Chapter 6

Daylight tinted red by the sun bending over the horizon shyly rising filled the room when I awakened alone. I got up and put on my clothes to defy the chilled air and stepped out of the bedroom. I found Melinda leaning over her acoustic guitar, an Ovation, a dark blue cardigan keeping her warm and looking cute, her ears hidden by headphones. She jotted something in a notebook sitting in a chair beside her. She looked up and smiled a tired smile.

"Hey Joe."

"Hey Mel. Been up all night?"

"I'm a vampire. I work afternoons and evenings at Leah's." She shrugged.

"Got anything new?"

"I think so." Her face sort of scrunched cutely in a half smile. "I'll look at it later."

"Sounds good. Come to bed."

"Yes dear," she chuckled and stood and put away her guitar.

She hugged me. "Thanks," she said.

"For what?"

"Tell you later. Let's get us some shut eye."

Awaking with the delightful vision of Melinda's smiling face began a new day and a new life.

"Hey Joe," she said.

"Hey Mel. Been awake long?"

"Not long. I watched you sleep. You look so cute and innocent."

"Someday maybe I'll get my chance to watch you."

"I'm sure you will," she smiled. "I better start the generator."

"How come we're not boiling in here?"

"I'll show you." I started putting on clothes. "No need out here."

We walked through the back door. The large lake glowed pale blue in the heat. Stepping a few feet from the house I saw the reflective roof tile. She explained, "The sun provides electricity, but the air conditioning tends to use a lot, so I shift to the generator during the day and when I get home at night for a couple hours."

I nodded and noticed the sun high and angled slightly west and realized it had to be afternoon. Mesmerized by her, I hadn't glanced at the clock. "What time is it?"

"After one."

"Shit. I must have slept..."

"You needed it," she said. "Let's get out of the heat."

While she made eggs and hash browns, the potatoes from Leah's, I answered her questions, explaining my escape. I continued while we ate.

"So that's the last of Sin Drone?" she asked.

"I hope so, unless we get desperate."

"Sounds like only your bandmates will get desperate."

"From your lips to God's ear," I responded.

"If you're name were David, we'd call ourselves 'Drum'," she contemplated.

"We could be Merj with a J," I suggested.

"Kind of appropriate. Speaking of which," she began, sitting in my lap, "I'm thinking of another merger when I get home." Her kiss suggested her meaning, even clearer when the second one occurred after she straddled me and our groins pressed and released. I felt her heat beneath her black panties and I'm sure she felt my rigidity.

Showing more resistance than I felt, she hopped off my lap and held out her hand. "Come," she said, and not with a u as a vowel. She led me to the studio.

The simplicity of the two chord song and the lyrics showed improvement, but clumsiness as well. It did bring out her voice better.

"It's shit, isn't it?" she asked me.

"It's a beginning. It's got potential. Do you mind if I work on it?"

"Mind? I expect it," she told me and kissed me. "I'd better get my ass going." She sounded regretful. I felt the same way, like I hadn't felt since those early years when leaving my wife had been painful.

"Fools in love, are there any other kinds of lovers?" sang Joe Jackson thirty years ago. "Fools in love, is there any other kind of pain?"

When I watched her disappear on her Vespa and felt the oppressive heat, I grabbed stuff from my Range Rover and hauled it inside, including my Gibson Les Paul. Once stashed, I sighed and turned on my cell phone and discovered several messages. I sighed deeper. A wave of anxiety hit me when I attached my lap top to the satellite phone system Melinda used for her home phone and found several e-mails. I got to work, finding a muse I had thought damaged. I can work through lack of creative juices, but it's a lot harder and more time consuming. The muse whispering in my inner ear sounded like Melinda.

Half past 5 I heard Mindy's loud truck arrive. Knowing her vaunted mechanical abilities I asked her why she didn't fix the muffler or tinker with the engine to quiet it.

"I announce my entrance," she said simply. She communicated in terse sentences. I watched her shut off the generator and fill its capacious tank with gas. She left it off. "So, did you fuck her?" she asked.

Smiling ironically, I shook my head, "No."

"Not yet?"

"Not yet," I agreed.

"I don't trust men," she said.

"Is there a reason?"

"Yes," she answered, as did her pained expression and her glistening eyes.

"How old were you?" I asked.

"Not very. I developed these curves early."

"Motherfuckers."

"More like ... Never mind. Let's get inside."

Once inside, she grabbed a beer and handed me one. "Are you going to make her a star?" she asked, sitting at the dining table.

I sat across from her. "She wants my help. I'm joining the band."

She snorted. "Like you can't find studio musicians."

"How long have you guys been playing together?"

"Since we were thirteen."

"Wow. Five years, right?" She nodded. "It won't work without you guys. It's the five year rule. Everything gels."

"Or it's time to quit," she countered.

I shook my head. "You're synched."

"Maybe." Then she sighed. "Don't tell Mel, but I'm thinking of quitting."

"Why?"

"I mean it's fine us playing gigs here and there just a day's ride away, but once we get momentum and some decent songs ... You're going to write us some decent songs, right?"

"I'm thinking more like a partnership."

"Yeah. She'd like that. But I'm a fucking mechanic, Joe, not some goofy itinerant bassist dreaming of the big time or whatever. I'm moving to Vegas, got a gig lined up at a fancy garage fixing high end cars. Sure I'll have my evenings free so we could continue our little engagements in small town dance halls and bars, but you're envisioning something a fuck of a lot bigger."

I agreed, "People need to hear that voice."

She nodded. "I love her."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"Fuck that. She needs you. She always needed you. I could never give her what she needed."

"What do you mean?"

"It's not just sex, but that's definitely a big part so to speak. She needs a mature man, a father figure and a lover and a friend she can trust all wrapped up in one. You're the first man who could fulfill all those things. No one's been close. But..."

"What?"

"You're married. You have another life."

"Not anymore."

"Explain," she demanded.

"I'm divorcing my wife, and no it's not a ruse. We decided before I got here. I felt broken and alone. All my best friends turned on me."

"Poor thing," she remarked sarcastically.

"No, I'm more to blame than anyone. I became solipsistic and ignored my friends and my family to the point that they resented me. I blamed them for my estrangement, but it was me. I thought I had more important things to do, you know, more things to improve my stature and wealth. I didn't have time to be friendly and sustain relationships. But it turned on me like they did. In the vacuum of my solipsism, I started drying up. The juicy joy of creation became a chore. It lost its charm and excitement."

"Until you met Melinda."

"It seems like she's my muse."

Mindy laughed with her whole voluptuous body. "My God, the goddess of gloom becomes a sweet angel!"

"I don't understand," I said. "She seems sweet to me."

"We're the fucking three lepers, Joe. You think that makes us joyous? We're fucking bitter as shit, and Melinda's the bitterest. We're the three bitches. We love tearing everything apart, including the people here and whatever bombards us from the rest of the world. Didn't you listen to the songs?"