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During the course of the year, Adrianna and June became inseparable, they could be seen riding their bikes all over town and June was happy that she could keep with fairly good balance the bonds with both her old and new circle of friends. It turned out that Adrianna also shared some of June’s musical preferences so they spent more than a few rainy afternoons listening to Adrianna’s father‘s old vinyl records collection.

June got quickly used to the concert drill, the girls seemed to be always thrilled by the newest rock band of the moment, their allegiance changing as fast as the number one song in the Billboard charts. At one point she ended up joining then just out of companionship instead of actual will, but most times ended up enjoying herself and even sharing her friends’ excitement. The backstage scenes repeated themselves time and again, except for some times every once in a while when Adrianna’s father dispatched them back home right away after the lights onstage went out, evidencing that what was going on backstage wasn’t precisely suitable for a group of innocent 16 year-olds. Most bands sounded and looked more or less the same and some band members were nicer than others, but in June’s head they soon begun to blend into each other. June’s musical taste, despite her age, was already refined enough to be able to tell with a decent degree of certainty which ones would make the cut and which wouldn’t. She stuck the most to those who showed exceptional good lyrics, outstanding showmanship or instrumental expertise, which could be counted with the fingers in one hand. At the end of the day, however, none was able to make a noticeable dent in her preferences – she stuck with the classics.

There came a day when Adrianna fell head over heels in love with a tall, thin, long haired boy, Paul, that she’d met at a birthday party. Fortunately and thanks to the tight bond the girls had created, this change in circumstances didn’t take a toll on their relationship. Far from it – Adrianna’s love interest was part of a hiking group and both girls loved outdoor activities, so there was no hesitation when Paul invited them to join his group for a weekend excursion along the shores of Lake Michigan. That’s where June met Michael: gold- blonde feathered hair, the widest and whitest smile she’d ever seen, tall, broad shoulders and thin waist, responsible, gentle and modest despite his in-your-face good looks. Michael: nothing but a complete sweetheart.

That was it for June. She’d never been struck so hard in her life. And she soon found out it was mutual.

Three months later she took him to her cousin’s wedding, making their relationship finally official. The two couples of best friends often went on hiking, biking, trekking or camping excursions together. The first half of the last year of high-school passed in this manner, with no unusual events.

The second half, however, would bring some surprises along. For many years now, it had been a no-brainer for June what she was going to study in college. As most ordinary girls she’d kept a journal during the first years of adolescence, which helped her cope with the issues that arose during that troublesome phase. At one point she found herself feeling the need to write other kind of stories, stories that flowed in her head and strived to come out, sometimes with such intensity that prevented her from sleeping, keeping her up for many an hour at night until she was able to empty her thoughts and drop dead asleep. While she was writing it was as if her mind and her fingers did all the work, only after finishing she was able to read with some degree of objectivity what she had written and find that most of her stories were based on actual people she cared about that were going through a hard time. In those universes in her mind, she invented happy-endings for them, as a way of sending her good wishes, so she didn’t show them to anyone, though, and kept them to herself instead. After all, who was she to go around “fixing” other people’s lives?

That experience did, however, made her really good at opinion essays, reason for which she was offered a weekly column on the local newspaper. Her wit, abandon and sense of humor beyond her years to talk about what bothered her as a teenager became a huge hit, even amongst the adult readers.

There was something else that itched inside of her, too, and that was traveling, so besides English, then, she’d take up a couple of foreign languages as well. Her first choice was Italian so she would be able read her favorite author in the original version, then maybe even some Chinese, just out of curiosity.

Deciding what to study was easy, but where was a different struggle. Anybody would call her crazy for not studying at the University of Michigan, but Kalamazoo had become small for her, and June needed a change of scenery. She’d never questioned the fact that she’d be studying in another city, maybe on the West Coast, someplace warm, with nice beaches. That had been her default resolution throughout her high-school years, but some factors in the equation had changed now: there was Michael, and he would be studying Economics at UM. It was time for June to make one of the first big choices that would change the course of her life.

After his college graduation, John had started working in Adrianna’s father’s catering business and even though his interest was directed to the entertainment business, it was a good place to start with and in a way allowed him to begin setting up a contact network in the music business. At this, he was tremendously successful, and seeing the young man’s commitment and potential, Mr. Miller relied on him and put him in charge of more and more events. John hardly ever stayed put at home for more than two days in a row due to his constant traveling - and he loved every minute of it.

In John’s absence, June’s mother adopted Michael as another son, that and her mother’s insistence in her not moving so far away, did the rest of the work when enrollment period came. UM was, after all, one of the top universities in the states, it wouldn’t be that bad, now would it? Postponing her traveling was a small sacrifice in comparison to staying by the man she was thinking about spending the rest of her life with. June sometimes took her time to relish on how lucky she’d been to have found such a good man at such an early age, he was a keeper, there was no need to look any further.

As much as he loved his job, however, there was one thing that John wouldn’t leave unattended: his football team, and despite their age difference, John and Michael became good friends due to their common interest (or better put, common obsession).

One December afternoon, while she waited for John and Michael to come back from their weekly match, June lay on the sofa absorbingly reading the last pages of the newly released “Foucault’s Pendulum”- by who was quickly becoming her favorite author Umberto Eco - , which Michael had given to her for her 17th birthday. The story and the build-up towards the end was so tense and intriguing that her heart increased its pace with every turn of the page, she was almost biting her nails. Apart from the classic rock radio that was on at a low volume, silence reigned in the house - her parents were out for lunch at some friends’ house -, so when the phone rang, June gasped in fright. By the second ring she recovered and marked the book with her finger without releasing it from her grasp, then by the third ring she jumped up from the sofa to get the phone. The voice on the other end spoke in a correct but casual tone.

“Hello? May I speak to John, please?”

“John’s not home right now”, June hesitated, in a flash she went through her brother’s friends’ voices in her head and this wasn’t one of them, but she could swear she’d heard it before. “Would you like to leave a message?”

“Nah, just tell him Jon called, he knows how to reach me”.

June let out a sharp blow of air out of amusement from the name coincidence but forced herself to hold her composure. “Sure, no problem. I’ll tell him”.

“Yeah, thanks”

Less than a quarter of an hour later she was already done reading the book when her brother and her boyfriend stormed inside the living room through the front door, smelly, sweaty and dirty from the exercise. June blew her handsome boyfriend a kiss and pointed with her finger in the direction of the bathroom.

“Towel and fresh clothes on my bed”, she grinned and went back to the TV set that was playing re-runs of her favorite TV show “I dream of Jeannie”.

“Thanks, hun”, Michael replied, and in spite of her concentration on the show, the thought of how lucky she was to have such a dreamy boyfriend lingered in the back of her mind.

With the corner of her eye she caught her brother walking down the corridor to his room, and remembered she had a message to deliver.

“Oh, wait! John!”, she exclaimed and made the attempt of standing up from the sofa in case her brother hadn’t heard her, but she slouched back down when he turned his face to her. “Some guy Jon called, he wanted to talk to you”.

John’s brow furrowed, startling June - whatever that call meant, it seemed important, because he immediately ran to his room and re-emerged a couple of minutes later with a card in his hand, then picked up the phone and dialed.

“Geez, could you wash your hands at least?” June patronized her older brother and ended with a tone of defeat and a tsk once she noticed it was too late – John was already waiting for the other person to answer. It took some moments but somebody picked the other end.

“Hey buddy!”, John started.

June was intrigued, who was this mysterious person whose call her brother couldn’t wait to answer back, but whom, at the same time, he addressed with such confidence and familiarity? Her eyes were on the TV set, but her mind and ears were focused on the communication going on at the corner of the living-room.

“Just coming back from the game, yeah…uh-huh…yes, I remember…wow, that would be…but you know-….yeah…well you know I can’t say no to that...sure, sounds great. Listen, Jon, whadda ya say we-…yes, I understand, pal, but I need to sort some things out with the company first…yeah, cool, thanks, yeah…talk to you soon, then”. John suddenly burst out laughing. “You’re insane. Lions rule, man! Ha ha, yeah…Buh-bye”. 

Gosh, it dawned on June how severely out of contact she’d been with her brother lately. Their recent conversations had been rather short, often over a hurried meal, and covered either her decision making and his busy schedule or absolutely random ordinary things, neglecting the more personal topics. They were becoming adults now, and they didn’t share as many things as they used to.

“What was that?”, she asked her brother once he hung up and started heading back to his room. He continued walking despite his sister’s question, but answered cryptically.

“I don’t wanna jinx it! I’ll let you know as soon as it’s a fact, promise”, despite his loud voice, his last words were lost when he closed the door of the bathroom.

As she turned her gaze back to the TV set, June made a mental note of spending more time with her brother in the near future.






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