Page 2 of It Started with a Sunset
Summer smiled. See? They did help students connect to her.
The excitement in the room was palpable. Summer clapped her hands together. “Are you all ready? Everything you trained for during our retreat last week is starting!”
Yeah, they were excited. They were sitting forward in their seats, eager anticipation on their faces, feeling the bonding they had developed during the four days they all spent in a cabin at the edge of Lake Baldwin, learning leadership skills and everything they needed to know to be an ambassador for the coming year. That was why not only being an admissions recruiter but also being over the ambassadors was the best job ever.
“Okay, since it’s the beginning of the year, we’ve only got one tour that we’ll split into two groups. Jessa and Alejandro, you’ll each take one. Until they arrive, you two can head to the staging room and work on your plan together. Paige, Takeshi, and McKay, you’re at the desk in the Welcome Center lobby, greeting people and hand-writing this week’s happy birthday cards to prospective students. Whenever you’ve got a free minute, quiz each other on all things Lake Baldwin State University. Any questions? Wait...Paige, why do you look like you’re about to fall asleep?”
Paige tried to stifle a yawn, then said, “Remember back at that leadership event last summer when we first applied to be ambassadors and you recommended that none of us register for a seven a.m. class?”
“Yes. It’s solid advice.” Summer gave it to every incoming freshman she could.
“Yeah, I didn’t listen.”
All four ambassadors shook their heads as if they understood well her folly, even though Jessa was the only one who wasn’t a freshman herself. McKay even reached over and patted Paige on the shoulder.
“What?” Paige said. “My high school started at seven-thirty. And I always went even earlier for band, so I thought it wouldn’t be a big deal.”
It didn’t matter what Summer said, there were always kids who ignored the advice. For some, it was just fine. For most, it wasn’t. “You’ve just got to look at it this way: college is in a different time zone. Seven a.m. here isn’t the same as seven a.m. in high school.”
“I get it now. And I swear I’ll listen to every piece of advice you give from now on.”
Summer tried to hide her smile.
“No, really,” Paige said. “In fact, I’ll take any advice you’ve got right now. Lay it on me.”
Summer was full of advice. After all, she had spent six years going to school at LBSU herself. “Okay, schedule homework just like it’s a class, and schedule it during the day—not at night when there’s fun stuff going on all around you. Don’t overload your schedule with too many classes.” She heard Alejandro suck in a breath. Clearly, that advice was a little late for him.
“Oh, and Professor Burningham is oblivious to clocks in general and never ends on time, so don’t schedule a class on the other side of campus that starts ten minutes after his gets out.”
Takeshi slapped both hands down on his armrests. “Now you tell us that? I have him at one, and I’ve got to be all the way over in Carter Hall at two.”
All the others winced, but Summer chuckled. “Don’t worry, Takeshi. You’ve got this.”
She stayed and chatted with them, answering all their questions about their ambassador duties for the day, making sure they were all pumped up and feeling confident and ready to go. They were about to be the face of the university for high school kids who were still deciding which college to attend, so enthusiasm was key. At a quarter to nine, she had to end the meeting so they could all get to their places.
As they all left the big meeting room, Jessa hung back, her usual gale of excitement feeling more like a slight breeze.
“You okay?” This was Jessa’s third year as an ambassador, so Summer knew it wasn’t because of nerves about the job.
“Oh, yeah, totally.” Jessa was quiet for a moment as they walked toward the staging room. Then she said, “My roommate said something last night that I guess I’m still thinking about. Do you ever... I don’t know. Do you ever feel that it probably appears like you’ve got everything in your life together to other people, because you do on paper, but there’s just something missing and you can’t quite figure out what it is?”
Summer let out a breath of a chuckle and nodded. “Yeah. All the time.” If she thought about it long enough, she could probably say what exactly that something missing was. The key, though, was tonotthink about it long enough.
“What do you do about it?”
But before Summer could answer, Alejandro came out of the staging room, looking panicked. “Jessa, I’m so glad I’m doing this with you because I’m kind of freaking out and I think I just forgot what every building on campus is named. I suddenly don’t even remember where my own classes are.”
Jessa turned and smiled at Summer. “Duty calls. We’ll talk later.”
Summer knew that Jessa was exactly the person who Alejandro most needed just then and that she needed to let her little birdies spread their wings without too much interference from her. So she headed to the lobby and down the other hallway that led to their offices and the other part of her job in the Welcome Center.
But as she walked, Jessa’s question hung around, like part of Jessa’s gust of wind was trailing Summer now, asking over and over if something was missing in her life and what she usually did about it.
Now that she thought about it, she knew exactly what she did about it. She surrounded herself with people so she didn’t have to think about it. Everything was better that way. She grabbed her water bottle from her office and headed to the common area—the space in the middle of their offices, where she could currently see nearly all her coworkers—and cupped her hand against the metal water bottle, hitting her rings against its surface three times.
It was the rallying cry for their team. Or at least the “Let’s all go to Aquamoose Crossing, the convenience store down the hall, to fill up our water bottles before the day starts” cry. Her rings hitting against the bottle made the most beautiful, musical sound. A sound that not only drown out any big, unanswerable life questions, but brought everyone together and started the day off just right.
Chapter Two
