“I love you, Goddess,” I said.
“I love you, Jim.”
“Let’s rescue Lynette,” I suggested.
“Good idea.”
It didn’t take Lynette long before she realized the game that Kristen’s parents were playing. They wanted us to feel comfortable around them, and didn’t want us to be sneaking around, trying to hide our relationship from them.
Once we all realized that fact, the five of us had a great time. We even spent time in the hot tub, Daniel and Charley sitting together, and me sitting in the middle of a Kristen and Lynette sandwich.
I saw Daniel and Charley cuddle together without any inhibitions, and I did the same with Kristen and Lynette. After a while, though, I switched positions so that Kristen was between Lynette and me. This was much better, since it allowed Lynette and Kristen to cuddle together along with Kristen and me.
“Would you three like to have dinner with Charley and me?” Daniel asked.
Kristen looked at Lynette and me and saw our affirmative reactions. “Sure, Daddy.”
“What do you think about bratwursts?”
I knew for certain that Lynette didn’t like those. “Do you have Italian sausages also?” I asked. “Lynette prefers those.”
“I think we do, Jim,” Daniel said with a smile.
We all got dressed once again in our robes and soon, the five of us were making dinner. Daniel and I cooked the brats and the Italian sausages, Lynette and Kristen made cole slaw and a garden salad, and Charley made a mildly alcoholic punch.
As we put things to the table, I saw Kristen pour a glass half full of ginger ale before she ladled some punch into it. She put that at my place setting. I appreciated her thoughtfulness.
Kristen knew about my real father’s alcoholism, and while I sometimes took a sip of wine or champagne every now and then, I found that alcohol didn’t do anything for me. I also once admitted to Kristen that I once heard that alcoholism can run in families, and if that were true in my case, I didn’t want to become the embodiment of the one man that I truly hated in my life. It was for that reason that I appreciated Kristen’s diluting my drink with ginger ale. It showed that she was thinking about me.
The meal was wonderful. Simple food eaten family style. It was one of the few family moments that I spent with the Swifts since I moved in with Kristen at the apartment. Kristen’s parents urged Lynette to call them by their first names, and by the time the meal was over, I noticed that Lynette seemed much less nervous than she had been when Kristen’s parents first entered the Solarium.
After dinner, we all shucked our robes and returned to the hot tub. I noticed Charley hugging Daniel, and I smiled, and put my arms around Lynette and Kristen, since both girls on either side of me.
“What are your plans for college, Jim?” Charley asked me.
I shrugged. “I have another year to think about it. My music teacher suggested Berklee in Boston.”
“The music school?”
“Yeah. Kris said something about wanting to get her MBA at Harvard, and Berklee wouldn’t be too far away.”
“So you think that you’ll be a musician.”
I laughed. “I know. Musician is another word for broke. However, I love music. I like playing, I like arranging, and I like conducting. I honestly can’t see me doing finance for a living like Daniel.”
Charley nodded. “I loved music, too. I still do. I left that scene after Daniel proposed to me, and it may have been a good thing. I saw my girlfriend Honey get sucked into the music industry. They offered her a record contract and she made some records, but despite the fact that her records sold a bit, she ended up poorer than if she just continued performing at weddings and night clubs.”
“I’m not sure that people would want to listen to records that I make…”
“Stop that!” Kristen chided me, gently.
“Sorry, Kris,” I said, giving her a peck on the cheek to emphasize my words. I turned my attention back to Charley and said, “I prefer to live for the performance. Kris set up a music studio at our apartment, and it’s fun to be able to accompany yourself, but my favorite recordings are the ones I made during Kristen’s birthday party and the rehearsals for it. I might be good on trumpet and piano, but those recordings have great people playing all the parts together.”
“What kind of music will you play, son?” Daniel asked.
“My own,” I answered. “Some rock and roll, some jazz. I like the old big bands, but I also like contemporary bands such as Chicago and Blood, Sweat, and Tears. I don’t want to get too technical like those disco orchestras, but I love listening to Barry White.”
“Barry White?” Daniel asked.
Lynette, Kristen, and I laughed together.
“I can imitate a lot of voices,” I laughed, “but not his. He’s a deep bass. Did you ever hear a song called, ’You’re The First, The Last, My Everything?’”
“I think I heard the words before,” Charley said, smiling at her husband.
“Anyway, I would say that my voice isn’t as good as Barry’s, but Kristen would punch me. I think that with Kristen, I could make an outstanding jazz and rock band.”
“Me?” Kristen asked.
“I’ve heard you singing when you thought you were alone,” I said. “I know you can play jazz on both the acoustic and electric keyboards. Charley told me that you used to have a guitar and taught your brother to play. Your life may not be as focused as mine on music, but you definitely have talent.”
“I don’t sing!”
“I’ve heard you,” I said. “I think that with a bit of training, you could have as great a voice as your mother.”
Charley and Daniel burst out laughing. I sent them a look that would freeze the water in the hot tub.
“Jim,” Charley said, continuing to laugh, “we’re not laughing at Kristen’s ability. You just didn’t know, but Kris was given vocal training when she was younger!”
“Mom!”
“Hush, Kris,” Charley said as she turned to me. “She took lessons for a couple of years, and she’s a very talented singer. She stopped because she told me that she wanted to live her own life and didn’t want to relive mine.”
“Mom!”
Daniel added, “Kristen plays classical music wonderfully. Charley taught her bass guitar, but Kris picked up lead guitar on her own after listening to some records of—what’s his name? The Spanish guy with the guitar? José something? Anyway, she picked up guitar on her own, and as Charley said, she taught Will to play. When Will tried to put together a band a couple of years ago, he asked Kris sing and play a couple of songs.”
“Daddy!”
I could tell that Kristen was getting agitated about this. I figured that I could talk to her parents at a later time about Kristen’s musical upbringing.
“You asked me what I want to do for college, Mrs. Swift,” I said, taking the spotlight off my blonde Goddess. “I want to put together a band, and I want great people in it. I want to be a band that people will want to travel to see. We’ll play rock, jazz, blues, some classics and some stuff that we write ourselves.”
“Where will you play?” Daniel asked.
“I’d start at an established night spot until we make a name for ourselves. After that, we can consider our options.”
“You seem to have it figured out.”
Lynette said, “Jim is already looking into Puppy Dawg’s.”
“In town?” Daniel asked.
“Yes,” Lynette said. “He talked with my old friend Gerry, whose band is mostly disbanded, and they’re trying to set up an audition.”