“How old are you, Mr. Connelly?” I asked as we walked out of the building together.
“I don’t know if I’m allowed to share that kind of information with you,” he replied, opening the door for me.
“I won’t tell anyone,” I said. “I don’t have any friends anyway.”
“I see you sitting with Avery at lunch,” he said.
He noticed I sat with Avery at lunch? What? Was he checking up on me?
“Um, she’s not really a friend,” I replied.
“Oh.”
I cleared my throat. “So how old?”
“Well, as long as it’s our secret,” he said. “I just turned twenty-eight.”
“Whoa.”
“What does that mean?” he asked.
“I thought you were, like, twenty-two or something,” I said. I could not be in love with a 28-year-old man. Just too old.
“Sorry to disappoint you,” Mr. Connelly said, laughing.
“You just look younger. But I guess that’s a good thing. For adults anyway. To look younger than your age.”
“And teens want the exact opposite, right?” Mr. Connelly asked. “You wanna look older.”
“Enough to buy beer,” I agreed.
He shook his head. “God, I miss high school sometimes.”
I stopped dead in my tracks. “What?”
“Did I say something wrong?” Mr. Connelly asked, turning around.
“I’d say so!” I cried. “Something sacrilegious, at least! You miss high school?”
“It’s not horrible for everyone, Cadence,” Mr. Connelly said, smiling. “I had fun friends. It was a good time.” He thought for a moment. “Now that I think about it, though, I could have given my parents less to worry about. I was a little bad.” He winked at me.
I didn’t want him winking at me. I didn’t want to have this conversation any longer. I felt like a complete loser. It was bad enough I had a ridiculous crush on him. I didn’t need to know how cool he was in high school.
“So you think you’ll check out that record store?” he asked.
I nodded. I didn’t need to know how cool he was in high school, but I was desperate to learn about him now.
***
“I’m supposed to ask for Dylan,” I said, walking into the most disorganized store I’d ever seen.
“That’s me,” the young man behind the counter replied. “Can I help you with something?”
“Well, my . . . friend sent me here and told me to ask you to pick something out for me to listen to on vinyl.” I hoped it came out right. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to put an article in front of “vinyl.” The vinyl? A vinyl?
Dylan smiled. “Never heard anything on a record before?”
I shook my head.
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-one,” I replied. I don’t know why I lied.
He nodded. “So we’ve got a newbie.”
“You’re not gonna give me a long, drawn-out history of records, are you?”
Dylan burst out laughing, then shook his head. “No. I’ll spare you. Have you ever seen a record player?”
“Duh,” I replied, though I hadn’t.
Dylan grinned. He knew I was lying. “Say, who sent you?”
“Uh, Mark Connelly,” I replied.
“Ohhh, Mark,” Dylan said. “Yeah, he called a little while ago. Left something for you. You’re Cadence, right? One of his students? What are you doing in high school if you’re twenty-one?”
My face turned the color of a tomato. “He left me something?”
“Yeah,” Dylan said. “If you’re Cadence, anyway. You fit the description. Short. Blond hair. Blue eyes.”
“He described me?” I almost fainted. I’m not joking.
“Uh huh.” Dylan searched the back counter until he found a record. He pulled off the sticky note that read “Cadence” and handed it to me. “He called me a little while ago. Said you’d be in today. He thought you might like this.”
I took the record tentatively, scanning the front cover that featured two men rifling through records in a store much like the one I was in now.
“So I’m thinking you’re not twenty-one,” Dylan said.
I shook my head. “I don’t know why I said that. Maybe so that you’d take me more seriously.”
“I take anyone seriously who walks into my store,” Dylan replied.
“Good business practice,” I said.
“So how old are you?” he asked.
“Almost eighteen.”
“Which means you’re seventeen.”
I nodded.
“And you think your musical tastes are changing?”
“I don’t know.”
“Have you heard this album before?”
“Yes. On CD.”
Dylan nodded. “Would you like to hear it sound even better?”
I smiled. “Yes.”
“Well, come with me,” he said, and led me to the back of the store. “I’d no idea Mark was in charge of your musical education, too.”
I blushed and turned my face.
“Doesn’t surprise me, though,” Dylan went on.
“What do you mean?” I asked, stopping in front of a strange device that looked like something from a ‘70s movie.
“Mark was always taking on pet projects in college. Before he got big into instrumental hip hop, he was pushing some bullshit environmental cause. One of our friends showed a tiny bit of interest, and that was it. He was off and running like a maniac.”
I bristled. I didn’t like the idea of being a “pet project” for my math teacher. Moreover, I didn’t like that he saw me as an impressionable young girl in need of guidance. Even if it was only musical guidance. I should never have taken that CD from him. I should never have come here.
“So this is a record player,” Dylan said. “And here’s how it works.”
He took the record from me, pulled the vinyl from its sleeve, and placed it carefully on what he called a “turntable.” He turned on the player and picked up the “arm.”
“Now, here’s the tricky part. You have to be very careful when you place the arm on the record. See the needle on the tip?”
I looked closely and nodded.
“That’s what plays your songs, but it can also scratch the record. So slowly and carefully is the name of the game,” Dylan said, lowering the arm and gently placing the needle on the outer edge of the record. “I don’t use cueing levers. Those are for amateurs.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I replied.