that he didn't really think he was going to make it in his chosen career.