Knowing You're There

Chapter 14

“I asked my parents and they said that we could go to the coffee shop,” he said. 

“The coffee shop?  But won’t there be people there? It’s Friday night.” 

He laughed.  “If there are, it shouldn’t be more than five or so.  We’ll be fine.”   

“But what about the drums?  I can’t get my dad’s old set in the car!” 

“We’ve got a spare set in the back room.  Like I said, don’t worry.” 

Mom honked the horn again.  I quickly kissed Kurt goodbye on the cheek and ran into the open door of the minivan.  Star hopped in after me and I swung the door shut. 

“Why did you keep honking?” I asked.  “You always make a scene.” 

“Because I don’t want us to be late for our nail appointment. Don’t you want to look nice for your big day?” 

I rolled my eyes.  “You mean my performance in front of ten people?  I’ll be hidden behind the drums.  It doesn’t matter.” 

So we cruised our way down to the nail salon in the minivan, Mom pretending to be “cool and hip” by playing my Rayvn CD.  When we got there, the girl doing my nails handed me a bunch of swatches and tried to describe some of the colors to me.  I told her that I already knew blue, black, red, white, and green.  I wanted something different that would fit my music.  She then proceeded to ask me what I liked and didn’t like. 

“You know the bird in the Rayvn logo?  Its eyes are dark purple.  Do you want to try that?” 

I held out my hands and said, “Lay it on me.” 

Mom sat in the chair next to me, asking her nail-painter-lady if she could get decals or red boxing gloves. 

When we got home, I we had a dinner or takeout Chinese food, since it was what Emmit wanted.  I plugged my nose while trying to eat a carton of shrimp lo main.  I could care less about stereotypes.  Maybe the food in China was a bit better, but the place we ordered from was gross.

            After gagging on the lo main, I grabbed a fortune cookie and took off a piece, then handed it to Star.  She sniffed it, but turned away.  I laughed. 

            “See, look, even Star doesn’t like this stuff, and she eats everything,” I said, then handed the little slip inside the cookie to Emmit.  “Can you read this for me?” 

He took it from me and said, “You are really stupid and ugly.” 

“Emmit, knock it off,” Dad said to him. 

“Okay, okay,” he said.  “It says ‘your life will change in unexpected ways.’”