I went to the same corner I’d gone to the last few days. It’d seemed to get a lot of attention and so far nobody had tried to kick me off it, which did happen pretty often when you were street performing.
Although in most places, this early in the morning was not the best time to be doing street performances. Usually lunchtime was best, and that was still true here at Beasley, but I got more traction here in the morning than I would at other locations, so I didn’t mind being here early at all.
I attributed this to the fact that most students had morning classes. Every hour or so, I got a burst of foot traffic from people going to and leaving from class, which was when I got the most attention.
I was close to the cafeteria, too, so of course, lunch was even better. A few people had even made it a point to sit at some benches across the way from me and listen to my music while they ate and hung out with their friends. That was really nice; it made me feel wanted around here. It was a much different vibe than I’d been expecting, and I couldn’t have been more grateful.
It was during the middle of lunch when I was strumming along that I heard a voice yell ‘hey’ at me. At first, I thought maybe it was going to be someone telling me that I wasn’t allowed to play here, but when I looked up, I saw a familiar face.
It was Emily.
“Hey,” I said to her with a smile.
“You’re Kaitlyn, from the bar the other day.”
“That’s me.” I tried to contain my excitement.
“I know you mentioned doing street performance, but I didn’t realize you’d be performing here at Beasley,” she commented.
I set my guitar down and stood up. I didn’t like sitting on the concrete curb with her hovering over me. I wanted to be on equal footing.
“Well, I thought I’d give it a try. There seemed to be a lot of foot traffic around this corner, so why not?”
“And how’s it going out here?” she asked, glancing around.
“Good! I’m thinking I might stick around here for a while. See how it goes. I’m playing it all by ear.”
She seemed happy to see me, which was encouraging. That probably meant she hadn’t lied about having an emergency with her roommate the other day. And that she probably hadn’t specifically tried not to give me her number, but instead, really had to leave.
After all, she’d seen me while walking by. I hadn’t seen her. She easily could have walked past me and never said a thing, and I’d have been none the wiser. The fact that she’d stopped and talked to me meant she’d had a reason to, which made me feel considerably more confident.
“How’s your roommate?” I asked her.
“Oh, you remembered!” She seemed touched by this. “She’s okay. She got in a car accident. Her car is a disaster, but she got out without a scratch. That’s all you can really ask for when accidents happen, right?”
“Right,” I agreed. “Really glad to hear she’s okay.”
“Me, too.” She smiled politely.
The conversation was dying, and if I didn’t want her walking away without making a move again, I had to step in and try to make one now.
“Hey, I’m really glad I ran into you. Because you left the bar in such a hurry yesterday, I didn’t get the chance to grab your number or anything.”
She started to blush, but I pretended not to notice. “Oh, right, yeah!” she said. “I wanted to get yours, too. Here, let me grab my phone, and you can program it in.”
“Sure,” I said. I reached in my pocket and grabbed my own phone to hand to her.
We exchanged numbers pretty quickly, and after that, I couldn’t think of much else to say. It seemed she couldn’t either.
“Well, I guess I should let you get back to playing. I’m sure you don’t want to lose out on money standing around and talking to me,” she said, laughing awkwardly.
Actually, that was exactly what I wanted to do.
“I was finishing up for now, actually,” I lied. Before she’d walked by, I’d had no such plans. “I was just about to go grab some lunch.”
“Oh, really? Me too.”
“Nice! You want to eat together?” I asked, a lot more confident now that we’d exchanged numbers. That was a definite sign she was interested in me.