"Yep. Looks like it's almost out of helium, the way it's floating so
low. Launched 'em myself thirty years ago in the Army."
"Oh," muttered Justin "Be seeing ya, Zeke." He turned back to the
porch.
Damn, thought Zeke, plodding back to the truck, if I told him it was a
flying saucer I might have got a beer after all. Coincidentally, a
gust of wind took the balloon higher into the sky.
7. Fallout
"This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath,
May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet."
-- Shakespeare
Alona ran out of the elevator, trying to hide her face in one hand and
hold her overstuffed bag in the other. She kept wiping away the tears
just to get through the already crowded lobby, where young
gossip-mongers waiting vigilantly for fresh news.
The tears had started when Prof. Sigger had somehow sneaked passed her
as she was searching in her bag for her paper. How anyone that old and
lazy could have slipped out without a sound was a mystery to be
considered after the wave of rejection and failure had passed -- and
after she made it to her car. Wiping her face with her sleeve and
pretending to look as bored as everyone else, Alona hoped that even if
her roommate were around, she would be fooled long enough to prevent
her from starting any more rumors. Unfortunately, Alona decided this
just after her roommate spotted her across the vestibule, noted the
tears and false-face anxiety, and immediately deduced out loud to
several of her closest acquaintances that Prof. Sigger had made a move
on the all-too-innocent waif. The rumor spread across the hall and up
the elevators by the time Alona was weaving through the cars that
stalked the parking lot for open stalls. It seemed nearly everyone in
the building had heard a whisper by the time Alona reached her father's
rusting Gremlin.
She made her way to it without getting hit by the over-anxious drivers,
unlocked the driver's side door, threw her bag into the back seat and
herself into the driver's. Then she let go and sobbed and sobbed,
hoping that if she got a "C" in Freshman Comp that it wouldn't turn out
to be the excuse her parents needed to stop paying her tuition. They
wanted Alona to work in the town's newly renovated theater, an
investment in which they owned a small percentage.
Alona's sobs lasted for some time, and she knew, just knew, that her
water-proof mascara had run, so she opened the glove compartment to
find a Kleenex. Out fell a letter.
Her sobbing stopped as she picked it up from the dusty car floor.
"Alona" was written, almost scribbled, on the cover. In Kurt's
handwriting. She hadn't seen him in weeks, not since he began playing
regularly in the band. She couldn't help picturing him the last time
he was in her car, brushing back his long hair and scratching his hand
in that nervous way of his.
"You're breaking up with me?" he asked, staring vaguely at the
floor-mat.
She had nodded. What else could she do? Even she had finally admitted
that he was just a good-looking loser. Sure, he could play the guitar
and write songs, but she wouldn't be able to face her parents once they
found out his most popular ballad was titled "Love Turds".
"This sucks," he muttered. Somehow, that had helped her keep her
resolve, although in the weeks that had passed, her memory of that
lonely quality of his, the one that had attracted her to him in the
first place, had grown to almost god-like proportions.
Alona sighed and opened the letter.