Her boyfriend was also playing at the Seattle music festival for the first time. The spark of excitement lighting up her eyes was identical to mine, though. Her face wasn’t pouring with sweat like mine she looked gloriously dewy. I looked over at my best friend, my coworker and my confidante, Jenny. “Can you believe it, Kiera? Our boys are playing Bumbershoot!” I knew he was going to rush to that microphone at any moment, and the waiting crowd was going to let out an ear-splitting scream.

In anticipation, I bounced on my feet as I waited for him to bound up onto that stage. As I stared past the few rows of glistening people in front of me to an empty stage, I was overcome with nervous energy. I rolled up the short sleeves of my midnight black shirt, then went to work tying a knot above my belly button, just like Mary Ann from Gilligan’s Island.īut then I smiled, remembering why I was wearing it and what I was doing in this crowd of sweaty bodies. As I glanced up at the cloudless, azure sky, the midday sun hit me square in the eye, blinding me. Sweat poured down the back of my T-shirt, and I momentarily cursed my fashion choice. I’d smacked more hands off my butt in that one afternoon than in the entire time I’d worked at Pete’s Bar. It was even more revolting when some of those people decided that being crammed together like sardines gave them the freedom to invade my personal space. It was revolting to have strangers rubbing up against my body. As I was jostled, smashed into, and bumped up against, I felt the afternoon heat in the clammy skin of every person who touched me.

Since I’d only been there a little over a year, I took the kind man’s word for it. According to the Channel Four weatherman, it was the hottest summer on record in Seattle.

Effortless book sc stephens