Sherry gave me a small grin. “Do you really think that I’ll be the one with you tonight?”
I laughed. “No,” I answered, truthfully. “I never really had anybody for that third part. The last time I recorded this, I used the name Cammy.”
Sherry’s eyes widened for a quick moment, but she recovered quickly and said, “Well, you can use my name if you want. You recorded that, right?”
“Your laughter ruined the take, so I’ll probably do the track again later.”
“Oh, I’m sorry…”
“No need to apologize,” I assured Sherry. “I needed some practice with it. If it went perfect, I would have been happy, but I have until school starts to get it perfect.”
“School?”
“Talent Show.”
“You’re going to enter?” Sherry asked, surprised.
“Why not?”
“You’ll probably scare away anybody else that wants to enter, then.”
Shit. I would hate to be a disincentive to anybody at school.
“Well, I could also use it for a demo tape that Gerry can forward to Puppy Dawg’s.”
“Are you starting a band?”
I shrugged. “Yeah. I figured that I might as well start earning my keep. Anyway, do you mind sitting through another attempt?”
“You’re going to record it again?”
I nodded.
“I promise not to laugh this time!”
I reset the recorder, and got back to the microphone.
This time, the song went perfect. I rewound the tape and played it, realizing a bit that I was subjecting Sherry to the song three times in short succession. However, as I was doing the playback, I added a portable cassette recorder into the output of the pre-amp to mix the four tracks down to one—a setup I had jerry-rigged when Roy came over for a visit a week before.
After I was satisfied that the song sounded all right, I shut the machine off, and popped the cassette tape out and handed it to Sherry.
“For me?” Sherry asked, quite surprised.
“You sat through three renditions of that song. That’s for hanging on like a trouper.”
Sherry took the tape, and I could see that she was genuinely impressed with that small gift.
Meanwhile, I left the studio, turning off the DND light, and entered the “recovery room.” I took off my costume and placed it back in the closet, and threw away the “KRISTEN” paper that I had safety-pinned to my T-shirt. There was a towel in the room, and I used it to try to remove the gooey Vitalis from my hair.
When I realized that the attempt was fruitless, I wrapped my head in the towel and exited the room for the shower.
June was just coming out of the playroom. “Ahab the Arab?” June asked.
“Huh?”
“The towel on your head.”
“Oh,” I said. “No. I got something in my hair and I was going to rush in and dunk my hair under a shower for a moment.”
“Oh,” June said.
Sherry left the studio, and June smiled at her. “We’re still playing pool, Sherry. Want to join us?”
Sherry looked at me, and I said, “I’ll be in the playroom in a few moments. I want to wash this crap out of my hair.”
“All right,” Sherry said.
I went into the shower, and took one of the hand held shower massage units and turned on the water, pointing the spray toward the wall. When it was the right temperature, I bent down and sprayed it on my head, being careful not to get my clothes too wet.
A few minutes later, my hair was wet but no longer greasy. It smelled fresh from the shampoo that the girls favored, which was purchased from Kristen’s hair stylist.
I wandered into the playroom to find June, Merry, Lynette, and Sherry playing teams. Kristen was watching, but not playing.
Walking over to Kristen, I planted a big kiss on her lips. “Hey, loveliness!”
“You’re sweet, Jim!” Kristen said, smiling broadly. “Sherry sounded impressed with your recording.”
“I may want to rerecord the vocals again.”
“You’re a perfectionist.”
I shrugged. “That’s the beauty of having the four track. I can record and rerecord until it’s perfect.”
“You’re wet!” Kristen said, looking at my hair.
“If I said that to you in front of Sherry, you’d blush!” I said, giggling at Kristen.
The girls reddened by my bawdy joke.
“You’ve definitely spent too much time with Camille,” Kristen observed. After a few moments, she added, “June’s been teaching your sister pool.”
I watched Merry sink an easy corner shot. She looked up at me, grinned, and then proceeded to miss her next shot.
We all played for a couple of hours until Sherry had to leave. We all said our good-byes to Sherry as well as my sister, who Sherry would drive home.
After Sherry left, Kristen told me that she had to go downtown to do some business.
“Business?” I asked, not being aware that Kristen had any plans for the day.
“KISS stuff.”
I had heard that word before. It had something to do with Kristen’s money. I decided to ask the obvious question. “What does KISS stand for, anyway?”
“Kristen Isabel Swift, Slut!” Kristen said, laughing.
“Slut?” Lynette asked, rolling her eyes.
Everybody laughed.
“Camille suggested the ‘Slut’ part,” Kristen admitted. “Actually, other than my unofficial interpretation, I think the final ‘S’ is for Securities, or Secured, or whatever. Daddy helped me set it up—he always loved how my initials were three quarters of a kiss! Anyway, the company was founded as KISS Holdings, without any periods so we don’t have to actually explain it out. It’s just a holding company consisting of a few people that Mom, Dad, and the bank recommended. It’s how I manage my money. I even have business cards and stationery in the event that I need to impress somebody.”
I shrugged. “I’m glad it doesn’t have something to do with that stage band that uses all those gaudy costumes.” Actually, Kristen’s financial business wasn’t much interest to me. “How long will you be gone?”
Kristen smiled at me. “I love the guy in the cat makeup,” she said, still smiling. She then answered my question. “A couple of hours, Oogie. Want to come along?”
I shook my head, as I said, Kristen’s financial dealings were of little interest to me. Kristen pretended to pout, and then insisted that Lynette come along and keep her company.
That left June and I for the rest of the day, but June told me that she needed to get home that day.
I shrugged and once the girls left, I retired to the studio and started working on my music, and re-recorded the vocals on the ”Wanderer“ track so that Cammy replaced Sherry’s name, and mixed the tape down to a cassette to send to Will as a possible gift for Camille.
As a kick, I added a quick and dirty version of the ”Brady Bunch Theme“ and added a second and quite dirty verse describing the sexual exploits of Marcia as played by Camille.
After that, I was sorry that I had removed Sherry’s name from the track, and took three attempts to get the final track perfect with her name on it. I really wished Sherry was there; she was an excellent audience.
I put the tape away in the desk in the room, and considered other stuff to record.
By now, I had a ton of Fake books for all styles, and I owned a bunch of piano/vocal books for the latest songs. I found it quite easy to memorize the words to songs, and having the music around helped me pick up tunes much easier.
I found I liked some books and arrangements better than others, and soon learned which publishers to avoid at the music stores. I preferred arrangements that had the songs written in the same key as the performance of the artist so I didn’t have to manually transpose the songs as I played along with their records. Even so, my vocal range wasn’t as great as Roy’s, and I occasionally still had to transpose music to get it into my own singing range. I thought about taking up Roy’s suggestion of the two of us working on my vocals.