Marching season is out, but the competition is only heating up.
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Section leader applications for the next marching band season at Halston University are officially open, and percussionist Bay Rodriguez wants the role.
Bay's only competition is Ca...
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JUST BEFORE NOON ON SUNDAY, I drive over to Quentin's apartment building.
He lives in an old redbrick with three storeys and no elevator. Though we're best friends, the reason we don't flat together is because our lifestyles are incompatible. We're self-aware enough to know that combining accommodation would just aggravate each other. Quentin, as an Engineering and Physics double major, marching band section leader, and Halston boys' badminton team member, needs lots and lots of sleep and quiet time and peaceful study.
I am a restless drummer who loves to party. Enough said.
I knock on his door and hear, "It's open," from inside. He's expecting me: I'm bringing takeaway Chinese food as hangover food.
The main room is half occupied by a living area and half by a kitchen, a couch partitioning the space. I set the takeaway bags on the small square dining table, where Quentin is slumped in a chair. He's wearing a navy hoodie with the strings pulled tight around his face, looking miserable.
"Good morning," I greet, sunny. My eyes dart to the clock on the wall. 12:05. I amend, "Good afternoon."
Quentin makes a dour noise when I set his carton of fried noodles in front of him, sliding in to the opposite chair. He grabs up the wooden chopsticks in a paper sleeve and dangles them in front of me. "I want you to stab one into each of my eyes."
"Damn," I sigh. Ah. I had a feeling he wouldn't be feeling great today. "That bad?"
The food smells divine, sesame oil and the perfect amount of vegetables. I shovel a mouthful of noodles before I even respond to Quentin.
The week just past was midterm week. The whole campus went into a stress-cramming trance, no time for anything but study, and after this week Halston University gives us a week off classes for fall break. The parties and events this weekend were insane. Quentin and I went to the Science Faculty Ball together on Friday with a gaggle of Engineering friends.
I invited Bay—she's technically in the Science Faculty, as a Math major. Well, actually, because I was afraid of getting shot down, I mentioned that both those events were happening and determined her reaction. Nearly instantly she told me she'd picked up the maximum amount of Foxhole shifts during fall break to bolster her personal savings. She wasn't available any evenings, so there was really no point asking her explicitly anyway.
