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Around three p.m., I drive to the airport to pick up Zander. I am a few minutes early as I wait at baggage claim. I see him moving down the escalator with his guitar case on his back. I know instantly that summer treated him well. His blond hair has even more natural highlights, and his skin is a golden tone.
I half run to him, and he greets me with a huge bear hug, lifting me up from the ground.
“So good to see you, Z.”
He pulls me back to take a good look at me. I have on cutoff jean shorts and a yellow tank top. “Gosh, it’s good to see you, Ang.”
“How was your flight? Do you miss San Diego yet? How is your family?”
“Good, just the waves, good,” he answers with a laugh. He adjusts his case on his back. “I’m not ready for classes to start, that’s for sure.”
“Yeah. I’m not really looking forward to this semester,” I admit.
Zander gives me a half frown. “You’ll do great, Angie. I know you will.”
He always has been a great support system for me. Always rooting me on. Even when I fail.
“How’s your sister?” I ask.
“She is good. Might get engaged this year, who knows.”
We move over to the conveyor belts and wait until his luggage comes down the ramp. For planning to live here for a full school year, he packs light. Just two big pieces and he has everything he needs. I pull up the handle and help him pull one of the cases toward the parking lot tram.
We enter the transit and find the only empty seats available in the back. I clumsily pull the suitcase through the narrow passageway and bump into a couple of elbows on accident.
Once seated, Zander turns to me with his crooked smile. “How was your summer, Ang? I’m assuming you were pretty busy since I haven’t heard from you much.”
I feel the pang of guilt. I have not been a good friend. “I had some drama with Russell.”
Zander swipes a hand through his long blond locks and sighs. “Yeah? I never liked that d-bag.”
“It’s over now. I am so done.”
“Good.” His smile is warm.
The tram stops to let off a group of people at Section A parking as we continue to discuss Russell.
“So, enough about me. Tell me what has kept you busy lately.”
“I released my first app and made it public.”
“What? Really? That is awesome!” I reach for his hand and give it a squeeze. “So amazing.”
“Thanks.” I can tell he wants to talk about it but doesn’t want to feel like he is bragging. That is Zander. Always humble.
“What’s the name of it? What does it do? Why did you wait until now to tell me?”
“I called it Musix. It is an app for running chords or lyrics to double check for plagiarism when writing your own stuff. It compares words and combinations of music notes to create a percentage or line-by-line match with thousands of songs in the database.”
“That sounds awesome.”
I watch as Zander pulls up the app on his phone. He demonstrates some of the features as I watch on with pride that he was able to accomplish one of his dreams.
The tram finally stops at Section D, and we exit. The trunk of my older model Honda Civic is too small for both pieces of luggage, so we toss the other one in the backseat. I hop onto the highway and make my way back into the city. Zander and I talk about his family. I’m sure he sees through my deflections to avoid talking about what is left of mine but does not pressure me.
“When will your car arrive here? Your sister driving it up like last time?” I ask.
“It’s already here, actually. My dad decided to drop it off while attending a conference up here. He ended up just flying back then.”
