Miss?” A good-looking young man in a red vest and nametag asked her.
“Oh–uh, yeah, maybe,” she sputtered, feeling even more uncool. “Do you, um, do you have Heatwavvve,
the, uh, singing group?”
“Heatwavvve?” the clerk started walking through the aisles, beckoning Samantha to follow. “Um - I’m not sure if this is what you want, but... ” they reached a stack that the clerk thumbed through and pulled out a disc. “Is this what you’re looking for?”
Samantha took the CD from him and looked at it. The cover was all red and looked like some kind of nuclear explosion, though it did say “Heatwavvve” on it. She flipped it over and read some of the song titles, “Baby Butcher,” “Chained and Hopeless,” “March of the Frost Giants”–this was definitely not the same Heatwavvve.
She confirmed this assumption by reading the names of the band in the liner notes, which were all wrong.
“Um–no,” she replied. “This isn’t them. Don’t you have Heatwavvve,
you know, the boy-band with Jordan Anderson?”
“Boy-band? Jordan Anderson? I’m afraid I don’t know who you’re talking about. The only Heatwavvve
I know of is these guys,” he said, taking the disc back from her and replacing it in the stack. “And they play like thrash-metal.”
“Heatwavvve,” Samantha emphasized, frustrated. “They’re huge! Everyone knows who they are, they’ve sold millions of CDs and are in those ads on TV for soda and barbecued ribs and stuff. They’re everywhere! How could you not know them?”
The clerk scratched his head. “Are they British?” he asked, “or Australian?”
“No! They’re totally American–I just–and this was incredible–I just met one of their singers, Jordan Anderson, downtown. He was going to get me a signed poster... ” she drifted off into the memory of her moments with Jordan. The tingly feeling she’d gotten when he touched her had been amazing, and she wished she could feel it again.
“I’m sorry,” the clerk shrugged, smiling slightly at her obvious adolescent crush and causing her to blush. “Maybe you could get a CD from him, too; we don’t have one.”
Samantha thanked the clerk for his help, and after a brief and futile self-performed search of the “A” stack, hoping to find something under “Jordan Anderson,” she left the store. Her watch read 4:48, and though it surely didn’t feel like it, it was
October and hence the sun was rapidly going down. She decided to hail a taxi-boat from the huge floating triangle-plaza, figuring she didn’t want to be walking around in the dark unless absolutely necessary. She had ten dollars left and figured that would cover her ride back to the upper west side, and it didn’t take her long to find a cab.
The ride uptown was uneventful, and Samantha mostly spent it trying to figure out why Jordan Anderson existed in this timeline and yet no one at a big chain music store had ever heard of Heatwavvve.
Perhaps they weren’t quite as famous in this reality, and Jordan had just been playing himself up as a superstar simply because she had heard of his group.
That wouldn’t be so bad,
she thought to herself.
If he wasn’t so famous, maybe he’d even consider... well, dating someone like me.
She quickly dismissed this as silly girlish thinking, he was years older than her, though perhaps a definite spark of hope remained in her mind.
The taxi-boat pulled up and dropped her off at the museum steps and she gave the driver her ten dollars, tipping him two dollars and twenty-five cents as the fare had been $7.75. She did the usual rigamarole with the security desk, though by now the “new” people sort of recognized her and would generally let her find her own way down to Professor Smythe’s office once they got the telephone o.k. from him. She was almost knocked over by a Boston Terrier blow to the chest when she entered the office; Polly had obviously missed her. She gave her dog a good bit of affection and
“Oh–uh, yeah, maybe,” she sputtered, feeling even more uncool. “Do you, um, do you have Heatwavvve,
the, uh, singing group?”
“Heatwavvve?” the clerk started walking through the aisles, beckoning Samantha to follow. “Um - I’m not sure if this is what you want, but... ” they reached a stack that the clerk thumbed through and pulled out a disc. “Is this what you’re looking for?”
Samantha took the CD from him and looked at it. The cover was all red and looked like some kind of nuclear explosion, though it did say “Heatwavvve” on it. She flipped it over and read some of the song titles, “Baby Butcher,” “Chained and Hopeless,” “March of the Frost Giants”–this was definitely not the same Heatwavvve.
She confirmed this assumption by reading the names of the band in the liner notes, which were all wrong.
“Um–no,” she replied. “This isn’t them. Don’t you have Heatwavvve,
you know, the boy-band with Jordan Anderson?”
“Boy-band? Jordan Anderson? I’m afraid I don’t know who you’re talking about. The only Heatwavvve
I know of is these guys,” he said, taking the disc back from her and replacing it in the stack. “And they play like thrash-metal.”
“Heatwavvve,” Samantha emphasized, frustrated. “They’re huge! Everyone knows who they are, they’ve sold millions of CDs and are in those ads on TV for soda and barbecued ribs and stuff. They’re everywhere! How could you not know them?”
The clerk scratched his head. “Are they British?” he asked, “or Australian?”
“No! They’re totally American–I just–and this was incredible–I just met one of their singers, Jordan Anderson, downtown. He was going to get me a signed poster... ” she drifted off into the memory of her moments with Jordan. The tingly feeling she’d gotten when he touched her had been amazing, and she wished she could feel it again.
“I’m sorry,” the clerk shrugged, smiling slightly at her obvious adolescent crush and causing her to blush. “Maybe you could get a CD from him, too; we don’t have one.”
Samantha thanked the clerk for his help, and after a brief and futile self-performed search of the “A” stack, hoping to find something under “Jordan Anderson,” she left the store. Her watch read 4:48, and though it surely didn’t feel like it, it was
October and hence the sun was rapidly going down. She decided to hail a taxi-boat from the huge floating triangle-plaza, figuring she didn’t want to be walking around in the dark unless absolutely necessary. She had ten dollars left and figured that would cover her ride back to the upper west side, and it didn’t take her long to find a cab.
The ride uptown was uneventful, and Samantha mostly spent it trying to figure out why Jordan Anderson existed in this timeline and yet no one at a big chain music store had ever heard of Heatwavvve.
Perhaps they weren’t quite as famous in this reality, and Jordan had just been playing himself up as a superstar simply because she had heard of his group.
That wouldn’t be so bad,
she thought to herself.
If he wasn’t so famous, maybe he’d even consider... well, dating someone like me.
She quickly dismissed this as silly girlish thinking, he was years older than her, though perhaps a definite spark of hope remained in her mind.
The taxi-boat pulled up and dropped her off at the museum steps and she gave the driver her ten dollars, tipping him two dollars and twenty-five cents as the fare had been $7.75. She did the usual rigamarole with the security desk, though by now the “new” people sort of recognized her and would generally let her find her own way down to Professor Smythe’s office once they got the telephone o.k. from him. She was almost knocked over by a Boston Terrier blow to the chest when she entered the office; Polly had obviously missed her. She gave her dog a good bit of affection and
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