deadly nightshade | fever in, fever out

chapter 5: soup and numbers

It had been a week since Sam had settled into her apartment in the Bronx, and it had been a few days since she had hooked up her phone to call up Aurora. It took her a few days for her to even so much as have a straight up conversation with her given the workload Jon had left her with as part of their crew. She soon found her last name was Young, and she was a second generation American.
"My paternal grandparents came over here from North Korea," she explained, "while my maternal grandparents are from South Korea. And then when my parents met, they went down to Southern California together. Like a pair of forbidden lovers which completely bonded the entire Korean peninsula."
Indeed, her parents were plotting on moving out to New York City, much like how Ruben and Esmé were plotting on doing that very same thing as well. They had told her about their plan during their last round of dinner with her before they returned to Carson City for the time being.
"Everyone's moving out to New York," Sam chuckled at the thought.
In the meantime, it was in fact the coldest winter she had dealt with since she moved away from Carson City. After spending the morning with the bunch of them, the snow had begun to fall. And it continued to fall even after the sun had gone down: the golden lights from the street lit up the steady blanket of snowflakes in a warm amber glow, so warm in fact that she snuggled under the covers. When she awoke the next morning to a near six inches of snow on the sidewalk, and Emile almost eating it after he slipped on a patch of ice downstairs, she knew she wasn't on the West Coast anymore.
She remembered what she and Charlie had talked about in the coffee house the few days before, between the snow and also with her art. She knew she would have to make her way over to the nearest art school and enlist herself within the next day or so, but to do that meant having to wade through all of that intense snow. But she wasn't on the West Coast anymore: she had to put down her head and pull through it if she wanted to go anywhere and do anything significant in this weather. Just brave it with the hope that she wouldn't freeze to death. Indeed, when she got a minute with Emile, he told her about the schools around the City and she figured it was best to take the subway down to the school in Brooklyn: she figured she would head down that way anyways to visit Aurora and the boys.
She put on her heaviest black coat, her worn down knee high boots, two pairs of socks, her black gloves, and her heavy red and white knit scarf: if there was one other thing she needed besides a new pair of boots, it was something to protect her head and her ears from the intense bitter northeast cold. Despite the cold, she managed to make her way to the subway terminal up the block from the complex and find her way back down to Brooklyn. She hoped whatever money she could pick up from attending school would help her cover the cost of taking the subway.
But Sam rode all the way down with her hand up on the rung and her other hand on her purse strap. A California girl cozying her way into New York City with her heavy black clothes and serious expression.
If there was one other thing she needed to adjust to about riding the subway, it was the fact riding such a long distance left her feeling dizzy from the steady continual sway of the train on those slick silvery rails. Indeed, when she stepped off the train onto the concrete platform, her head spun and she caught herself on the brick pillar next to her to steady herself. Passengers strode on past her but she wanted to be alone anyway.
She was greeted by a blast of warm air through the vent over her head as well as a rush of cold from the tunnel behind her. After she caught her balance, and the train had drifted away, she pressed on to the stairs and back out to the sharp New York cold.
She was about a block away from the rehearsal space, which meant after she enrolled herself and filled out the paper work, she could swing by and see if they were in that day.
Or so she thought because it was all what she wanted.
She was in the admissions office for about an hour and a half because it was a difficult school to get into and she also had to go through all of the pithy nonsense surrounding financial aid. Because she had only lived in New York for a week, she needed to scrounge around a scholarship or two to help her out.
"We'll have to see a portfolio of sorts, though," the counselor pointed out to her before her interview was up. "And once we have it, we'll begin the admission process."
"Most of it's packed up but I'll try and get something together as soon as possible," she vowed.
"Sounds good! Until then, welcome aboard, Miss Shelley."
It was almost noon by the time Sam stepped back outside to the street, lined with a thick white blanket of snow and crushed ice. The sun remained hidden behind the thick dark clouds overhead, and yet even with the darkness of the day, she was able to recognize that dark head of hair from down the block. She padded up the sidewalk and she could feel the snow getting to her feet through that worn leather making up her boots.
Dark head of hair accompanied by three rich shades of violet on her body, the crown of her head, and on her hands.
"Aurora Borealis!" she called out to her, to which Aurora turned around with a set of keys in one hand and a flabbergasted look on her face, and then she smiled at the sight of Sam.
"Hey! I wasn't expecting to see you here."
"I was just moseying my way into the art school down the block here," Sam told her.
"Oh, cool! I'm going on lunch break right now."
"Is it okay if I join?"
"Oh, absolutely! You know what they say, the more the merrier." Aurora held onto her keys and she led Sam to the corner up ahead, where her little car awaited. Two guys wrapped in heavy dark coats congregated by the rear end.
"And Charlie and Frankie!" Sam declared.
"Hey, girly-cue!" Frank greeted her.
"Girly-cue?" she chuckled.
"Like curlicue, but different."
"She might officially become an art student here pretty soon," Aurora announced, to which Charlie's face lit up at that.
"Oh, boy!"
"Yeah, I had an interview just a little bit ago. I have to sign up for free money and give them a sample of my work."
"Typical," said Frank with a shrug of his shoulders. "But necessary, though."
"So where we going to eat lunch at?"
"There's a pho place a few blocks from here," Charlie told her, "and if you're curious—she suggested it."
"I might be Korean, but I do like a good dish of pho," Aurora said with a little smirk on her face; she climbed into the driver's seat right then.
"Shotgun!" Sam called out as she darted to the smooth car door.
"Damn it!" Frank and Charlie spat in unison; she climbed in and closed the door next to her. Even with her gloves on, she rubbed her hands together. The inside of Aurora's car was warm, cozy, dry, and smelled of ginger with a faint tinge of lemons.
"Yeah, I'm not used to it, either," Aurora confessed as she stuffed her hands into her coat pockets. Frank and Charlie climbed into the cozy back seat behind them.
"Is this your car?" Sam asked her.
"It's actually my dad's car—but he's letting me borrow it for the time being."
"You ladies might not need a car to get around here," Frank told her, "that's the beauty of living in New York City."
"Yeah, you can get just about anywhere via subway or the bus," Charlie added. "You can go all over the City, and you can go over to Philadelphia, or New Jersey, or D.C., or even over to Boston if you're willing with either of those."
"And since you girls live where you live in the City, you can get just about anything, too," Frank continued; Sam caught the sound of him pulling up the zipper on his jacket. Aurora fired up the car so it could warm up and let out some of that warm air through the heater vents on the dashboard.
"Have either of you tried New York pizza?" Frank asked them. "Like real authentic New York pizza?"
"Not yet, no," Sam confessed.
"Oh, man, you girls are gonna be in for a treat when it happens," Charlie promised them as he strapped himself in. "You're gonna love the pho here at this little place, too."
"Made by a little old lady from Saigon!" Frank chimed in. Aurora drove them up the block to the warm lit restaurant on the street corner, where they were greeted by a strong blanket of warmth and an aromatic cocktail of ginger and cooked noodles. The four of them clustered into the cozy booth in the closest corner on the left side of the room; Sam snuggled next to Frank, who had taken his seat next to the window. He bowed his head so his lush dark hair sprawled over his shoulders, and he shivered from the sudden chill courtesy of the window next to them. Before them stood four silver spoons on folded white cloth napkins.
Sam wanted to hear that new record of theirs—she drew a blank on what it was called.
"So how's the album coming along?" she asked him in a low voice.
"Almost done!" he proclaimed. "Joey lay down the vocals for the songs the past few days." He turned his head to Aurora on the other side of the table. "You heard him, didn't you, Aurora?"
"Oh, yeah!" she said with a raise of her eyebrows. "I couldn't believe it when I heard him. Just this big—huge voice resonating through the walls of the hallway. I actually had to stop what I was doing to pay attention to the playback in the next room."
"You sure it was because of him or because of me?" Charlie teased her.
"You're a given," she retorted with a chuckle. "But I heard Joey's voice and I was just enthralled by the sound of it. The way he hit those high notes and kept going higher and higher at points. He's—weirdly quick, too. Like, he changes notes at the drop of a hat. It's stunning and even kind of... I want to say hypnotic."
Within time, they put in their orders for bowls of pho courtesy of the aforementioned little old lady from Vietnam in latex gloves: Aurora asked for a bowl of vegetarian soup, while Sam and Charlie asked for chicken in their bowls, and Frank asked for beef.
"I wonder how this goes," Sam confessed in a low voice as the other woman in there brought them little white china cups of tea.
"It's like magic," Frank told her with a twinkle in his eye. She turned her head to look on at the calluses on his fingers. Surely, there had to be more to this scene than previously thought. But she returned to the sight of the old Vietnamese woman with a warm thoughtful smile on her face and her salt and pepper hair tied up in a bun behind her head; she lingered behind the counter, but she stood behind a break in the wall where they could watch her lay out some beef and some chicken in separate bowls. She poured in scalding hot broth in either bowl, and it was there that Sam realized that cooked the meat. Behind her stood a couple of pots of noodles.
She poured those into the bowls as well as some chopped vegetables and, once those were done, she picked out another bowl for Aurora's vegetarian soup.
Four bowls of pho made up within a few minutes time, and the other woman in there brought each of them over to their table. Charlie thanked her as they picked up their spoons and dipped in at the same time. Sam took a bite of the chicken, which she could tell had been cooked all the way through from the hot broth. Perfect mixture of ginger fused with vegetables and another spice that she was unsure of. It was warm and delicate, perfect for a cold day like that.
"Oh my god, this is so good," Aurora declared as she picked up a biteful of noodles, carrots, bok choi, and a pea pod.
"Told you!" Frank proclaimed.
"So, now that you have the music tracks down, what's next?" Sam asked them.
"Goes into production now," said Charlie once he swallowed down his bite of pho. "It's gotta be mastered and mixed and polished up and whatnot. That's the part that takes a long time."
"So because of that, we should expect it to come out some time in the fall," Frank added as he took another large bite of beef, which, too, had been cooked to perfection courtesy of that broth.
"Just in time for me to start school!" Sam declared.
"Just in time for school to start!" Charlie's face lit up at the sound of that. He raised his cup of tea for the bunch of them to make a toast with him. Frank brought his cup closer to his, and Aurora and Sam followed suit. Their tea cups clinked together and they drank it down in unison: the tea was nice, sweet, and warm, like a gentle hug straight out of southeast Asia. Sam set down the cup of tea and then she took another bite of pho.
She nestled down in the seat next to Frank. To think she was mingling so easily there in New York City, and she believed she was going to be a complete outlier upon arriving.
They were the only ones in that little cafe the whole entire time they ate those large bowls of warm Vietnamese soup: Sam caught Charlie picking up his bowl for a lick on the bottom.
"You like the soup, Char?" Frank cracked as he set his spoon down on the napkin on the table.
"It's amazing," Charlie quipped with a wipe of his mouth from the napkin before him.
"Satisfying, too," Aurora added as she leaned back in her seat.
"So you gotta get back to work now," Frank spoke out of the blue.
"I do, yeah! I have tomorrow off, though, so maybe the four of us can hang out together."
"You just wanna find any excuse to chill with Charlie here," Frank teased her.
"Aw," Sam showed her a smile.
"Charlie's nice to me," Aurora confessed with a shrug of her shoulders. He looked on at her like a prince with his eyebrows raised up into his wavy bangs and his dark eyes wide so as to resemble deep pools.
"What'chu gettin' at?" he sputtered.
"I wanna get wit' 'chu," she retorted.
"But we're not a couple, though."
"You guys'd make a cute couple," Sam pointed out as she picked up her cup of tea once again for a final drink.
"Ooh, yeah, they would!" Frank joined in with a twinkle in his eye and a big grin on his face.
"You just wanna see me with an Asian chick," Charlie spat.
"Remember the last time you hung out with an Asian chick?"
"Yeah, I almost lost my virginity that night, too—oh, wait, I wasn't supposed to mention that." Charlie brought a hand to his mouth, but the words had already left his lips at that point. Sam burst out laughing and Frank bowed his head to keep his otherwise big jovial laugh quiet, but it was useless. Aurora gaped at him for a few seconds before she started laughing herself.
"You wanna share, Charlie?" she demanded.
"I don't think this is the best place for that, though, Aurora," he said in a low tone. Frank covered his mouth with both hands to keep his laughter down.
"I have time, you know," she quipped. "I don't have to clock back in for another twenty minutes."
"Yeah, and not only that, but I'm kinda curious now," Sam joined in, to which she folded her arms over the top of the table.
"Oh, c'mon, Sam!"
"It'll keep Frankie over here from busting a stitch," Aurora pointed out. Charlie shot Frank a mortified glance; Frank, meanwhile, gazed on at him with his face gone as red as a cherry tomato and his hands clasped over his mouth. Every so often, his shoulders quivered with the impending laughter.
"Okay," Charlie said. He extended his hands over the top of the table. His long lanky fingers fanned out like the feathers of a male peacock. "This was two years ago, back when I had first joined the band—like literally right when I joined the band. I got off the phone with Scott and Danny the night before and they told me to get my ass in because they were beginning work on something for the label. So I was in the space first thing the next morning with my drum kit. Frankie was still in school, but he told about this Asian girl in his class who had the hots for him. I mean, she was totally nuts about him—Frankie couldn't hardly get her off of his ass. She was a little older than him, too: Frankie was still seventeen and she was eighteen so of course he told me about her."
"What'd you do?" asked Aurora.
"Well after rehearsal and after Scott showed me the songs they had on deck, and I had gone home to try them out for myself, I ran into her. She was about your height, Aurora—but she wasn't nearly as pretty as you, though. She asked me, 'hey, do you know Frank?' And I was like 'Frank—Bello?' And she nodded her head and I was like, 'why, what's up?' And she said, 'When's he turning eighteen?' And I said, 'Why's it matter?' And she goes, 'I wanna have a little fun with him on his birthday, so tell me when it is', and I go, 'you know, I'm his brother.'" Sam giggled at that.
"And she goes, 'oh, really?' and her face lit up at the sound of it, too," Charlie continued, "and I nodded my head at her real slowly like this." He nodded his head at a slow pace with a nervous smile on his face all the while.
"I dunno if you ladies ever felt the lust from someone before—but I stood before her and I could feel the attraction from her. It was just oozing out from her—it was like a pulse of sorts. I went on to say that Frankie might not even be available come the summer, too: he might be going off to college to play baseball by the time his birthday rolls around."
Frank brought his hands to his mouth again.
"So what'd you do?" asked Sam.
"I told her, 'if you're feelin' it right now, I can do the honors for you right here.' And she goes, 'right here?' Stunned, just like that. And I nodded at her with a grin on my face. And so I took her hand and I led her to like this little nook off to the side—we were standing outside of the school when this whole thing went down, so I took her over to a nook behind the cafeteria for a little meeting of east and west, if you know what I mean." Charlie then brought his hands to his face, to which Frank began laughing again.
"How'd it go?" Sam pressed on, that time in a lower voice. Charlie shook his head behind his hands and Frank bowed his head towards the top of the table.
"Charlie, how'd it go?" Aurora asked him as a nervous grin appeared with her. He then lifted his face from his palms so he could rub his eyes.
"Me," he said in a low voice. "Me!" He then leaned back in his seat to point at himself. "Imagine me, this dumbass right here—this, this complete dumbass right here—taking this Asian chick who's barely legal and a year older than my underage nephew slash kid brother back to an alleyway to pop both of our cherries. She looks at me—" He closed his eyes and ran his tongue along his bottom lip. "—goes, 'what're you doing?' and I'm like, 'what you want me to do. You know.' And she goes, 'no, I don't. I think I probably should've added I wanted to throw him a party for his birthday. I wanted to get to know those close to him so I know what he likes. What'd you think I meant?'"
Frank wiped away tears from laughing so hard. Aurora and Sam glanced at one another with grins on their faces.
"It gets better, though," he continued with a wag of his finger. "I said, 'I thought—you wanted me to teach you how to at least kiss.' And the whole entire time, I could feel my face growing about as red as Frankie's is right now. But lucky for me—really, I still feel like I got lucky with this—she had a sense of humor, though: she said, 'oh, no, I've got plenty of that under my belt, thank you, though.' And then she looks at me with her eyes squinted closed a bit, and goes, 'I do like the way your mind works, though.' And I said, 'if I'm honest, I'm a drummer. You know, the whole trope about drummers not really getting any. Sometimes one'll slip.' And she goes, 'it's weird to think that because I've always thought the rhythm section was the sexier of the band.' And I said, 'really?' And she goes, 'oh yeah. Drummers bang and bass players are like sweet chariots in that they swing low, if you know what I mean.'"
Aurora and Sam gaped at one another again, to which the latter began laughing at the whole notion.
"So what happened after that?" Aurora asked him.
"We planned a party for Frankie for his birthday in July. It was a good thing we did because we found out he had lost his scholarship."
"Aw!" Aurora and Sam groaned in unison.
"But Danny got fired, though," Frank pointed out.
"Yeah, Danny Lilker got fired because of Neil's nonsense," Charlie echoed, "and I told him, 'hey, dude, you wanna be in this band with me? We'll be the sexy rhythm section together.' And he goes, 'yeah, sure, why not? It's either that or work a stupid job I'd probably hate to support myself.' And the rest is—as you know—" He brought his tea cup back to his lips. "—history. Just worked out beautifully."
Aurora then peered down at her watch.
"Oh, shit, I gotta get back to work!" she declared. With that, the four of them pitched in for the bill and stood to their feet; Sam and Frank thanked the two women in there before they stepped back outside to the impending snow. Aurora fished her keys out of her purse once they reached the car, and they all slid back into the warm interior. No sooner had they gotten back in when they had to climb back out to the sidewalk outside of the building. Aurora ducked inside to clock back in on time; Charlie and Frank turned to Sam, who stuck her hands into her coat pockets. Frank adjusted the lapels of his jacket and brought the collar in closer to his neck.
"You wanna take a walk?" he offered her.
"You guys don't have anywhere to be?" she asked them, slightly stunned.
"Not right now, no," Charlie confessed with a shake of his head. "As long as you don't have anywhere to be, that is."
"Not right now, no," Sam echoed him. "I have to go home and compile a portfolio but that won't take me very long, though."
"True."
"But yeah, I wanna get to know this place better, though. I want to know what I've gotten myself into here."
"And you should know what you got yourself into with us, too," Charlie quipped, which brought a laugh out of her.
With nothing more to add, the three of them padded down the sidewalk together, like three kids on their way to school.
"So is Joey back upstate?" she asked them as they reached the crosswalk.
"Oh, yeah—he went back up yesterday morning," Frank told her over the noise of the street. "Poor guy slept on the hard couch in there and I guess he had a rough night all the while, too."
"Aw, that blows," Sam remarked.
"Yeah, I've had to do that a few times myself," said Charlie as he took a little pair of horn rimmed sunglasses out from his coat pocket, even though the sun was still buried behind the clouds. "That couch actually isn't bad, though—I've taken naps on it, and so has Scott. Wouldn't recommend it but it's better than sleeping on the floor, though."
"Now, I had to do that," Frank added with a wag of his finger. "Not too long ago, actually."
"Was it when you moved in downstairs?" she asked him; he paused for a second, and then his face lit up.
"Actually, yeah! I didn't have my bed yet and I hate sleeping on my couch so I put down the blankets on the floor as well as my pillow, and I lay down."
"Why do you hate sleeping on your couch?"
"Cushions are scratchy," Charlie said as they walked across the street to the opposite corner.
"Yeah, the cushions are scratchy because of the feathers and it's just not very comfortable to lay on. We found it outside of our old building and it looked pristine, like someone had just dropped it off there, and so I took it for myself."
"It is quite the event to sit on, too," Charlie added.
"Yeah, you don't really wanna sit on it during the summer time," Frank pointed out; his voice trailed off and they reached the next crosswalk. Frank stood to her left while Charlie hung there on her right. Sam peered across the pavement to all the little shops which lined the sidewalks all around them. Directly across the intersection from them stood a music shop. Sam spotted a young boy in the front window there with a pale yellow acoustic guitar rested upon his lap. He had a thick head of jet black hair and slender little arms: he made her think of Joey, except he was far more pale than him and his hair was smoother in comparison.
She wondered how Joey himself was doing back at his place in the upstate part of New York. She hoped he had slept well in his bed that night before; she also thought of what Aurora had told her about him the other day. There was a part of her that wished she had seen him looking on at her there in that room just to make sure of it.
The light turned green and the three of them padded across the street; before they reached the curb, Sam took another glimpse into the shop window across the street at that boy in there. She wondered if Joey played any other instruments besides his own voice.
The pho she had eaten earlier kept her warm even in the face of the cold winds; the taste of the ginger with the hot tea lingered in the back of her mouth, although she wished for a drink of warm water. The three of them strolled on the soaking wet sidewalk; the gutter next to them had been lined with stout snow drifts courtesy of the plows. More snow was upon them: she could feel it hanging over their heads, up in those dark clouds overhead.
"So you guys know your way around Brooklyn and everything?" she asked them as they congregated underneath a stretch of awning; she turned to find it was a flower shop which had pulled in for the winter time.
"Of course, of course," Frank replied with a shiver down his spine. "We know more about the Bronx than Brooklyn or Manhattan, though, if I'm being honest."
"There's a subway up ahead if you guys wanna go back up to the Bronx, though," Charlie pointed out; indeed, straight ahead stood a wrought iron fence on the sidewalk.
"Sounds decent," said Frank as he adjusted the lapels on his jacket. "It's gonna be a bit before the train comes back, though."
"There was that music shop back there," she pointed to the corner behind them.
"I like her, Charlie," Frank confessed.
"I like her, too," Charlie agreed, "although we both got enough with us, though. But that's real sweet of you, Sam."
"Yeah, Charlie and I made an agreement that we're gonna cherish our female fans when they come along," Frank told her.
"Aw, that's so sweet," she remarked.
"If we get more money from the label, we oughta get her something, Char."
"You guys aren't making any money?" She gaped at them.
"Not at the moment, no," Charlie confessed with a shrug of his shoulders. "We did make a little bit from a few gigs this past year, though."
"Explains why the four of us pitched in," Frank pointed out.
"I've got five hundred bucks in my account," Charlie continued, "and Frankie's got a little from a grant he had applied for before he went to school. If this record is a hit, I'll be seeing that number go up."
"I hope it is a hit, oh my god." Sam brought a hand to her chest.
"It could be worse, though," Frank pointed out. "We could be like those poor guys across the street." He gestured to the triad of homeless men on the other side of the street: all three of them donned in rags and looking as though they had been out there for months on end.
"For real," Charlie added.
"So this record is—" Sam hesitated.
"The one thing keeping us away from life on the streets," Frank told her. The three of them stood in stunned silence; she peered up to the buildings there across the street, and she realized they were underneath a series of apartment buildings. People in there nice and warm in comparison to those poor three guys on the sidewalk.
"Wanna go back up?" Charlie suggested right then.
"Yeah, might as well," Frank replied.
"It's cold out here," Sam chimed in.
"Yeah, it feels like the snow's upon us, Char..."
The three of them proceeded to walk on up to the wrought iron entrance on the sidewalk up ahead. Sam shivered from the cold over their heads; she rounded the rim of the fence first and proceeded on down the stairs.
"Hey, California girl, wait up!" Frank called out to her, which brought a laugh out of Charlie. She waited for them at the one landing there on the stairs, and then the three of them continued on into the terminal. The three of them posted up at the platform in anticipation of the next subway train to take them home to the Bronx.
The terminal was cold and wet from the tunnels on either side of them; Frank and Charlie huddled closer to her to keep her warm and to keep themselves warm in turn.
"Did I give you my number?" Frank asked her.
"Nah, I thought we both figured that since we're neighbors we didn't need to," Sam recalled.
"I think we should, though. You know—as sort of like a 'just in case' kind of thing, you know?"
"Like in case something happens to the both of us," she followed along.
"I'll give you mine, too," Charlie added as he took off his sunglasses and tucked them back into his coat pocket. "And I'll give you Scott, Dan, and Joey's numbers, too."
Within time, the subway rolled up on the rail before them and the three of them boarded there near the front, where they found the whole car was loaded full with passengers. They huddled near the door, to which Sam held onto the rung over her head with her free hand. Frank and Charlie both gripped onto the metal poles.
"It kind of reminds me of a stripper's pole," the former joked, which made the latter bow his head to hide the grin on his face. Sam giggled at him, but her laughter was cut short by the subway's darting forward. She almost lost her balance from the sudden jolt but she caught herself by the strength of her own hand on the rung. A few people behind her backed up a bit but they remained in place otherwise they could probably topple over like a bunch of dominoes.
Lucky for her, the subway was warm and dry even with the patches of water on the hard metal floor underneath them. She held onto her purse with nothing more than her fingertips. Frank lingered closer to her, away from the rest of the crowd of passengers behind them. Charlie kept his hand on the pole in front of him to steady himself.
"You alright?" Frank asked her.
"Yeah. I just—wasn't expecting that."
"I don't think anyone was, if I'm frank."
"You are Frank," she retorted, which brought a laugh out of Charlie, and then it soon brought a laugh out of Frank himself.
That long ride up the spine of New York City with their arms up proved to be quite the event in and of itself. By the halfway point, Sam put her arm down and shook her hand about, but then again, most of the people on the car with them had already filed out at that stop. Charlie beckoned Frank and Sam to take a seat by the double doors. The three of them huddled next to each other like a little trio of young penguins.
At least they were warm for the remainder of the trip back to their humble homes up in the Bronx. By the time they rolled into the terminal it was mid afternoon, and the warm sensation from the pho and the tea both had worn off.
"You got anything to eat?" Frank asked her once they were back outside; small snow flurries floated down from the gray sky overcast.
"For dinner?"
"Yeah."
"Oh, yeah. Why, do you have anything?"
"For tonight and tomorrow, yeah."
"Okay, that's good. You kinda worried me there for a second..." The three of them walked along the sidewalk back to their humble apartment complex.
Indeed, once Sam unlocked the door, she made her way over to the opposite wall in the living room and she turned on the thermostat to bring on the heat. Frank hung near the front door with his hands in his coat pockets to keep the warmth inside. Charlie took a seat on her couch and ran his fingers through his dark hair; Sam brought out a little pad of paper from the kitchen for him. He took off the pen cap with his mouth and scribbled down their numbers on the paper for her.
"How 'bout you?" she asked him.
"What about me?" he asked with his mouth full.
"You got anything for dinner?"
"Oh, yeah. Thank you, though—"
He then showed her the pad of paper, which beheld a series of phone numbers for her. Joey's number first, followed his own, Frank, Dan, Scott, and even Jon and Marsha's number.
"Oh, wow, thank you," she said with a smile on her face. Charlie stood to his feet and flung his arms around her.
"Call me any time you need anything," he told her.
"Me, too," Frank joined in; Charlie let go of her so he could give her a hug himself. "Get to work on that little art thing, too."
"Going to once you guys bounce," she vowed.
"You don't wanna see us bounce," Charlie assured her.
"Yeah, we don't bounce, if I'm frank," Frank joked.
"Be frank, Frank," Charlie added as the two of them headed on out of her apartment. Sam glanced down at the piece of paper in her hand and she sighed through her nose.
Something caught her eye. She turned her head to the left to see the black thing on the shelf next to the door. It was that journal.
That was it! That could be the start of her portfolio. Or perhaps it could be a part of the whole package.
But either way, it was as if fate had brought her to it. The question of course was what she could draw in there.