Chapter 15

During a lull in the show, I moved up to the front and told Kristen that I had something to do at home. All the girls looked disappointed, especially Kristen. I gave each of them a hug and left the store.

Kristen followed me out. "You're not mad that I didn't tell you my secret earlier, are you?"

I shook my head. "Kris, I'm certainly not angry at you. You have some 'secret, ' and if I should need to know about it, you'll tell me; I'll find out when it's appropriate. But I really have some things to do at home, especially with tomorrow being the first day of school."

This was maybe a little white lie. I was, of course, still a bit hurt that I hadn't been a part of whatever it was that Patty and Kristen had done together the other day, although Patty's assurances to me did make me feel better.

Kristen nodded. "How about dinner?"

"I think I should eat at home. Haven't been doing that too much, lately."

"What's wrong, Jim?" Kristen looked very hurt.

"Nothing," I assured Kristen. "Everything's right. I love you--it can't get more perfect than that! I just want to prepare for school. Hearing you and the girls talk about college all the time has gotten me thinking about my future as well. I think that's part of why I was in a funk on Sunday."

Kristen didn't seem convinced. "You sure that nothing's wrong?"

"I'm positive, Kris," I said, smiling and giving her a kiss on the cheek.

"Can I give you a ride?"

I sighed. I really hated turning Kristen down. "Nah. It's only two blocks, and you girls are still picking out clothes."

"Shall I send Patty over tonight?"

Patty was the last thing I needed at my house tonight. I suspected that Patty was Kristen's secret spy to keep track of me. I didn't know if Patty's loyalties were to me or to Kristen, and it would be foolish of me to entrust Patty with any of my secrets, although she had shown herself quite competent at keeping Kristen's secrets.

"Nah. I'll see her tomorrow morning. I guess she's giving me a ride to school!"

"You know that I love you, Jim," Kristen said, her face clearly showing concern.

"I know, Kris. And I love you, too!" The two of us kissed for a couple of minutes, Kristen turning it, of course, into one of her patented erection specials. It was difficult for me to leave, but I knew that I had some work to do. I hugged Kristen and said my good-bye, and then I walked toward my home.

As I walked away, I knew that Kristen was a bit more than disappointed. I wondered what I could have done to avoid doing that to her. I was still a bit new to this girl friend/boy friend thing. However, Kristen had admitted that she had some sort of secret that she was keeping from me, and I now had my own secret idea for Kristen, one that I hoped she'd really like. I just needed some private time to put things together. I truly hoped that Kristen would understand.

Once I got home, I went straight upstairs. I was looking for a 45 single that I had purchased a while back. Of course, it was nowhere to be found.

Knowing that Merry sometimes "borrowed" some of my singles, I found her in the laundry room. I asked her if she had that particular forty-five, and she said it was in a stack on the turntable in her room.

"I'm going to borrow it back," I told my step-sister. "You can have it tomorrow."

"Sure. I was starting to get sick of the song, anyway."

I found the record where Merry had said it would be, and took it into my room. I had a pair of Senheiser headphones and plugged them into my receiver. I put the 45 center adapter into the turntable and programmed the automatic mechanism to repeat the song continuously.

I looked among my school supplies and found my loose leaf binder that had fifty or so blank pages of music staffs on it, a gift from my music teacher last year.

I was considered a sort of music prodigy as a kid. My mother had taught me how to read music before I could even read fairy tales. I played the old upright piano that was in our den, which I still doodled on occasionally, especially when trying to figure out the notes to a song.

In elementary school, I had taken up a few instruments, but found that my piano training served as a disadvantage at first. You see, most orchestral instruments are tuned to different keys. When a trumpet plays a middle-C note, for instance, the actual pitch that comes out is a B-flat note. Expecting the sound of one note and hearing a different pitch was very disconcerting.

However, I persevered, and managed to learn to train my ears to transpose the "expected" sound of the notes I played, and I managed to get quite good on the trumpet. Not wanting to sit on my laurels, I tried other instruments, eventually doing well enough to be considered pretty versatile.

In junior high, I became a jack of all trades in music class. My music teacher stayed with me after school to teach me things that they normally don't teach in music class, like arrangements, the basics of conducting, sight transposition (looking at, say, music written for trumpet--which is a B-flat instrument--and having it play in the correct pitch for, say, an E-flat instrument like an alto sax), and other advanced subjects.

During some high school special events, like musicals, I was "loaned out" from the junior high to play some specialized instruments, or even a regular instrument, like the trumpet or the piano. The high school teacher had dealt with such "prodigies" before, but I managed to impress even him.

Anyway, I was determined to listen to this one song, over and over, and get it down on paper. Then, I'd transpose it for a few instruments. I only had the rest of the afternoon and this evening to complete my work.

After a couple of hours, my mom called me down to supper, and I ate quickly, wanting to get back upstairs to my music work.

"What are you doing up there?" Mom asked.

"Scoring something."

"You have a girl up there?" my step-father asked.

My mother looked daggers at him.

"No. I meant that I'm trying to capture a song from a record onto music paper."

"Sounds weird," my step-father said, having little interest in music.

My mother actually smiled. The two of us shared a love for music. "Getting a head start in music class already?"

I grinned. "Something like that."

Merry offered to do the dishes for me in return to allow her to come into my room later and watch me "score" a song.

"Sure, Shortcake. You may need to knock loudly, since I'll have the headphones on."

"Okie dokie," Merry said, happy as a clam.

When I got back upstairs, I found a headphone Y-adapter that I had once used with Jack to listen to "forbidden" albums ("The First Family" and an album by Lenny Bruce are still ingrained in my memory). I found a pair of studio monitor headphones that I knew would impress Merry--I preferred the lightness and the better sound reproduction of the Senheisers--and hooked the studio monitors into the Y-adapter as well. I had to turn the volume up a bit to compensate for the dissipation of the signal.

I got back to work.

I heard Merry's knock, and invited her in. I put the monitors on her, and showed her what I was doing.

"You mean, rock musicians can actually read music?" Merry asked.

"Well, in reality, probably not very many of them," I grinned.

Merry didn't interrupt me, but eventually got bored watching me put what appeared to her to be useless circles and lines on my score sheets. The only part that interested her was when I put the words underneath the vocal notes. In fact, the two of us had an argument on how the first two words were to be spelled. She loved the first few lines of the song. Merry was yawning after about an hour of this and excused herself.

I finally managed to get the song completed. There was more work to be done, like reducing the scores to individual parts. I figured that I would be able to do some of that at school, since it was merely copying what I had on one page onto another, and traditionally, the first day of school usually didn't entail much work, although I wasn't quite sure what to expect for high school.

I looked at the time, it was close to midnight.

I finally turned off the record player, wondering how much damage the diamond needle had done to the record with all the excessive playing and shrugged. It was my record to begin with, even if Merry had taken possession of it.

Patty arrived for my morning blow job, her morning back rub, and breakfast. She told my parents that she'd be staying over Kristen's starting that night, since her mother was still away, and Kristen's family had offered her to stay in one of the guest rooms.

In the car, Patty turned to me and said, "So, what do you want Patricia doing today?"

Oh, damn! I had been so busy scoring the song last night that I hadn't really thought of anything.

"Um... it's a surprise," I said, not untruthfully. If I figured something out, it would be a surprise to me!

"Cool. Kris says she'll meet us here in the parking lot."

I smiled. I had a surprise in store for Kristen today.

Patty pulled into the school parking lot, and easily spotted Kristen's red Camaro. Kristen was leaning against the back of her car, talking to some other girl.

"Oh, fuck," Patty said. "That's Dale."

I had heard some things about Dale, none of them nice, mostly from Kristen and Patrice.

By the time that Patty found a parking spot, Dale had left, much to my relief. I had my bag of tickets in my attache case that I brought with me to school. I knew that I shouldn't use them for revenge, but it comforted me to know that I had them available.

Kristen's face lit up as she saw Patty and me walking toward her. "Hi, Jim! Hi Patty!"

We all gathered in a three-way hug.

Kristen said, softly, "The cravings are still there, but they're not getting worse."

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"If I can go a week and they still don't get any worse, then I can probably go any length of time. At least, that's what I'm hoping."

I wasn't looking forward to not being with Kristen for a whole week, but I reminded myself that Kristen had this particular problem because of my bone-headed ideas. I forced myself to smile. "That sounds... um... great, Kris."

Kris looked at me, and stifled a laugh. "You are a lousy actor, Jim!" She hugged me closer, planting a kiss on my lips.

"It's time to get to home room," Patty suggested. That was where we'd get our official class schedules. We already had a "preliminary" schedule sent to our houses, but things usually got shuffled around at the last minute.

Kristen bid her good-byes, and kissed the two of us quickly. I had Patty stay back a second.

"Patricia?" I said.

Patty's eyes beamed. "Yes, James?"

"You want something sexy, or embarrassing?"

"Um... how about a little of both?"

"OK," I grinned. I opened my attache case and took out a marker. "Here."

"What's this?"

"A magic marker. It's water soluble, so it will wash off. Anyway, I want you to get a guy to autograph one of your breasts."

"Huh?" Patty said.

"Too much for you?"

"I thought you'd... like in the mall..."

"Nah. Already done that. Just show me the signature when you pick me up after school. Oh... I almost forgot. I need to stay late today, about an hour. Do you think you could find Kris and have her meet me in the music room at 3:45 today?"

"Exactly?"

"Yeah. You can't enter the room if the red light is on outside. Just wait for the light to turn off after 3:45 and you and Kris can come in."

"Sure thing. You really want somebody to autograph my breast?"

I smiled. "Tell some guy you're doing it on a dare."

My first home room was a bit exciting, since it was my first time having a real class in high school. The big topic was, of course, the resignation of Tricky Dick ("I am NOT a crook!") and possible repercussions about having our first unelected president in office.

I had World History for first period, and it was upstairs. The conversation about the recent happenings with Watergate and stuff was still the hot topic for the first half of that class. I don't remember exactly where in world history we started after that; it has been a while, and didn't seem as earth shaking to me at that time.

I know that I had music class for third period, followed by lunch. Usually, with this kind of schedule, I would skip lunch, and spend more time in the music room. But now I had friends that might have fourth period lunch. I decided to do my schedule straight for the first day.

In music class, the teacher started the task of getting a bunch of students used to playing their instruments again, usually after not having touched them in three months.

The music teacher, Mr. Proilet (his name is pronounced "Pree-Lay"), saw me in class, and asked me how my summer had been. I assured him that I had kept current on my trumpet, but that I'd be willing to fill in on any instruments where he might be short-staffed. He smiled at my offer, knowing that I was quite versatile musically.

"I'd rather have you at first trumpet, first chair."

I groaned at this. The first chair was usually reserved for seniors or at least juniors. And I know that there were a few really good trumpet players in this year's class.

I looked around the room quickly, and noticed a certain section was a bit short. "How about trombone?" I asked.

The teacher looked at me. "Are you up for it?"

I smiled. "Bass instruments are usually easier, and the 'bone is natural pitched instrument."

"How are you on the slide?"

"Almost as good as trumpet," I assured Mr. Proilet.

"Hmmm. How about second trombone? Bill, there, is a killer on the slide, and Roger also wants to play first," my teacher pointed out, referring to two seniors in the trombone section. "We can use some more support on second trombone, if you don't mind the lower position."

I grinned. I'd prefer to play second trombone, actually; it would avoid resentment from the older students. "Second it is."

The teacher shook his head. It wasn't every day that a student would turn down the status of playing first chair. "Um, Jim?"

"Yeah?" I asked.

"Mr. Thurd told me how you like to play new instruments," Mr. Proilet said.

"Yes?"

My music teacher walked into the instrument closet and found an instrument case, coming back into the room and handing it to me. "Here's something from the marching band. It fingers like a trumpet and reads trombone music. We got a few over the summer. Would you like to give it a try?"

I shrugged, never having touched the instrument. "I'd like to add another instrument to my repertoire!" I grinned.

I opened the case and saw that the instrument looked like a rather large trumpet, but aside from being twice as large, it also had a bell the same size as that on a bass trombone. I looked up, "Um, Mr. Proilet?"

"Yes, Jim? I need to start the class."

"I have a little music project... something for after school. Could I spend the period copying a master to some individuals?"

The teacher laughed. "Mr. Thurd had warned me about you. You still need to practice the new instrument, too. Go ahead and have fun."

I thanked the teacher, and gave the new instrument a test. I quickly ran through a set of scales, and noticed that it had the range of a standard trombone, without the slide effect. I got the hang of it quickly, and then resumed my music project to the accompaniment of the cacophony of a bunch of students trying to turn noise into music. In a way, the noise was soothing to me.

I was surprised to see Patty at lunch at fourth period, and looked around. Kristen was nowhere to be found.

Patty saw me looking. "She has lunch during third. You missed her walking out."

"I had music class, and was doing a special project."

Patty's eyes widened. "I remember you! You were in 'Annie Get Your Gun' last year!"

"Yeah. They imported me for piano and a couple of extra parts last year." I didn't mention that I had been in the two previous high school musicals as well.

"Must be cool to have all that talent. You know, Kristen has a piano at her house."

"She does? How come I never noticed?"

"Because, when you're around Kris, you only notice Kris, you Don Juan!"

One of the upper classmen from music joined us at the table. His name was Toby something-or-other. He was in the band, playing first trumpet, third chair.

"Um... Am I interrupting?" Toby said.

"No," I said. "Toby. This is Patty, a friend of mine."

"We've met," Patty said, but blinked her eyes demurely in a move that could only have been copied from an expression that I had seen Kristen do frequently.

"Yeah. We have math together," Toby said. He turned to me, "I want to thank you for what you did in music today?"

"Huh?" I asked.

Toby's face was serious. "Taking second trombone instead of first trumpet. I would have been kicked down to second trumpet if you had taken it, and I've heard you play. You really deserve it."

"It's nothing, really. The trombone section looked weak."

"Whatever. Thanks, anyway."

"Sure."

Patty watched this exchange, probably not understanding any of it. "So, what do you think about Calculus?" she asked Toby.

"Seems pretty easy," Toby said, grinning.

Patty shook her head. "I don't think I'll ever get it."

I watched Patty and Toby make small talk. Unlike when I was with Patty and the girls, she did not draw me into this conversation.

The two of them were transfixed with one another. I felt a little awkward, and quietly got up and left. I don't think either one of them noticed.

I wasn't jealous of Patty, and I actually kind of liked Toby. I mean, he didn't have to search me out and thank me for turning down first chair. He could have simply pretended that he didn't know. The boy had dignity... and he seemed to really like Patty.

I hoped that Patty had been able to get the message to Kristen to meet me at 3:45. I had something planned, and was getting everything down to the last minute. I had maybe ten minutes of leeway, and if things started to go wrong, I'd have to wait another day. I didn't want to wait.

School finally let out, and I met Mr. Proilet and asked if I could use the music room for a practice. He didn't seem to mind.

My friends from junior high all started to wander into the music room. They were gossiping and chatting among themselves, talking about their first day of school.

All of them were doing me a favor by staying after school, and after about fifteen minutes, I had about ten guys from last year's chorus, as well as five or six members of the band, all milling about the music room.

I started handing out the music. I had waited until after school when I was alone in the music room to actually put the title of the song on the music sheets.

Everybody knew the song, and the chorus knew their part without needing music sheets, but I wanted everything perfect.

I had borrowed Patty's new friend, Toby, to play trumpet. There was another guy named Lou playing baritone sax. One of the members of the chorus, Sam, was also in the string section of the concert orchestra, and noticed that I hadn't written a bass part.

"I don't know any bass players, or where I could get an electric bass on short notice."

"I have a string bass in the orchestra room," Sam replied, smiling. "If you have the chord sheets, I could improvise a bass line." He left quickly to get his instrument.

I didn't have a recording engineer, so I opted instead to use a binaural mike setup above where my music focus would be. I figured if I could move the string bass closer to the mike, it might be heard amid the sounds of the other instruments.

The musicians were practicing their parts. It was a simple arrangement of a simple song, really.

Gerry, a senior that I knew only by reputation, walked in with an electric guitar. We shook hands, and I showed him the music. He grinned when he saw the title, and said that he already played this song with his band... in the same key.

I watched Gerry connecting his amp and guitar, and I had remembered something. "Gerry? Do you know Wendy Jones?"

Gerry looked up at me, surprised. "Yeah. I called her a few days ago. Why?"

"Wendy's a friend of mine. I remember her telling me about a boy that played guitar. I had thought it was you."

"You hang out with Wendy?" Gerry asked, impressed. "She's a really nice babe."

"Yeah. I hang out with all her friends."

"She's friends with Kristen now," Gerry said.

"I know. Kristen's our guest of honor for this show, actually."

Gerry looked thoughtful. "Is it true that Kristen's changed? I mean, she doesn't hang out with her old crowd anymore. And do you know Dale? I heard her bad mouthing Kristen this morning. The two of them used to be tight."

"Yeah. Kristen's changed. For the better, I hope."

Gerry started tuning his guitar, and I left him alone.

I grinned and hoped for the best. It was 3:20, and I only had time for one full rehearsal before the real thing.

I turned on the recorder, and then walked to the front. I found Mr. Proilet's conductor's stick, and I started the chorus chanting.

The song only took about three or four minutes, and it worked without a hitch. The weakest part was Toby on trumpet, but he was doing his level best to make this work. After the song ended, I turned off the recorder and looked at the V.U. meters. We had a few peaks that were a bit in the red zone, so I moved the recording gain down about two decibels.

I gave everybody the thumb's up, and told them to take five.

My lead singer, Roy, came over to me. "You have a pleasant voice, Jim. The timbre's of our voices match nicely."

I nodded. "I don't have any fancy recording engineers, and I wanted to double-track the vocals. The best way to do that with this setup is to have you and I both be lead singers. It's a good thing for me that the range on this song is simple."

Roy shook his head. "Your voice is better than you think," he said. "Most people just don't like hearing their voices on a recording. But you get used to it. Continue doing it. As I said, you have a nice voice, and I'm one to know."

I thanked Roy, and Toby came up to me. "I think I got the part nailed now. I was a bit shaky at the instrumental part."

"Don't worry, Toby," I assured the trumpet player. "You're doing really fine. We're not recording for the radio!"

Toby grinned. "Patty and I have a date next Saturday."

I smiled. "That's great. She's a really nice person, and so are you. I think the two of you will be great together."

"Think so?" Toby asked. He looked just a bit uncertain. "She's... um... different than most girls I know."

I shrugged. "All girls are different in their own way. Patty will be here, you know. In about five minutes, in fact."

Toby beamed. "Really?"

"Yup. So make it sound great for her!"

"You betcha!"

The musicians formed up, and I noticed that the chorus had roughly doubled in size since the rehearsal. Apparently, the word went out and people were begging to be a part of the session. I hoped that neither Patty nor Kristen had gotten word of it.

I explained everything to the newcomers, while keeping my eye on the clock. The girls were due any minute...

I saw Toby's eyes light up, and I turned around to see my two best friends walk into the music room uncertainly. "Jim?" Patty said, not understanding why so many boys were in one place after school.

"Patty, Kristen," I said, "Sit on those two chairs." I pointed to the two chairs directly underneath the binaural mike.

The two girls got themselves comfortable. I signaled to Roy, the lead singer, to start the recording. He nodded, turned on the recorder and went back to his mike.

I waved my baton, mouthing "1, 2, 1, 2, 3, 4..."

The Chorus started chanting:

"Ouga Chaka... Ouga, Ouga...

Ouga Chaka... Ouga, Ouga..."

I closed my eyes, conducting from memory. I started singing into the mike:

"I can't stop this feeling,

Deep inside of me...

Girl you just don't realize

What you do to me..."

I continued to sing, my eyes closed and conducting my impromptu orchestra blindly (they were hit perfectly). I really put everything I had into the song.

The instrumental sounded great... even Toby's trumpet.

I drove on, eager to see this song to its conclusion. Finally, I managed to get to the end of the song...

"I'm high on believing,

That you're in love with me!

Yeah, I'm hooked on a feeling!"

The music stopped, and I kept my eyes closed. It seemed to go all right, but I really hadn't been listening to the entire mix, just trying to get my part done. How had it actually gone? I had thought that lost my nervousness about stepping on stage when I was in sixth grade, but right now I really felt nervous, like a kid doing his first recital.

I opened my eyes, and Roy was standing by the recorder, giving me the thumb's up signal. I felt a little better. But what did my audience think?

With trepidation, I turned around, and saw Kristen smiling at me, tears in her eyes.

Was I that bad? Roy had said I had a pleasant voice, but maybe he was just being nice...

"That was so sweet!" Kristen said, rushing up to me.

She liked it?

Kristen rushed up and kissed me deeply in front of the entire chorus and band. As we broke it off, I heard a smattering of applause. A few of the chorus had started chanting the "Ouga Chaka" part again, laughing among themselves.

Patty was over by the musicians, talking with Toby.

Roy came over and handed me the two master cassettes from the recorder. I presented one of them to Kristen and said, "For you, my little blonde Goddess!"

I introduced Kristen and Roy, and they exchanged pleasantries. Kristen noticed how much Roy's voice sounded like mine and commented on it.

"Tell that to Jim," Roy grinned. "He thinks my voice sounds great, but he doesn't think his measures up!"

Kristen kissed me again.

Gerry, the guitar player, congratulated me on a great set, and asked me if he could use my arrangement for his band. I shrugged and gave him my master copy, asking him to just copy it and return it to me. I wanted to keep it as a souvenir of my "back to school" present for Kristen. Gerry didn't seem to have a problem with that.

Kristen drove me from school, stopping by Lake Shore Point for a quick make-out session. We weren't alone, and Kristen was careful not to allow our passions to overflow. She was still trying to determine if she could handle the cravings that I had imposed upon her.

We then stopped at Kristen's house, where I saw Patty's car was already parked. We went into the main house, and I once again met Kristen's parents.

Patty came into the living room where we were and said "Hi."

Kristen hugged Patty and asked, "Who was that you were talking to in the band?"

"His name's Toby," Patty answered. "Jim introduced us."

I nodded. "He seems to like Patty. He's a really decent guy. He works hard at playing trumpet."

Patty beamed. "Toby had a lot of nice things to say about you, too. How you kept him from getting demoted in the trumpet section..."

"It's not demoted, but you got the basics. But I didn't do it for him. The trombone section looked weak."

Kristen beamed at me. "Such a gracious gentleman."

"How was your first day back to school?" Kristen's mother asked.

"Great," Kristen answered. "Jim, here, seems to be multi-talented in the music department. He made this recording for me today." Kristen held up her cassette.

"You're a musician?" Kristen's mom asked.

"I play a bit," I squirmed, disliking this kind of attention.

"Mom... he arranged an entire score, and got a bunch of guys from school to make a recording. All on the first day of school!"

"Really?" Mrs. Swift said, impressed. "We have a piano in the parlor, you know."

"Mom," Kristen said, rolling her eyes. "He doesn't want to entertain during your parties!"

Patty and I laughed at this. I doubted that Kristen's mother actually had such a design on me.

The three of us excused ourselves and went into Kristen's play room. I needed to get back before six for dinner.

Kristen gave me a tender kiss, and pulled Patty in to make it a three-way. She was shivering.

"What's wrong?" I asked Kristen.

"Dale's starting rumors," Kristen said. "Talking about me, Patrice, and the rest of us. She actually had the nerve to ask me to pay her $250 in order to prevent the rumors from running rampant."

Patty nodded. "I heard some of them already. She was with you at your car before school, wasn't she?"