Once When You Were Mine

Chapter Twelve

                                                  "I'm empty and aching and I don't know why...

                                                    counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike..."

                                                                                  - Simon & Garfunkel

Austin and I had made a tentative truce and our friendship, though it had resumed, still felt like it teetered. I did my best not to talk about Nate and to make sure I made time to hang out with Austin. It was a hard balancing act. I felt like any second I might slip up and cause a rift that would be hard to patch.

In mid-April, Mr. Haar announced that our long-awaited band trip would be to Canada. We were going to attend a Music Festival in Toronto, play concerts in Ottawa and Montreal, and stop at a high school in Liverpool, NY on the way there. Sign-up sheets were put on the band room door and we were told to pick a bus buddy – someone to sit with for the trip, so that everyone would be able to account for at least one other person.

On the way out of the band room that day, Austin said, "How about it? Think we could survive a week on a bus together without killing each other?"

"It wouldn't be boring, that's for sure," I grinned.

Without a second thought, we signed our names on the same list as some of our other friends. In the coming weeks, we attended extra band rehearsals, were handed hotel room assignments (I would be with Sarah and Anita), and discussed the trip excitedly. This time it was Nate I had to be careful around. I tried not to talk about the trip too much. He was already less than thrilled that I would be spending so much time with Austin.

* * *

The day before I left for Canada, I spent the day playing stickball with Nate and the guys at my old elementary school. It was such a beautiful day, sunny and an unseasonably warm 80 degrees. I'd only had a completely secure feeling a few times in my life – that day was one of them. The late afternoon sun turned everything golden, shining on the lime-green maple buds, brightening the yellow burnish of the forsythia. And there I was with friends that I felt really accepted me. Such moments of sublime happiness are often fleeting so I tried to memorize every detail of that day, to store it for another less happy time.

The next day I found myself on a bus on the NY Throughway headed for Liverpool, NY. The time went pretty slowly – everyone was tired from our early start. Austin sat next to me dozing on and off. I listened to my Walkman and watched the scenery fly by. NY was pretty in the spring. The further upstate we got, the more we were surrounded by gentle mountains full of trees ready to bloom. The sky was blue with puffy cotton-ball clouds. It was nice to see spring finally here. It had been a long time coming.

There was some minor excitement when our bus lost the other two. We laboriously made a three or four-point turn at a rest stop and headed back the way we had come, only to pass the other buses, necessitating yet another U-turn.

We got to Liverpool, NY without any further mishaps, unless you count Austin, spurred on by the city name of Liverpool, launching into a lecture about the Beatles. He was mercifully cut short by our arrival at the high school. Our band was subjected to performances of Liverpool Academy's brass quartet, flute quartet, and saxophone quartet. "All they're missing is a barbershop quartet," I muttered to Austin. He laughed, earning a dirty look from Mr. Haar. Finally we piled back on the bus to cross the border into Canada.