On Sunday, Felix refuses to even start mowing lawns because of the heat (and because there's only a handful of people that will let us mow for them on a Sunday in this town anyway), so I end up staying home, too, and practicing. My goal is to have the full show memorized before camp, even if I don't technically have to. I'm pretty solid on the ballad at this point, but the closer definitely needs work, so that's what I focus my efforts on. Thankfully, on Monday it's only supposed to graze ninety in the mid-afternoon, so Felix agrees to actually venture out and get to work. We get a lot done by the time a light rain rolls in around three-thirty, so we head home then, and put the mowers away for the night.
On Tuesday morning, it's raining again, and it doesn't stop until after one, so we decide to just call the entire day a rain-out. By the time we leave for band, it's not even seventy-five degrees, and the temperature is dropping, so I drape a hoodie over my arm on my way out of my bedroom, and Pilar is already wearing hers when we walk outside, Felix stares at us in disbelief. "Are you actually insane?"
"What?" I ask, having zero clue what he's talking about.
"You have hoodies and it's July!"
"It's not even seventy-five degrees right now, and it's gonna be in the sixties before we're done with rehearsal, so yes, hoodies," I say, giving him a look.
"Southern babies!" he says echoing out sentiments from the weekend in reverse. Pilar sticks her tongue out at him and then crosses her arms as she walks ahead of us. The hoodie she's wearing is all black (like most of the clothing she owns) and has some band's logo on it. The one I'm carrying is blue and has the Graham Steer logo in red on the front with GRAHAM in red letters under it. If there's one way to make sure no one forgets I'm new here, it's this hoodie, but I really don't care. It's the most comfortable one I own.
I chuckle a little in response to Felix's accusations. "I deserve that. I have a feeling we might die this winter."
"It's going snow routinely," Pilar moans.
"Snow is amazing, and it sometimes means we get a day off school!"
"I'll take the snow days, but not the actual precipitation," I say with a laugh.
"That is not how it works. I mean, usually it's more like an ice day, to be fair. Snow's easy to deal with unless like a lot which doesn't happen here that often. PennDOT just sends out a couple plow trucks and we're good to go an hour or so after it stops. It's the wintry mix and straight up sleet or freezing rain that's the real problem, and sometimes re-freeze." We're almost to the light to cross Main Street already.
"What the fuck is sleet?" I ask.
"Or freezing rain..." Pilar adds.
"Uh," Felix says. "Wait, what's the coldest you've ever experienced?"
"Um, ever it snowed some when were like little kids, but recently? Uh, I think it dropped below freezing a couple nights last winter." I explain.
"But you've seen snow, right?"
"We got like two or three inches a couple times in like twenty fifteen, but it always melted right away, and it like brought the entire state to a grinding halt," I say awkwardly.
"When was it that we had that huge storm?" Pilar seems to remember.
"Uh, twenty-ten, I think, because I was in kindergarten," I say.
"Wait, you haven't had like a significant snow fall since kindergarten?" Felix says.
"That would be correct. We're from Texas," I remind him as we start up the giant hill.
YOU ARE READING
And I'm in the Bleachers
RomanceVictor Salazar is finishing his freshman year of high school in Graham, TX when his dad gets a new job that forces the family to move to the small town of Ephrata, PA. Thrilled with the idea of a fresh start and maybe the chance to finally figure hi...
