Artie checked the text from Sam again. Four 'o clock was the time he'd said for Artie to pick him up that day. Sam was working at the community pool, and typically his shifts matched up with Blaine's, which meant the other guy gave him rides. Or Sam's mom dropped him off. Today, both his mom and Blaine were busy. Since Artie had no job and no real responsibility beyond helping his mom, he was free to help. But he was a little annoyed. It was now four-fifteen, and since Sam couldn't have his phone with him during his shifts, there was no way to reach him.
He was left with no other option besides going in. Heaving a sigh, he set about the task that was quicker for just about everyone else on the planet: getting out of the car. One wheel, second wheel, frame, cushion, arm rests – he hauled it all across his body and onto the pavement below and reassembled. One foot, second foot, grab the frame with one hand and the handle on the car with the other, haul butt into chair, fix legs and feet. On repeat, day after day, and he didn't usually give it any thought. But because he was supposed to just pull up and have Sam meet him in the parking lot, he was ticked off about the hassle today. He pushed rather aggressively up the sidewalk and towards the ticket window that was just a tad too high for him to see into. The friendly-looking brunette almost didn't notice him as he approached.
"Oh, hey!" she peered down at him, as he stopped by the window. "Did you want to buy a daily pass? If it's after four, your pass is good for tomorrow, too."
"No, thanks," Artie said. "I'm actually here to pick up my friend Sam, not to swim. He's one of your lifeguards so he doesn't have his phone on him. Is it okay if I come in?"
"Oh, of course," she said. "Any friend of Sam is a friend of ours. Do you go to McKinley too?"
"Yeah, I'll be a senior." That already felt strange to say. "Just like Sam. We became good friends because of Glee club."
Artie figured it never hurt to toss Glee into the conversation. Her eyes brightened when he said this. "The guidance counselor did mention McKinley's glee club won Nationals this year when I went up to the school yesterday to enroll," she shared. "I'm a transfer student, a sophomore. My name is Marley."
"Artie," he said, smiling at the thought of Ms. Pillsbury shamelessly plugging Glee in her conversations with all the transfer students who came to enroll. "Do you sing, Marley?"
"Only in my shower," she said, with a laugh. "Here, let me come get that gate for you. It swings inward, not out..." And before he could say he'd manage it, she had already ducked out of her booth, walked around, and was holding the gate open for him to wheel through.
"Thanks," he said.
"Go around the right side of the kiddie pool to get down to the big pool," she advised, as he rolled through. "The left side's just got steps. Kind of poor design if you ask me, seems like both sides could have a ramp."
He paused and glanced over his shoulder at her. "Th-thanks," he stammered. "Do you, um, know someone in a wheelchair or something?"
"No, not really," she said, shyly twirling a strand of her long brown hair around her index finger. "Nobody I know very well anyway. I just noticed those things. There's a mom who just started her son for swimming lessons and he's in a wheelchair."
"Oh." Her natural sensitivity and perceptiveness made him smile. Marley had kind, pale blue eyes and this girl-next-door kind of innocence that got him every time. He'd have to try to make an excuse to talk to her at school. "Well, thanks!"
He proceeded to go around the wading pool, finding that the ramp down to the deeper pool was on the right side like she'd said. He found Sam still perched atop one of the lifeguard stands, seemingly still on duty twenty minutes after the time he'd asked Artie to come pick him up. Sam's expression said he realized what he'd done without Artie having to say a word.
"I told you four, didn't I?" And Artie just nodded. "Sorry, dude, I should have said four-thirty. But by the time I realized, it was too late to tell you."
"No big deal." He truly wasn't even mad about it, as it wasn't like he was doing anything important that he couldn't get away from at home. And besides, it was nice to see this pool he wouldn't normally have visited, as he had his own backyard oasis. As Artie surveyed his surroundings, his eyes stopped on the other lifeguard.
He almost didn't recognize her, with her hair braided, shades on, and a bright red tank suit instead of a Cheerios uniform, but it was definitely the girl he'd met at the Lima Bean the day before. Quinn wore her hair in braids around the house sometimes, so Kitty resembled her even now. Kitty noticed him right as he spotted her too, tipping her sunglasses forward and giving him a little smirk.
Artie, who had no understanding of subtlety or playing it cool, gave a huge wave. "Hey, Kitty!" He briefly forgot that he was wearing shorts, which wasn't something he normally did in public, because he'd been expecting to not be getting out of his car. Now this pretty girl he'd just met got the full view of his twig-like legs and knobby knees. You win some, you lose some. He casually tugged them down, covering as much exposed knee as he could.
"I'm actually really glad you came in though," Sam went on. "How would you like a job for the next couple of weeks?"
Artie gaped at him. "Well, uh, the sitting part I could do," he began, giving Sam a strange look. "The saving someone's life part, not so much. If you're drowning, I don't think I'm the one you want to be trying to save you."
Sam grinned at Artie's usual self-deprecating sense of humor. Nearby, Kitty appeared to be pretending not to listen, though she had to look away to hide her amusement over his last comment.
"I don't mean as a lifeguard," Sam explained. "This lady brought her son for the last two-week session of swimming lessons for the summer. He's in a wheelchair, he's like five or six, and I have him in a group. I feel bad because I have no idea how to teach him to swim, especially in a group. I thought maybe we could offer him a private lesson for the same price, and you could be his teacher."
Artie pondered the idea. Two weeks, minus two days, was exactly how much summertime they had left before school started. And, though he didn't exactly have plans, he had planned to do a whole lot of nothing before senior year got underway.
"I talked to my manager about my idea," Sam continued, when Artie didn't immediately say anything. "I told him about you, so I'm actually glad you're here, because you could meet him. He says we could pay you for an hour, even though the lesson's just thirty minutes, and you could stay and swim all you want afterwards."
Of course Artie, who had his own pool back home, didn't need the invitation to stay and swim. But it sounded kind of fun, swimming around the random people who would be at the community pool. With any luck, maybe he could get to know that Marley girl a little better. She seemed more like his type than Kitty anyway, even though he'd initially been drawn to the girl who looked so much like Quinn. Speaking of Kitty, she didn't have much else to do besides listen to their conversation as she watched the pool, so Artie was acutely aware of her listening now.
"Do you know anything about the kid?" Artie asked. "About why he's in a chair?"
"He was born that way," was Sam's response.
"Ah, okay, different from my experience then," Artie said, as Kitty spared him a very brief glance before looking back across the water. "I suppose I could teach him anyway. Sure. Why not? If I suck, your boss can just fire me."
"I'm sure he won't have to do that," said Sam, suddenly spotting someone coming and brightening. "There's my replacement," he said, as Artie turned to see Marley approaching. She made eye contact with him again, smiling warmly. "Did you meet Marley?"
"He did," Marley reported, warmly. "Chad just arrived to relieve me at the front," she told Sam. "You can go clock out. Oh, but Chad wants to meet Artie before you guys go. Did you tell him about the job?"
"He did," Artie said. "Sounds fun. I take it this is the kid you were talking about before?"
"Yeah, we didn't really know what to do about him," Marley said, before seemingly regretting her choice of words. "Not that- not that he's a problem, I just meant..."
"Way to go, Marley," Kitty commented, from her perch, with an eye roll and a disapproving shake of her head. "What did you mean?"
Artie wasn't sure if Kitty was trying to hop to his defense or if she just wanted to give the other girl a hard time. It seemed like the latter, as Marley blushed furiously, taking her perch on the stand that Sam had just vacated.
"It's cool, I didn't take any offense," Artie spoke up, flashing a reassuring smile at Marley. "It was good meeting you. And good seeing you again, Kitty. How'd you get out of Cheerio bootcamp? My sister used to be Cheerios captain, and she said that's like an all-day thing."
"Coach Sylvester quickly noticed I don't need as much training as some of the others," said Kitty, with all the self-assurance of a young Quinn Fabray, pre-pregnancy scandal.
"Are you a Cheerio too, Marley?" Artie asked, turning his attention back to the other girl, the one he was a tad more interested in getting to know, now that both his first and second interactions with Kitty had been a little strained, in contrast with the ease of talking to Marley. That was why it didn't surprise him when she shook her head.
"Oh, no, cheerleading isn't my thing," she said. "But the Glee club might be. You'll have to tell me more about that sometime."
Sam looked impressed as they headed out, maybe with the fact that Artie had already managed to plug Glee into a conversation with Marley. Before they could discuss it further, they had to stop and meet Chad the manager, so that Artie could officially get hired onto his extremely part-time, hardly-even-qualified-as-a-job job. As Sam had reported, Chad was enthusiastic about the idea of having Artie's help with the little boy in the wheelchair.
"Finally landed my first job," Artie said, chuckling and doing a little victory wheelie on his way out. "If you could really call it that. At least we can hang out more."
"Pretty sure you could have had a job sooner if you wanted one," was Sam's innocent comment. Innocent, sure, but it kind of annoyed Artie at the same time, since Sam didn't even know what he was talking about.
"It gets complicated when you're eighteen and get disability checks," Artie said, with a shrug as they headed out to his car together. "Not to mention, it's not like I'm qualified to wait tables, or be a lifeguard, or literally anything else that makes for a good summer job."
"Agree to disagree," said Sam, further irking Artie with that comment and then refusing to say anything else about it. Artie dropped it, however, as he started the process of getting back into his car.
As they started out, he thought back to the nice brunette with the kind, blue eyes. "You didn't tell me about Marley," he said. "Have you worked with her all summer?"
"Yeah, she started when I did," he said. "She says it's just her and her mom at home, so she's got to help with the finances. She's nice. Easy to talk to. Can't said the same about Kitty."
"I met Kitty at the Lima Bean the other day," Artie said, thinking back on the awkward encounter and cringing inwardly. "I thought she was Quinn at first."
"Cheerio, blonde, and that's where the similarities end," said Sam, ticking them off on his fingers. "I'm glad you recruited Marley for Glee. Hadn't thought about asking her. I bet she'll be good. We need some new guys, too."
"You think?" Artie would be fine with not having any more competition for male lead around, thank-you-very-much, but Sam had a point. "Hey, doesn't the football team start practicing soon?"
"Next week," Sam confirmed. "Maybe I could ask some of the guys. Especially any new blood. That's how Finn found me. In the locker-room. In the showers, actually, it was kind of weird. I was, like, naked..."
"That would be the usual way to shower..." And then it hit him - Sam's mention of Finn had given him a sudden burst of inspiration. The idea was so powerful that he hit his break a bit more forcefully than he meant to at the stop sign.
"What happened?" Sam cried out, alarmed. "Did we hit a squirrel?!"
"I know how we can recruit people for Glee!" he exclaimed. The idea was so brilliant that he needed to start writing down his thoughts. He pulled off the road into a nearby McDonald's parking lot.
"Good idea, let's get a pop or something," Sam said. "Coke tastes better here than anywhere else."
"Hold on," Artie murmured, rummaging through his console after putting his car into park. He produced a notepad and pen and starting writing furiously, muttering as he wrote. "Grease. Football players equal T-Birds. Cheerios equal Pink Ladies."
He stopped writing and Sam, wide-eyed, looked just as amazed by Artie's sudden stroke of inspiration as he was. "I wanna be Kenickie!" he exclaimed. "'Cause, you know, 'a hickey from Kenickie's like a Hallmark card...'"
"Not even sure he says that line in the stage production," Artie commented, as Sam looked a bit crestfallen. "But that would be a good part for you. I'll need you to audition, just like everyone else. But listen, I haven't even gotten to the best part yet."
"What's the best part?" Sam wanted to know.
"We'll use the show to recruit new members for Glee club," Artie continued, still writing as he talked, his handwriting almost illegible as his pen tried to keep up with his brain. "I'll talk to Mr. Schue. Maybe we could get away with using three of the songs for our setlist. I mean, I've never seen a performance consisting of three songs from the same musical before, but that doesn't mean anything. We're National champions now, which means we can be trendsetters. And that way, we won't really have to split our time between rehearsals for Sectionals and rehearsals for the musical. If we can convince everyone to do both... maybe we'd have to require everyone to do both..."
Artie stopped talking. Finn. His old friend had been a little down in the dumps lately. Ever since he and Kurt had agreed that it was best to stay in Lima this semester, in order to support Burt through his cancer treatment, he knew that at least one of them had lost their way. Maybe Kurt too, to some degree, but at least Kurt still had Blaine. Meanwhile, Finn was struggling to cope with the sudden distance between he and Rachel, who had recently moved into her dorm at NYADA.
"Care to share?" Sam waved a hand in front of Artie's face, bringing him back to reality.
"Finn," he said. "We need his influence, if we want to recruit people. And I could use a co-director for the show. Plus, he needs something to distract him from the pain of missing Rachel. It's the perfect project for him to be a part of..."
"If Finn and Rachel were still around, you'd be casting them as Danny and Sandy," Sam pointed out. "I can't really imagine those roles going to anyone else."
"Very true," Artie said, grinning. "Isn't it more interesting, now that they aren't around to play the parts?"
"Marley," Sam said, knowingly. "You're thinking of Marley for Sandy, aren't you? I've heard her singing some when we're at work. She's got a good voice."
"A good director never makes any casting decisions ahead of auditions," Artie said, indignantly, slipping into his highly-confident, some-might-say-arrogant, director mode. "But, now that you mention it, I might have been thinking of Marley when I had the idea for the show, yeah."
"So, how are you gonna get Finn's help?" Sam wanted to know.
"Easy, I'll just go to the automotive shop tomorrow after work–" his one-hour of work, but work nevertheless "– tell him my idea, and convince him to help out. Kurt, too. He could probably use a creative outlet and an excuse to come visit Blaine at school."
"There's one other person you've got to convince," Sam said. "Mr. Schue. He'll have to be on board with the whole idea to use the musical numbers in Sectionals."
"Right, I'll talk to him," Artie said.
"Oh, and Tina," Sam added. "You'll have to convince Tina because she was already learning the lyrics to do 'Gangnam Style.' At least that's what she told me and Blaine."
Artie cringed. Not K-pop, Tina. He couldn't imagine a worse idea for Sectionals. Even if Tina did have herself in mind to lead that one – and granted, girl could sing anything she put her mind to – Artie didn't much think that song would wow the judges or lend itself to a strong group number.
"We're going to have to figure out who's gonna take charge, when it comes to being a leader in the club," Artie affirmed. "Seniority should play a big part."
"Yeah, but it's not everything." Sam's comment hung there awkwardly for a minute. "Can you pull up to the drive-thru? I'm really thirsty and a Coke sounds so good."
As Artie obliged and pulled into the drive-thru to quench Sam's thirst, he continued to run through all the things one had to consider, when it came to putting on a show. He wished he still had Quinn for this show. Who better than Quinn to play Rizzo and sing about the woes of falling pregnant in high school?
This year's fall musical would probably happen around the same time as the last. That whole experience would have been a great memory, had it not been for Quinn and Mackenzie's accident. He'd lost one friend – Mack was really more than a friend, if he was honest – and nearly lost Quinn, too. He'd never feel the same about October, just like his own accident caused November to be a little rough every year.
Pushing those thoughts aside, he ran through his mental to-do list, as Sam leaned across him to order his Coke. Suddenly, the rest of his summer had just gotten much busier.