I stood up and went up the spiral staircase to my loft room to get changed into something more appropriate for doing moving work. Kendra followed after me.
“Hold on, Melany!”
“What?” I said, putting on a t-shirt.
“I… but how? It’s almost the evening. We can’t move… I mean, I don’t have much stuff, but still. All the big things, it’ll take at least a day, and I’d need to pack everything.”
“We’ll get help,” I said.
“Who is going to help us with something like that at the last minute?”
I smiled at her. “Kendra, I say this in the humblest way possible. I'm a millionaire. I’ll find somebody that will do it. Come on, let’s go. We’ll take your car. I’m going to need to make some calls.”
An hour later, we had a full moving team packing and moving Kendra’s furniture into a truck, while she and I put her smaller belongings into cardboard boxes. Kendra must’ve asked me at least ten times if I was sure I was okay with this.
“Trust me, I’m okay with this,” I said. “End of story, okay?”
Monica poked her head into the bedroom. “Man, I go away for the weekend and I miss everything. You know you paid for this month’s rent already, dude. You don’t have to leave like, right away.”
“I know,” Kendra said.
“I’ll refund you prorated for the rest of the month,” she said. “Damn. I can’t believe I missed you jamming out on the drums again. I’m bummed.”
“I’m going to be playing a show next weekend. You should come check it out.”
“For sure, my dude. I’ll be there.”
The last to go was Kendra’s drum set. Kendra disassembled it, and then the three of us watched as the team of movers carefully took each piece of the kit out to the truck. By the time that everything had been loaded and was ready to go, it was early evening. The sun hit the horizon, throwing orange light across the street and against the windows of the houses down the block. A mourning dove cooed from the overhead power lines until it was startled away by the clatter of the moving truck’s rolling door being pulled shut.
“That’s it,” I said.
Kendra went up to Monica and gave her a hug. “You’ve been a real great roommate, Monica,” she said. “I wanted to thank you for encouraging me to get out there and play again. If it weren’t for you, I would never have been able to get back onto the drums.”
Monica grinned. “Hey, it was my pleasure. I’m looking forward to seeing your shows.”
We got into the car and waved goodbye as we pulled away, the moving truck following behind us. Kendra let out a long breath.
“Wow,” she said. “I didn’t realize just how much stress I was dealing with, worrying about the rent and all of that. I suddenly feel so much lighter.”
I took her hand and squeezed it. “Now you can concentrate on what matters. Get to greatness.”
“Thanks, Melany,” she said. “I don’t want to seem like I’m ungrateful for letting me move in with you. I’m so thankful for it, I just have a hard time getting over myself. When I moved away from Manchester, I told myself I’d stand on my own two feet. I had everything all planned out, with school and all of that. I didn’t want to have to rely
on anyone else. I guess I wanted to prove to myself I could do it on my own.”
“I’ve realized that everyone needs a hand sometimes. Sometimes, certain goals are just too great to get there on your own.”
“You haven’t had any troubles doing it all on your own,” she said.
“No way,” I laughed. “You’ve taught me a lot. You have no idea how much you’ve helped me.”
“Me? I’ve helped you?”
“It wasn’t until being with you that I realized what direction I needed to go with my project.”
“Really?”
“When I realized that I’d fallen in love with you, it changed something fundamental inside of me. I’d never been in love before. Having this love and sharing just a small amount of your passion opened my eyes to looking at my work in a new way. I realized I was going about it with entirely the wrong mindset. Greatness isn’t about creating something that will make the most money, it’s about creating something that people will love. I want to do that. Just like how your performances resonate with people, I want to have that in my work.”