Night in the Ruts

Ms Patty Flannery Scares Me to a Point Where I Should Consider Help - Steven

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Finally, I went back upstairs (after going downstairs–obviously) and noticed that I should leave soon.  Earlier today, I had called the number I was originally given, not the one I called this morning.  I called the original number because Charlie's mom scares me.  She had so many questions for me while I waited for Charlie.  Jess had answered the phone, and, after I asked, told me the address to their house.  It was an important detail I forgot to ask Charlie because I was so excited that she had indirectly said yes, that everything else kind of slipped my mind.

        I went classy: meaning, not the macrame shirt that I adore oh-so-much.

        Okay, yes, I wore the shirt, but I had a jacket over top of it and you couldn't really see it.  That, and jeans.  And these shoes that I stamped with all the record-press stamp-thingies at a recording studio awhile back.

        "Don't you clean up nice," Joey commented when I walked out of the bathroom, having just fixed my hair.  It was about the millionth time I had fixed it today.

        "Yeah, where're you going?" Tom chirped.

        "Why're you guys so interested?" I say, heading for the door.

        "You're not... Going on a date are you?" Joe asked, feigning horror.

        I begin to say something back that was actually quite witty, but Brad interrupted: "Oh, God, he is!"

        They all laughed at me.  I could feel my ears and cheeks burning.  "Look at his face!  It gives it all away!" Joey said, giggling like an insane person.

        So apparently, I blush as bad as Charlie does.  "I need to leave," I say hastily, heading out the door.

        "Be safe!"

        "Don't take drugs!"

        "See you two tomorrow!"

        Oh, God.  They're horrible to me.  Really, they are.  I sing and dance my ass off with them every night and this is the kind of treatment I get?  Seriously.

        The band has two cars: one is mine, the other was bought at some point in nineteen seventy.  They are parked near the apartment.  Charlie lives about an hour away.  Yes, I was driving an hour to go eat dinner with a teenage girl.

        Not my finest idea, but also not my worst.

--

I felt sixteen again as I approached the front door, double-checking the house number with the one I scribbled down earlier.  Yep, this was the right one.

        Here goes nothing.  Ding! I rang the bell, it seemed awkwardly loud, but maybe it was just me.

        A woman who looked like Charlie with Jess's face and hair answered the door.  She looked very confused when she saw me, maybe even flustered.  Her face flushed when I said hello.

        "Um, hello," she replied, probably wondering why I had my hands behind my back.  Yeah, I chose to be that person and bring a flower.  I had taken it out of the vase on the front desk at the apartment.  It was purple.  "Who're you?"

        I suddenly felt very stupid standing there, holding the flower.  Why would she want that?  What would she honestly do with it?  Sniff it?  It's plastic!  It smells like the incense they have burning inside the vase!  My apartment complex is classy like that.