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“I love pizza.” And I did.
“Great.” Then he shifted to another topic. “How was your day?”
“I’m ready to be finished with classes. At this point, I’ve been in school since I was five, and I’m kind of over it,” I said with a chuckle.
J.R. laughed, too. “I was never great at school. Didn’t think I needed to try my luck at college.”
“You’re a great musician.”
“Tell my family that,” he mumbled with a sort of eye roll.
He hadn’t said much about his family, but I got the feeling that he was not on good terms with them. I could relate. I hadn’t spoken to my own mother in over a year. She never called, and I didn’t care to call her either. We were mutually relieved to be rid of each other, I think.
Soon, we had arrived at the pizza shop and were waiting to be seated. The smell of homemade pizza filled my nostrils, and I couldn’t help but smile. There’s something about the aroma of dough, cheese, and meat that sparked happiness deep within my soul. I probably had a carbohydrate problem, but don’t we all?
We were finally seated at a table, a small corner booth in the back of the restaurant. It was a private seating arrangement, and I thought it appropriate. I had J.R. all to myself. J.R. ordered us a couple of beers, and we looked over the menu together.
“Favorite pizza topping?” J.R. asked me as his eyes scanned the menu.
I thought about this for a moment. “Mushroom, onion, and bacon.” It really was my favorite trio of toppings on a pizza. “Oh, and light sauce because I’m an old lady, and I get heartburn easily.” I rolled my own eyes at myself and giggled softly.
J.R. looked up at me from his menu and chuckled, too. His blue eyes seemed to glow at me.
We ordered a pizza with my favorite toppings, plus J.R.’s (sausage and banana peppers); and then we relaxed back into our booths, sipped on our beer, and chatted just about everything.
“How did J.R. and the Band get started?” I asked him.
I always wondered how bands began. The Beatles got their start when John Lennon and Paul McCartney met as teenagers on a hot July day in 1957. At the time, Lennon had been playing in a band called the Quarrymen, and McCartney had been a spectator in the audience. After the show was finished, McCartney met Lennon backstage, and the rest was history.
“I’ve always played music. Piano, guitar, and even drums,” J.R. responded. “Ian, our bassist, and I went to school together. We’d get together after school and just mess around in the garage with different sounds. I guess our band officially began the day after we competed in a battle-of-the-bands competition. We won, obviously.” He laughed slightly at his own joke. “Charlie and Dee showed up at my house after having seen our show and auditioned without prompting, and we had ourselves a band by sundown.”
“Isn’t it strange how sometimes, things come together in the oddest ways?” I smiled, thinking of how odd it was for me to have even been at The Handlebar that night, but then, meeting J.R. was even more out of the ordinary. Even still, it had happened; and there we were, eating pizza, sipping on beer, and talking with each other as though we had known each other our entire lives.
“It has been quite the adventure. We have been all over the country. Of course, we’ve not played in anything outside of music festivals and smaller venues. It’s still a blast. I wouldn’t want it any other way.”
I found myself fully engaged in the conversation, fascinated by his stories and falling deeper in like with him. I admired how he spoke with such gentleness. He listened when I spoke, retaining the bits of my life that I shared with him. I noticed compassion in his glance but also a genuine interest in my life.
“So, you’re a writer?” J.R. asked me after I shared a bit too much about my hopes and dreams.
“I want to be,” I corrected him. “Right now, I’m just an administrative assistant. I graduate from the university soon. I’m hoping that I can land a position with a publishing company to get my feet wet after I graduate.”
“Are you staying here in the Upstate, or do you think you’ll ever return home?”
I had spoken briefly of my mom to J.R. I hadn’t been home since I graduated high school, and I hadn’t given much thought to returning home.
I shrugged at his question. “I’m not sure. I’ve not really thought about it, to be honest.”
“It’ll come to you. Where you’re supposed to be—it’ll come to you.”
I stared at him for a few seconds too long, admiring the laid-back approach he took to life. I had been avoiding trying to figure out where I would end up after graduation. The thought alone gave me anxiety, but then here was J.R. with the simplest of advice: it’ll come to you.
Why hadn’t I thought of that? I hadn’t thought of anything really. I had avoided anything that had to do with the future and tried to focus on what was in front of me. To some extent, that was a good thing, but I had always been a planner. One would have thought that I had a plan for after graduation, but I didn’t.
After dinner, J.R. took me back to my apartment. He was leaving for another city the next morning, and I could tell that he didn’t want to go. He was intrigued with me and I with him, and I wondered if we would see each other again. I hoped so, but my life was about to get chaotic with exams before graduation, and he was on tour with his band. When would we see each other next?
We stood outside my apartment door, and I thought about inviting him in. The yellow lights of the apartment complex’s breezeway cast an odd color across our faces as we stood there, continuing the conversation we had been enjoying all evening.
He looked down at me with his soft, blue eyes. “Is it okay if I call you while I’m on the road?” he asked. The question felt a little old-fashioned, but I appreciated it.
