Chapter 125

“How did it feel, darling?” she asked lowering her sunglasses a little.

I took a step to her and said, “This reminds me of our honeymoon a little, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, why don’t we come back here for our first-year anniversary?”

“Just us?” I asked.

“Oh, I see what you mean. If we leave them all alone, even for a week, the house may just burn down again.”

“Sarcasm is a tool, and you just used it very well,” I said catching the towel she threw me. I dried myself off really well and hoisted myself into the chair. “Since today is mostly over, do you have anything specific you want to do tomorrow, Beautiful?”

“I was thinking about that, Michael,” she answered. “Since we have never been to Disneyland, why don’t spend the day at the Magic Kingdom Park. It’s a short ride in the monorail there and we could do as little or as much as we want.”

“Why don’t we invite the other newlyweds to go with us,” I added.

“If we all went together, we could send them on their own, but with a set time to be back and join the adults,” she said with a really gnarly laugh after that.

“You got it Babe. This is the life we have ahead of us, isn’t it?”

Just then, I saw a slew of ‘our kids’ coming towards the pool and I hatched a plan. I got my shirt on, put my phone in my pocket after turning it really loud and started our instrumental (by the GSO) of “Summer Lovin.’ We have practiced it all singing together, but I haven’t ‘cast’ it yet; here we go...

DANNY
Summer lovin’ had me a blast
SANDY
Summer lovin’ happened so fast
DANNY
I met a girl crazy for me
SANDY
Met a boy cute as can be
BOTH
Summer days driftin’ away,
to uh-oh those summer nights
EVERYONE
Uh Well-a well-a well-a huh
Tell me more, tell me more
Did you get very far?
Tell me more, tell me more
Like does he have a car?
Uh-huh uh-huh uh-huh uh-huh

BOTH
Summer dreams ripped at the seams,
Bu-ut oh, those su-ummer nights...
EVERYONE
Tell me more, tell me more!

There was wonderful applause that started before it was over, and I said, “I’m sorry folks. I love my wife so much that singing to her has become my favorite thing to do ... maybe the second-best thing!”

That got me a love slap, another laugh, and more applause – from the guys.

“I’m Michael Thomas, this is my wife Jennifer and all of these other crazy kids are The Gold Standard Society. We have music available on iTunes, and we will be performing at Sun Life Stadium the day after tomorrow and the Raymond James Stadium the following day. Thank you for your applause ... don’t drink and swim.”

As we left, we got a final applause from the guests of the Bay Lake Towers.

Peter and Charles caught up with us with Charles saying,”I suppose this means you are back to take over.”

“I’d prefer to conduct more and sing from time to time. How would you two like a permanent gig, hosting our show each night?”

Charles giggled and Peter gave me a huge high-five. “Sure thing Boss, but we want you to pick the music. That’s kind of stressful,” Charles said.

“Can do boys. I am a conductor, after all.” Jenn got back on my lap, and we went back to the room, changing into dry clothes.

****

“You know Michael, a lot of the GREASE music we could do as its own set, eventually. Joan As Rizzo, Peter as Kenickie, James as the Teen Angel, even Isabel would be perfect as Marty ... Marty Maraschino... ‘Like the cherry.’”

“The other guys, Doody, Sonny, and ... uhm Putzie, could be Johnny, Charles and Sam Choate,” I added. “What about the main supporting girls, besides Marty.”

“You’re talking about Frenchy and Jan. Sharon would be perfect as Jan, and Mary Mitchell could be Frenchy. If we do the big dance number, we need Nancy as ‘Cha Cha.’ We still need a Vince Fontaine,” Jennifer was quick to say, “Oooh, Geoff Cooper would love to tease around with Marty.”

“So, we do some mini-scenes?” I said.

“Not really, just a few moments before the songs. We still need Johnny Casino and the Ramones ... How about John and Rich Mitchell, with Carlos and Juan? Have we left anybody out?” she said.

“They can all be dancers, the only guys we haven’t put anywhere are Steve Williams, Jorge and Steve Neff. We have about six of the girls without a named role at this point, but there are some songs they can all be added to like ‘Summer Nights,’ ‘It’s Raining On Prom Night,’ plus I can’t wait to hear Joanie belting ‘There Are Worse Things I Can Do,’ with a do-wop kind of thing going on behind her using those same girls.”

I got a kiss for that speech. Yippee.

“Michael, we need too much time to do all that. Let’s wait and change out something on the GSS list when school starts again.”

“Once again, the beautiful bride is smarter than her husband,” I said reaching for my laptop.

“It’s about time you figured that out,” she said with swagger and a giggle.

“Our last show before we likely open at the Mansion is currently PHANTOM OF THE OPERA. Do you want to move that, or add GREASE to just before our Anniversary week back here? It’s your decision to make, my dear ... we are a couple and I need you to make this decision.”

“I like your idea of doing it in November. It needs the pomp of not being immediately followed,” she said.

“Brilliant,” I said. “Now, all of that doesn’t preclude us from putting one or two of those numbers in our current Tour.”

“Then order the score from my daddy ... stud,” she said.

I got right on the phone and called Jeff for a single complete score for GREASE, the film music and a single score from the Broadway Revival, giving him our Tampa Bay Hotel address we will be at in four days.

That having been done, we listened to the music making our picks for what we might add to our GSS iTunes playlist right away.

I picked “Summer Nights,” “Beauty School Dropout” and “There Are Worst Things I Can Do.”

My wife picked, “Hopelessly Devoted To You,” “Look At Me, I’m Sandra Dee” and “Beauty School Dropout.”

After our sexualized arbitration, we decided to do all five of them ... plus the song we did tonight.

While the rest of them went out to spend some time taking the Monorail to The Magic Kingdom, we stayed close to the hotel. There were plenty of slower-paced things for the two of us to do.

We went out to The Wave Restaurant, getting Steamed Florida Cedar Key Clams as an appetizer. We’d had clams before, but these were really tasty. We fed each other having one of those evenings I had dreamed about when I first realized I wanted to marry her.

I had only ever known love as mother-son, with my dad always on the job with the US Military. Mom meeting and finding a love from her past and marrying again fulfilled me as much as it did her. Nothing prepared me for the rest of my life like Jennifer Guthrie-Thomas has. She puts up with my crap, that alone means I should take her away from all of this music stuff.

Fortunately, she loves it all as much as I do, and that’s a lot. My mom and her mom and their guys are all A-number one in my book. I’m even reasonably prepared for all the over 30s leaving us in the next few years.

Life goes on.

After the appetizers, my free-roaming Ashley Farms Chicken Breast smelled spectacular, as did her Dijon-crusted Lamb Chops. We both got side orders of Risotto, after it was explained to us by Beth, our server. She was pretty, but nowhere near the league my wife was in. We rarely weren’t looking into each other’s eyes.

The food was extraordinary, and we took a leisurely amount of time to get through it finding out about each other’s early childhood which we had never discussed much before.

After finding out our mothers were like best friends in college, makes our even meeting each other a long shot, much less ending up in the same town, growing up two miles from each other.

When we were done with dinner, I showed the card I got, but needed to know the total for purposes of the tip. I figured 20% and left it for Beth. We strolled slowly back to our suite, until I got her on my lap, and we rolled together to our bedroom. It being only nine-thirty at night, we turned on the TV and found the wonderful slightly older movie called WALK THE LINE, that starred Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon. Wow ... she can sing?

What a lovely night we had together. I’d like about a million more with her. I turned off the TV and we kissed, maybe the most romantic kiss we’d had since our honeymoon. We both knew that sex wasn’t necessary, because just like John Lennon wrote almost fifty years earlier, “All You Need Is Love.”

After a very satisfying night’s sleep, I woke up early ... with an idea.

I called Brian, “Good Morning Mr. O’Sullivan.”

“How much?”

That made me laugh before I got it together to ask, “What have you done so far regarding my idea of the 50 State Tour next summer?”

“To be honest, not very much. You must have had some sort of epiphany?” he asked, knowing me really well.

“Instead of finding a stadium of consequence in the actual state capital of each state, what do you think of the idea to let each state have an individual selection process to see which facility wants us bad enough?”

“You mean like, for example, the multiple stadiums in Georgia all bid for the right to having us there?”

“Yeah, with the ‘winner’ willing to pay us the highest percentage in combination with the official capacity of that stadium. If both the University of Georgia and the Atlanta Dome were both willing to pay us 50%, then the University of Georgia, with its 92,746 capacity would ‘win’ the right to host us.”

“Excuse the comparison, but it sounds like you are prostituting the GSS to the highest bidder,” he said, which I had expected.

“I don’t see it that way, Dad. It could be a friendly competition like in Georgia, but in places with a lot of stadiums, like California with its six over 50,000 or Florida with its six over 60,000 they could find a way to muck it all up.”

“I see your point, but it still sounds like ‘to the victor belongs the spoils’ to me,” Brian came back with.

“I’m not a Jacksonian Democrat, Dad. I’m not taking anything from anyone. I’m simply letting them have a community-based competition or whatever to select the place they want us to be. We could even perform at two separate places in the states that have multiple venues and are willing to pay for the privilege of having the best teenage orchestra and performers in the United States of America. If that sounds like pride to you ... then I’m guilty of that.”

“Wow, a Jacksonian Democrat ... Nice touch Michael. Have you worked out the Hawaii and Alaska problem?”

“I guess you weren’t there when Patrick Moynihan Jr, Chairman of the Board of Brown County in Green Bay, Wisconsin offered the planes we’d need for gratis. I will get you his card.”

I heard a sigh from his side of the phone. “At nearly seventeen, you have the chutzpah of a man twice your age. It constantly amazes me and makes me very proud to be your father. Get me that information plus when you have worked out a triptych for that tour.”