“It’s almost ready,” I said, amazed at the speed that construction happened on Kristen’s property.
“Harry’s pretty effective at things like that,” Kristen observed.
“Wow,” was all Lynette could say.
“Let’s let the workers finish,” I said. I took the padded bench and led the girls across the hall into the music studio.
I put the bench into the studio and instructed the girls to sit. Lynette did immediately, and Kristen was a bit slower due to her injury, but Lynette helped her.
“I was going to save this for the first day of school, but I think we need this right now.”
For the past week, I had been getting up in the middle of the night and would tiptoe downstairs to play in the studio. I already had two of the four tracks recorded, and I was lucky in that the open reel four-track recorder was already cued. I set the two tracks that were recorded to “play” and patched my microphone and electric piano into the two currently blank tracks, setting them to record.
I then turned on the amplifier. I put on the heavy headphones, despite the fact that I had an audience, and plugged them into amplifier as well.
Through experimentation, I found that a fifteen second gap at the start of the recording gave me time between turning on the recorder and getting set up to play. The introduction didn’t require piano, so I would get the beat before I started.
There was an electronic solo from the mini-organ that I already recorded on the tape. When that introduction was over, I started to play the piano and sing:
I already recorded a trumpet track, as well as the organ track, and during one of the instrumental breaks, I performed a live duet with my piano and voice. During the break before the final reprise of the chorus, there was a prerecorded trumpet solo. During that solo, I noticed that both Lynette and Kristen had their eyes opened wide. I ignored their responses and considered adding some acoustic piano accompaniment during the solo.
When the song ended, the two stunned blondes were still sitting there with their mouths open. I turned off the open reel recorder. I knew that I made a couple of flubs on the piano track, but I could always re-record that track some other time.
“That’s just you?” Kristen asked.
“Yeah,” I said, sheepishly. “That’s four tracks now. I’m going to need a patch board and a mixer to…”
“You did this here?” Kristen interrupted.
“Um, yeah? What do you think I do in here?” I asked.
“This is what you were showing to Marla?”
“No! I just finished these tracks last night after everybody was asleep. I’ll need to re-record the piano track, but this is the first time I did all four tracks.”
“You did this… by yourself?” Kristen asked again.
“Of course!”
“For me?”
“For you and Lynette,” I said. “I am going to need to figure out how to mix it down to a single track so I could give each of you a personalized cassette.”
“It’s all there on that tape?”
“Of course.”
“And you just recorded the last two tracks?”
“Yes.” I was a bit confused about Kristen’s questions.
Kristen paused for a moment, and then asked, “Can you play it back again?”
I shrugged. I rewound the tape and set all four tracks to play.
After the fifteen second pause, the intro started again.
I wasn’t trying to imitate anybody on this song, so it was my own voice. It sounded quite nasal when it played back, as it usually did, which is why I liked imitating other singers. I would have tried Elvis, but I never liked his version of the song. I was actually a bit embarrassed.
Sure enough, I heard the piano flubs and I winced at each one.
When the song ended, I stopped the recorder again.
I looked at Kristen and Lynette, and both of them had tears in their eyes. I turned to Lynette and made my appeal. “Lynette, please don’t leave us. Kris and I know that you didn’t intend to hurt Kris, and nobody is angry at you.”
Lynette was a basket case. She put her head in her hands and started bawling like a baby.
I moved over to her and held her head. “Please, Lynette…”
Lynette started crying even harder.
Kristen joined me, hugging Lynette from her seat.
“What’s wrong, Lynette?” I asked.
Lynette shook her head.
There was a knock on the studio door. I wondered who would do such a thing when the DND light was on. I left Lynette temporarily to answer the door.
“I’m sorry, Jim,” Patty said, sheepishly. “I need to leave for Roman’s. June is still in the main house.”
“Oh, thank you, Patty.”
Patty saw Lynette completely shattered with Kristen hugging her.
“I know it might be a bad time, but could you walk me to my car?”
I knew Patty well enough that I knew her request wasn’t callous. I simply nodded and left Lynette and Kristen.
“What’s up, Patty? Is June angry?”
“Of course not. I wanted to tell you that Lynette is angry at herself, and the only person that can forgive her is herself.”
“I know that,” I said.
“The best way to allow her to forgive herself is to let her show you how sorry she is. I take it from where you were that you just played the recording you said you were going to make for them.”
I nodded.
“Lynette is feeling very terrible about herself,” Patty said. “You played a special song for Lynette didn’t you?”
“Of course…”
“What you did was wonderful, but it might not have been the right moment for her,” Patty explained.
“She’s crying her heart out right now.”
“She needs a moment alone with Kristen.”
I nodded. “I’ll accept that.”
Patty got into her car, and said, “The only way that Lynette will get over this is to let her prove herself to Kristen.”
“How?”
Patty sighed. “I don’t know, but right now, Lynette is focused on what happened yesterday. She will never get past that until she forgives herself.”
I kissed Patty good-bye, and went back into the garage. I looked in on the new bedroom, and saw that the water bed was now full and the worker was gone. I was about to see if I could move Kristen and Lynette into this room, when another worker came in with rolls of wallpaper and a bucket of paste. I asked to see the pattern, and he showed me. It looked like foil and consisted of gold butterflies. It was quite pretty, and matched the dark brown of the furniture without being too dark. It wasn’t too masculine or feminine, either.
I left the room, and passed a worker who was carrying what I recognized as an intercom panel and other electrical gear. I was about to go back to my studio when I remembered that Patty told me that the two needed to be alone.
I went into the playroom and called to the main house. “I’m in the playroom, and I’d like to play a game of pool. Can you inform June?”
After about thirty seconds, June answered. “Be right there.”
I then hit the studio signal.
I didn’t get an answer, but I didn’t expect an answer immediately.