I pushed myself out of a slouch, my back a little stiff, and looked around the room while the professor murmured on in her lullaby tone. Rows of students behind me pulsed with the hum of quiet chatter. Someone in the seat ahead of me had slumped down in her seat and was hiding a laptop while her boyfriend next to her had his feet up on the chair in front of him. Every time his head slowly dropped forward as he nodded off, the tip of his shoe would conk the head of the person sitting there.
I took it all in with a smile.
"I've had a great quarter. You know," she droned on, though students had actually started packing and leaving the room. "I still, after all these years, enjoy teaching this class - I don't know what's wrong with me."
There had to be a lot wrong with her to be teaching this class. Most of the kids here were underclassmen and were taking the class for an easy A. Fraternities had test keys and would sit in the back two rows and pass it across laps during exam week. The rest of us barely attended at all.
The tiny woman pushed her glasses on her narrow, crooked nose and kept talking to the now half empty room. Her voice strained over the continued rustle of students. "I've got a conference tonight so you may drop your essay exams and extra credit at my office under the door."
It was all ready done. I was done. I followed the steady stampede out of the room, out the open door, and into the warm and sunny Seattle afternoon. Finally free.
That's right. I said sun. Seattle isn't gray and rainy all the time, opposing pop-culture. We have glorious, warm summers and a perfectly tolerable spring time too. Not that fall and winter aren't beautiful. I, for one, love the rain.
As someone born and raised here, I'll let you in on a few secrets. These three key points will get you through the area's weather looking like a local. One, yes, it rains a lot. Not all the time, but a lot. We know this - you don't need to tell us. (For some reason, a lot of tourists feel compelled to do this. "Gosh, it's just like the skies have cracked opened over Seattle!")
We of the Emerald City (and greater Pacific Northwest,) faithfully believe that umbrellas are indicative of poor social manners and a lack of understanding about our weather. When it rains, it's rarely without wind. And umbrellas and wind are not friends. Just wear a hood. A Northface or REI jacket is an integral piece to anyone's wardrobe here. Women walk down the street in stilettos, a dress... and a Northface. It just happens, so don't fight it. Anything else and you'll look like you are from out of town.
Number two, Seattle and the surrounding Pacific Northwest exhibit weather that through the day, you should expect to use both your defroster and heater as well as your fans and air-conditioning, especially in the summer. This I'm sure, happens in many places, but for a city so far north and so under the radar for warm weather, it sneaks up on you.
The last point is, put simply, that gray skies do not always mean thunder storms. Don't expect or try to predict nasty weather. That will take an ugly toll on your mood. Seasonal Affected Disorder is a nightmare. If you drink your milk, the gray Seattle sky can be your friend if you let it, Vitamin D deficiencies and all.
Keeping this in mind, I carried my fleece jacket in hand and welcomed the cool breeze as I waited at our normal meeting place.
"Hey!" Sadie said as she bumped me with her tiny, sharp shoulder, which came up to just above my elbow.
"How was your last class ever?" I asked, rubbing the throbbing sensation out of my arm. "Final in chemistry right?"
She nodded. "You know, at this point, I really don't care how I did as long as I pass," she said, twisting her mouth into a contorted smile. "Is that bad?"
I laughed, shaking my head. "We're seniors. I'm just glad we made it," I said, pushing my i-pod into my bag.
"Not done yet," came a melodic voice from behind. Hollie squeezed herself between us and put an arm over each of our shoulders. "We still have a game to win!"
"Ugh," I moaned. "Thank you so much for reminding us. Not only that, but we still have work, then practice, then a game." I listed our to-do list off on my fingers as we walked through campus towards the University Village shopping center. "Then we get to pack and move out! It's going to be one long, long, long day."
"Aren't you a barrel of sunshine this afternoon," Sadie said, sticking me in the ribs, her giant ring scratching my arm.
"When am I ever a barrel of sunshine?" I laughed, dodging out of the way of another poke in the side.
The three of us had been inseparable pieces to unlikely puzzle these past four years. I was easily the most boring. Well, maybe not boring. Maybe safe. Here I was, finding myself at the end of college, lacking the volumes of ridiculous stories that my friends couldn't stop recounting.
Hollie was and is the complete opposite of my personality. Long honey-blond hair and bright blue eyes, and her tanned and toned perfect Barbie body that had guy's tongues wagging even before she opened her mouth. When she did, it was always game-over. That woman is the best flirt I have ever seen. It's a calculated spell she casts. She hypnotizes them, and it absolutely never fails. I should have taken lessons.
Sadie is the common link between us. Despite her tiny stature, Sadie is the toughest out of our trio – our little pocket pit bull. Hollie and I are both almost six feet tall, but little Sadie is barely five feet, with tight curls of raven hair falling just above her shoulders. Her nails are always cut short and painted dark, and she is never without wild costume jewelry and creative, eccentric makeup. She’s the artist.
No, the only thing holding us together was the bottom line that we were friends already. How we became so close, we aren't quite sure.
The sound of airlock brakes snapped me out of my thoughts as we dodged a roaring, smelly bus and jaywalked across the street that ran through campus. Down the hill, we hit the Burke-Gilman trail, a stretch of biking path that ran for miles in both directions. We followed the trail down the hill and out of campus. After crossing the busy street full of stop lights and impatient drivers stuck in traffic (yep, lots of traffic, too) we ran into the bookstore. Hollie and I were cashiers here, and Sadie worked in the Starbucks upstairs. How’s that for stereotypes? Did I hit them all? Bikes, traffic, books, and coffee?
It felt as though a whole day could have come and gone already, but amazingly, it was only two in the afternoon. Still, after a morning of school, this was a welcome distraction to the mundane and yet demanding life of a student. In the staff room we locked up our stuff and pulled our aprons on. Sadie pulled her sweatshirt off with her back to me, the black snake tattoo that ran from her belt line to the bottom of her shoulder blades flashed briefly against her almost white skin.
"You finally got that finished, huh?" I said, my voice muffled through the dark green material coming over my head.
"I did, yeah," she said, shaking her shoulders a little as she spoke.
"Dance it out!" Hollie encouraged. Sadie shimmied again - the three of us erupting into laughter.
We all choked into silence when our beady-eyed manager poked his ugly head in the door. Hollie and I grabbed our name tags and ran around the corner as Sadie bolted up the stairs to the café. We were a little late as usual. Didn’t matter today though. It was our last day. What was he going to do about it now?
Hollie popped out of the self-help aisle at exactly five o'clock, looking a little sheepish.
"Doing a little private reading, my dear?" I joked as I straightened a calendar display.
"Inventory, Lana. Inventory." She winked at a guy that was walking passed, startling him into tripping over his own shoes. I nearly toppled the whole display over, trying to stifle my laughter. We flung our aprons over the counter in the break room and tossed our name tags in the garbage after we clocked out for the last time. So much for nostalgia. Sadie skipped down the stairs and we were out of there.
No comments:
Post a Comment