I stepped into the hallway, dreading my next college endeavor. I can handle tests, exams, finals, late night cram sessions but public showering is not something that I am keen on. Now most would think it’s not a big deal for me because seven other members of my family and all shared one bathroom in our old house but this public bathroom is over the line, though.

After the second day, I was contemplating ways to fly home to shower on the weekends because the shower stall floors are the worst. Heaven only knows what fungi are growing in between those nasty, yellow tiles. I had finally had enough. Instead of heading toward the showers I walked down to Scott’s room and explained the situation.

“Ike, I don’t blame you. Fortunately from all our years of being on army bases we’ve learned to wear foam sandals into the showers. There has to be a store around here that has sandals. Give me a minute to finish up this chapter and we’ll go buy some.”

Most people would have laughed at my ordeal, but Scott didn’t. Just goes to show you how good friends can be.

As we were walking down the hall toward the doors, Scott was telling me about yet another one of his sister’s escapades. “I can remember one base in Germany when Sara refused to use the showers. They were very gross; hadn’t been cleaned in a long time. She threatened to use the hose until someone came in and cleaned them out.”

I had to laugh. “That definitely sounds like something your sister would do.”

He shook his head. “That’s Sara. You’ve got to love her. She is very independent and very outgoing. Some people think she’s stuck up but she’s really not. She just doesn’t take people’s crap. My father always says that she's going to argue with Peter at the gates of Heaven."

We must have walked into twenty stores that day and apparently after September first sandals are not sold . . . anywhere. We tried outdoor sports stores, department stores, shoe stores. Nothing.

As we were walking out of yet another failed shopping excursion Scott mentioned, “I’m getting thirsty. There’s a CVS up here.”

“Yeah, I could actually use a soda myself.” I wiped the sweat off my face and headed inside. “Ya know, I thought Boston was supposed to be cold.”

“You’re in New England Isaac, never count on the weather. Besides, it’s still September. Don’t expect cold until December, at least.”

Down the cramped aisles we found our refreshment; I grabbed a Dr. Pepper while Scott went for the apple juice.

“Uh . . . you drink that stuff?” Scott stared at the can.

“Yeah, why? It’s good.”

“It looks like swamp water. Smells kinda nasty, too.” He made a face.

“Well, I’m sorry you feel so strongly, but, ya know, apple juice looks like--“

Scott held his hand up. “Yup, enough. Let’s go!”

Scott turns beet-red at the thought of an embarrassing situation, and he was halfway down the aisle before I could stop laughing.

“Hey! Hey! Wait up, check these out.” They were tacky. They were brown. They were left over from summer, but they were foam flip-flop sandals. They were mine, too.

“Do you think they’ll fit?” I turned them over to find a size.

“Who cares? You need to shower because you smell like Jordan, and I’ll personally cut them down with a butter knife if they’re too big.”

I was going to comment on the fact that I thought they’d be too small, but Scott was already in the check out. I leaned over. “You’re just mad because I was going to embarrass you.” I could almost feel his eyes roll. I smiled. Scott was so easy to embarrass. Between Sara and I, I figure this poor boy is going to be on a doctor’s couch before this year is out.

"I really appreciate this, Lynda," I told her as she unlocked the door to her room. "I just had nowhere else to go."

"I understand. Once upon a time, I had a roommate, too. I lucked out and got a single this year. Couldn't be happier." She took off her jacket and threw it on the back of her chair. "Make yourself at home, if you can find any floor space, that is. I'm sorry about the mess," she apologized and began to pick up some of the art supplies that were strewn all over the floor.

"Don't worry about it. My brothers were a far cry from neat, and Jordan's not exactly Mr. Clean, either." I dropped my back pack in an empty corner. "So, you had the roommate from Hell, too, freshman year?"

"Oh, God, yes! I swear, she was the female version of Jordan. I was in Hell fall semester, absolutely miserable. I went home every weekend. And I had to take the sheets off my bed before I left, too, otherwise random strangers would sleep and do God knows what else in my bed. Roommate change day saved my life." Lynda flopped down into the small available space on the bed.

"Roommate change day? I wonder if Berklee has one of those," I said, finding a clear patch of floor to sit on. "I don't know how much more I can take of Jordania."

"Of course Berklee has roommate change day! Every school does. Didn't your RA tell you about it? Scratch that. Nevermind. I forgot Shane is your RA. Just do yourself a favor and go to Resident Assignments on Monday. They'll tell you everything you need to know." A knock on the door interrupted her. "Come in!" Lynda shouted.

The door opened, and a girl wearing white socks, gray pajama pants, and an Aerosmith t-shirt walked in. Her blonde hair was in a loose ponytail, and she wore wire-rimmed glasses. "I hate to bother you, Lyn, but maintence never came to fix my door and the squeaking is making me crazy. Can I borrow your WD-40? Oh, hi," she said, noticing me for the first time. She gave me a small wave. "I'm Allison."

"Isaac," I replied.

"Isaac Hanson, right?"

I nodded.

"I thought you looked familiar. Your hair looks good short. You don't go to Emerson, do you?"

I shook my head. "No, I go to Berklee."

"Figures. Nothing exciting ever happens here."

"Here ya go," Lynda said, crawling out from underneath her bed and handing Allison the can of WD-40. "You can just give it back to me whenever."

"Thanks so much. You're a lifesaver. I would've graduated by the time maintence decided to get up here and fix the damn door. Well, I'll leave you two alone now. Have a good night." Allison backed up towards the door. "It was nice meeting you, Isaac."

"It was nice meeting you, too," I replied, smiling. Why couldn't everyone at Berklee be this friendly? "Maybe I should transfer here. Everyone is so nice," I told Lyn as the door closed behind Allison.

She laughed. "Ike! You met one person! You can't judge the whole campus on Allison's behavior."

I reached for my back pack. "Well, I know you, too." I felt my cheeks begin to burn, so I stuck my head inside my bag, looking for my books. I didn't want Lyn to see me blush.

"Yeah . . ." she said softly, and I could feel her eyes on me. "So, what kind of work will you be occupying yourself with this Saturday night?"

"Music and the stage. I have a test on opera on Monday. What about you?"

"Well, I don't typically do work on Saturdays. I'm prone to finishing my papers and reading late at night before they're due. But I do have some James Joyce to finish reading. Maybe you're being here will motivate me." She smiled. "Stranger things have been known to happen."

"Hehehe . . . funny. Do you mind if I turn on some music?" I asked, catching a glimpse of her stereo. "I can't work in silence."

"Nope, not at all. Help yourself," she said, her nose already buried in her book.

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, I found myself standing in front of Lynda's CD rack. Whenever I meet someone new, I always check out what CDs they own. I know it sounds strange, but you can tell a lot about a person by the kind of music they listen to. However, that's not as strange as the large amount of country CDs in Lynda's room. "What's this?" I asked her.

"What's what?"

"All these country CDs. What's up with that? You come off as such a city girl, and it turns out you're keeping a dark secret from me." I couldn't help but smile. It was nice to be the one doing the teasing for a change.

"Okay. You've discovered my dark secret. I'm a Yankee who loves country music." She walked over and stood next to me. "Any requests?"

"Yeah. Got any Aerosmith?"

"Nope, but this is just as good," she said, removing a CD from the rack. "Great studying music."

"And the mystery artist would be?" I asked, taking my original seat on the floor.

"Martina McBride. One of my favorites, right after Garth."

"Yeah, Garth's good. I like him," I said, flipping through my notebook. "Did you know opera is a staged work where the entire plot is sung, and has recitative instead of dialogue?" I looked up to get Lynda's reaction to this random piece of information I just fed her.

"Well, thank you so much for sharing, Ike. I'm sure I'll sleep easy tonight now that I know that." She laughed and chucked a pillow at me. "Now shut up and study so I can get some work done."

I read through my notes, and twenty minutes later nothing was sinking in. I just couldn't concentrate. Opera is not my thing. Sure, the class is fun and I like my professor, but studying for a test on it is something altogether different. I closed my notebook and sighed in frustration.

"You can't concentrate, either?" Lynda asked, looking up from her project. "How about we take a break?"

"Sounds good to me." I tossed my books to the side. "What did you have in mind?"

She got up and opened her desk drawer, then gave me a handful of quarters. "Why don't you go down the hall and get us some sodas, and I'll make popcorn?"

"Sure. What do you like?"

"Coke. Whatever. Just nothing diet. Vending machine is by the elevator," she said, pulling a package of microwavable popcorn out of the yaffa blocks stacked in her room.

The walk to and from the vending machine was uneventful. The hallway was like a tomb compared to mine at Berklee. But according to Lynda, this wasn't unusual. Many of Emerson's students lived not too far from campus, and often went home for the weekend. Man, they don't know how lucky they are to be so close to home. I still had a little over a month before I would go home for Thansgiving, and I'm quite anxious to get back to Tulsa. It's not so much Tulsa itself; I love Boston. However, I hate Jordan.

I walked into the room and was greeted by the distinct smell of microwave popcorn. I handed Lynda her change and a Coke, and she handed me a bowlful of popcorn. We exchanged smiles, and then I settled back on the floor. I may not be able to concentrate on opera, but I could pretend. Lynda, on the other hand, had something else in mind. She patted the space next to her on the bed. For the second time tonight I abandoned my books. I opened my can of Coke and she channel surfed.

"Lyn, forget it. I don't care what you say. I'm not about to watch 'N Sync dance across the camera again. I have some reading to do. Just shut the TV off," I told her, sitting back on the floor in front of my books as she settled on MTV.

"Ike, just come here. Please, this is so pathetic. Who thought pairing them up with Gloria Estefan was a good idea? She could be their mother, for cryin' out loud! And then there's the one with the red hair. Hello! Can we say walking traffic signal?"

A clap of thunder echoed in the room and Lynda jumped. It startled me as well, causing me to drop my pen. "Figures I don't have an umbrella on me," I mumbled. Sometimes, it feels as if coming to Boston is one of the best things I decided to do. Other times, it feels like one string of disaster after disaster.

Lynda got up off the bed and walked over to the window. "Don't sweat it, 'cause there's no way I'd let you go out in that, umbrella or no umbrella. It's really coming down."

I rose to my feet and joined her at the window. Sure enough, it was raining buckets. I could barely make out the dorm a mere ten feet away through the wall of water. Another clap of thunder sounded, and this time lightning followed. For a split second the room lit up as if it was the middle of the day.

"There was no time between the thunder and lightning. We must be right in the middle of the storm," Lynda told me. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, there was another clap of thunder and the sky lit up again. This time, I could see the actual streak of lightning. The lights flickered, and the TV went out.

"Do you think we'll lose power?" I asked. The storm then answered my question as the room went black. "Well, I guess that's a yes."

Lyn fumbled over to the stereo on the top shelf of her desk as her eyes adjusted to the dark. "Let's see if they are putting out any warning broadcasts on the radio."

"Won't it be a little hard to hear them if the power's out?"

"Normally, yes. However, I've got batteries in this puppy, so we're in luck," she said, slightly sticking out her tongue in concentration as she adjusted the antenna on the stereo. "Let's see if we get KISS 108."

After a few moments of static, the signal came through. It was weak, but the D.J's voice could be heard. "Four to six inches of rain is expected to fall in the city, and five to seven in the metro Boston area." His monotone voice broke a bit. "People, it's nasty out there. Bunker down and stay in for the night."

Lyn spun around. "See? Even he says to stay. Get comfy 'cause you're not going anywhere." She opened one of her desk drawers and pulled out a flashlight. Then she walked over to her closet and pulled a blanket out of a cardboard box. She walked back over the stereo, turned off the radio, and turned on the CD that had been playing earlier.

"Lyn, there's no electricity. What can we do? I have an early class in the morning."

"Oh, Ike! Forget it! There are seven semesters ahead of you that will be filled with classes. Skipping one isn't gonna kill you." She grabbed my elbow and led me to her bed. We sat down and she covered us with the blanket. "This reminds me of when I was little. Thunderstorms always scared me when I was little, and I used to sneak into my mom's bed."

"Storms used to scare Zac. He would always step on Taylor when he climbed up to my bunk."

"Miss your brothers?"

"Yeah . . . when I think about all we used to do and the havoc we wrecked on the family, I do." I sighed. I didn't think I would get homesick, having travelled so much with band. I thought wrong.

"Bet you didn't think you'd get homesick, huh?" Lynda snuggled under the covers and rested her head on my shoulder. "Growing up I was always close to my mom. I missed her so much when I came here. I called her every night for the first two weeks."

"If I had been allowed in my room, I might have done the same. You know, I thought for sure I wouldn't get homesick. I travelled so much with the band it just didn't seem possible. I never got homesick on tour. Then I realized I toured with the family. So even though I wasn't in Tulsa, I still had my family. Now I have neither Tulsa, nor family." I couldn't believe how pathetic I sounded and that I pouring this all out to Lynda.

"You have me," Lynda said softly. I turned to look at her, and the corners of her mouth turned up slightly. "Think of me as your Boston family." She patted my arm. "Jordan may be an asshole, but don't judge everyone in Boston by him. You have Scott, you have Sara, and you have me."

"Thanks," I whispered. I looked at her, and a strange feeling overcame me. Well, maybe not strange, but it certainly was new. I quickly looked away. It would be so easy to just trust Lynda. I really had no reason not to, unless you count how Tara broke my heart.

Tara . . . She was the girl I grew up with. Our mothers had always wanted the two of us to get married. They had the ceremony planned when we were still in diapers. I remember when we came back to Tulsa after recording Middle of Nowhere. That's when things began to change. All of a sudden I had a public life. The next thing I knew, Tara was a part of my private one. It lasted two years. Then she broke my heart. I should have known it wouldn't have lasted. Relationships and screaming fans don't mix.

"Ike? Are you okay?" Lynda's voice broke my thoughts. She soothlingly ran her hand up and down my arm. "Is there something wrong?"

I shook my thoughts back to the present. What did I feel for Lynda? Was it the same feelings I felt for Tara? "Wrong? Uh . . ."

"You can talk about it if you want. And if you don't, that's okay, too."

We sat in silence. I couldn't decide whether or not to tell Lynda about Tara. I couldn't figure out why I couldn't decide, either. I felt weak, which is an unusual feeling for me. I've always been fairly confident. Now, I'm just the opposite. I'm afraid of Lynda's reaction if I tell her about Tara. And again, I can't figure out why.

The CD continued to play. A new song started and it caught Lyn's attention. "Oh! I love this song!"

I am timeless, I am patient . . . I'm beside you and above . . . I'm the words when you need comfort . . . I'm the feeling you call love . . .

Suddenly, Lynda stood. The next think I knew, she had disguarded the blanket to floor, grabbed my hands, and pulled me into a standing position. "Come on, Mr. Grumpy. Dance with me." Her eyes sparkled. "It'll make you feel better."

"I don't know . . ." I started to protest, but then found myself biting my tongue. Maybe she was right. Maybe it would make me feel better. Her smile was contagious, and her eyes irrestible. I slowly circled my arms around her waist, unsure of how close to her I should be. Lynda stepped in closer and clasped her hands behind my neck.

You say that you can take or leave me . . . You think right now that you don't need me . . . Some way, somehow young heart believe me . . . One day you will . . . One day you will . . .

I listened to the lyrics. Was she trying to tell me something? Was she saying that one day I'd find love again? Possibly even love her? I found myself pulling her closer. She turned her head and placed it on my shoulder. Her breath tickled my neck. I closed my eyes and buried my nose in her soft hair, inhaling the floral scent.

You're a vessel, you're a temple . . . You're a journey just begun . . . You're a young one who is running . . . You are destined to find love . . .

I smiled to myself. This was definitely me. Was it fate that started this song for me? Was it Lyn trying to manipulate me into something I wasn't ready for? I mentally scolded myself. How could I think, for just one second, that Lynda would manipulate me? She's not capable of that. And how can I expect her to know I'm not ready for this? Heck, I don't even know if I'm ready for this.

And when you're lost, that's when you'll find me . . . We can't see till we are blinded . . . It's already all been decided . . . That one day you will . . . One day you will . . .

We had stopped turning in a circle, and were just slowing swaying to the music now. Without thinking, I moved one of my hands from her waist to her head and gently began to stroke her hair.

You say that you can take or leave me . . . You think right now that you don't need me . . . Some way, somehow young heart believe me . . . One day you will . . . One day you will . . .

I thought, yes Lyn, I think one day I will.

I am timeless, I am patient . . . I'm the feeling you call love . . .