“Yeah, but they made me puke, so I left them at home. It’s plain old Advil for me, and I take them by the fistful.”
Another guy sat down with us, a preppy blond with a country club haircut. “The leg hurts that much?” he asked.
“Everything hurts,” Hartley said. “…My good leg, from working so hard, my hip, from swinging the cast through. My armpits.”
“Your crutch handles are set too low,” I said, wiping my mouth on my napkin.
“Really?” Hartley perked up.
“Really. Move them up a notch, and never lean on the underarm supports. Trust me.”
He pointed a french fry at me. “You are a very useful neighbor, Callahan.”
I shook my head. “If there was a game show for physical therapy trivia, I could win big.”
The preppy guy gave me a weird look. But I was used to those. So instead of feeling bad about it, I finished my meatball sub. It was delicious.
After dinner, Dana and I paid forty dollars for a used couch in a shade of not-too-ugly blue. Bridger and the preppy, whom they called Fairfax, carried it into our room.
“Thank you, thank you!” Dana said, dancing in front of them to open up our room. The accessible door was so wide that they didn’t even have to tip the sofa to carry it in.
“Nice room,” Bridger said, setting down his end of the sofa. “Let’s see yours, Hartley.”
With both our doors blocked open, I heard Hartley’s friends exclaim over his single across the hall. He didn’t have a common room like ours, but I’d noticed that his room was also generously sized. “Christ, a double bed? Nice.”
“Just in time for your girlfriend to leave the country,” Fairfax snickered. “Where is she, anyway?”
Hartley’s voice answered. “The mall? A salon? Somewhere expensive. Whatever. Who wants a beer before she gets back?”
After admiring our new furniture, and dragging Dana’s trunk over to be our coffee table, we made our way across campus to the singing group jam. Inside the auditorium, we were handed a program on a half-sheet of paper. There were ten groups listed, each one singing two songs. “They have to hand this out,” Dana explained as we parked ourselves in the designated handicapped spot, where my chair wouldn’t stick out into the aisle. “So that the rushes can remember who sang what.”
The groups all had cute names, like the Harkness Harmonics, and the Tony Tones. When the lights dimmed, the first group walked onstage — twelve guys in matching T-shirts and khaki shorts. I checked the program. They were the Minstrel Marauders.
“A cappella is kind of nerdy,” Dana leaned over to say. “But in a good way.”
After a few minutes, I was inclined to agree with her. One guy on the far end held up a pitch pipe and blew a single note. His eleven friends hummed a chord. And then the leader stashed his pitch pipe, raising both hands. When he brought them down again, the group launched into a rendition of “Up the Ladder to the Roof” in four-part harmony. And somehow they made a song that was on the radio when my parents were little sound cool. I’d always thought that athletes were my type. But I had to admit that a dozen men rocking out to an up-tempo love song was pretty appealing.
“They’re great,” I whispered.
Dana nodded. “They’re supposed to be the best men’s group.”
The next bunch were the Mixed Masters, a coed chorus. They looked like they were having an awful lot of fun, but they lacked the perfection of the Marauders.
“Next…” Dana whispered. But the following group — Something Special — made her squeeze my wrist. “This is my ‘reach’ group,” she said.
The women made a perfect semicircle on stage. They linked arms, and then began to sing a lovely, haunting version of “Desperado” by the Eagles.
When it was over, the applause was furious. “Wow,” I said. “They rock.”
“I know,” Dana sighed. “But did you notice how blond they are? I wonder if that’s a coincidence. Maybe you should audition, Corey. Your have almost the right coloring.”
“No way,” I said automatically, putting a hand up to my sun-streaked hair.
I wondered why Dana didn’t hear the flaw in her own logic. If Something Special cared so much about appearances, imagine what a wheelchair or crutches would do to the pretty line of smiling faces? Did Dana honestly think that any of the attractive groups onstage would look right with me parked in the center of them?
The jam was fun to watch, but I knew where I stood. So to speak.
Chapter Four: You Think You're So Sneaky
— Corey
There was a knock on our door the following week, as Dana and I dug into our course reading. “It’s open,” I called.
The wooden door swung in to reveal Hartley and his crutches. “Evening,” he said. “Is everybody working hard? I can come back another time.”
Dana snapped her book shut. “I have an audition in a half-hour. What’s up?”
“I have a strange and selfish request.”