My hair was still wet and very unkempt. I found a rat-tail comb on the dresser (one of Lynette’s), and tried to get the majority of the knots out. I wasn’t completely successful, and I knew that either Kristen or Lynette would insist on running a brush through my hair to get it perfect to their way of thinking.
I could hear hair dryers in the bathroom, indicating to me that the girls had left the shower. I dawdled for a bit, and finally walked out of the bedroom.
I was surprised by the presence of Sherry in the dining room, and the smell of blueberry pancakes coming from the kitchen. “Ooh, my favorite!” I announced to June in the kitchen.
“It sounded like you were still busy in the bedroom,” June said as she came out of the kitchen with a smirk.
“Wasn’t me for the last twenty minutes, Juicy!”
June blushed slightly at the mention of her nickname, as did Sherry. I wondered if June actually told Sherry how she got that nickname.
Kristen and Lynette surprised me by coming out of the bedroom about five minutes after I did. I was used to the two of them taking close to a half hour just to dress, but the two of them came out wearing sun dresses that were identical except for color that I remembered Kristen bought when she admired Patty’s favorite dress style a year earlier. Both girls’ wore their hair straight and long past their shoulders.
My mind flashed back a year or so ago when Patty and Kristen were dressed like twin sisters. However, with Lynette and Kristen with their similar builds and hair styles, the effect was even more striking. Both June and Sherry noticed their outfits.
“You guys look great!” June said as the girls came out of the bedroom.
The two girls took the compliment in stride.
“Good morning, Sherry,” Kristen said, smiling at June’s guest.
“Hi, Kris.”
“How was the recovery room?”
“I never slept in a water bed before,” Sherry answered. “It was a bit weird, but it turned out very comfortable.”
I nodded, remembering the smell of vinyl that took a little getting used to the first time I used that room myself.
Kristen looked at June and said, “June picked out the color patterns for that room.”
“It’s nice,” Sherry said, smiling. “It even has some of Jim’s clothes in it, including his costume.”
“Costume?” Kristen asked. She was unaware of my greaser outfit.
Sherry looked at me as if she had violated a taboo, but I smiled at her. “Just a few props for a song, sweetness.”
“You’re getting secretive in that studio of yours, mister!”
“Well, if you want to help out, I can use a bass to do a fairly standard riff.”
“Sure thing… oh, wait! Maybe tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” I asked, confused.
“We have a guest, darling,” Kristen pointed out. “It’s not nice for you to disappear for hours at a time with your music.”
Sherry immediately protested. “Kristen, that’s really not a prob—…”
“Hush, Sherry,” Kristen said. “I’m just reminding Jim who the host is around here. This is his apartment, after all.”
I nodded, a bit sheepishly.
June came out of the kitchen with five plates of pancakes, balancing them like a waitress in one of those diners you see in the movies. “Breakfast is served.”
“Yum!” I said, grateful the topic had turned away from me being a bad host last night.
Lynette looked at the set up on the dining room table, and without saying a word, she went into the kitchen and quickly returned with an unopened bottle of the expensive wild blueberry syrup that we were building up a nice stock of in our pantry.
“I didn’t know where you guys kept that,” June said, smiling. “I looked all over.”
“Back of the pantry on top,” Lynette said. “It’s Kristen’s favorite—her mother has it sent in from a place in Maine.”
“Bar Harbor,” Kristen said, automatically.
I had no idea where Bar Harbor or any town in Maine was, so I didn’t comment. Kristen’s family did a lot more traveling than my family ever did; in the year since I started dating Kristen, I had probably traveled further and more often than I had in the previous fifteen years of my life, and that wasn’t much compared to Kristen!
“What’s the plan for today?” I asked.
“June and I have practice later today,” Sherry said. “Lynette was thinking of helping out.”
I noticed that Lynette’s reaction to this information was to immediately look for permission in Kristen’s eyes and she smiled when she immediately received Kristen’s silent blessing.
“That leaves the two of us, Kris.”
Kristen smiled at me.
I smirked at Kristen. “That means that I’ll be able to lay down that bass track today after all.”
Sherry and June laughed at my response, and Kristen and Lynette joined them.
“Jim has a one-track mind when it comes to music,” Sherry said, giggling.
June giggled and added, “I think he calls it a four track in his studio. Anyway, he’s unlike most boys his age, who have one-track minds focused on something else.”
I felt a bit embarrassed at this. “What’s wrong with playing music? What’s it that Mac Davis sings? ‘Music is the universal language, and love is the key.’ Right?”
Sherry came to my rescue. “That’s right, Oogie. Everybody loves you for your music. We’re just having fun with you.”
Lynette furrowed her brow, and then got up from her chair and quickly left to the spare bedroom. She returned a few seconds later with a light brown wig with short, frizzy hair—almost an Afro-style.
“Where did you get that?” June asked.
Kristen answered. “Lynette has, like, five or six wigs. She’s always liked them, but she only seems to wear them…” Kristen suddenly stopped.
I think I knew why Kristen stopped. Lynette usually wore her wigs when she was alone with Kristen in the spare bedroom. When June wasn’t around, the girls never closed their bedroom door when they were together and I had seen Lynette dressed up in wigs and costumes when they were playing together.
Lynette didn’t blush, but proceeded to put the wig onto my head. “There. Now he looks like Mac Davis. He even has that funny nose!”
“Hey!” I protested, sensitive about my looks.
“Do his voice, Oogie,” Lynette begged.
I closed my eyes and tried to imagine Mac Davis’ voice. I tried to make it a bit nasal, and tried a few lines:
This sounded a bit too nasal, so I ended up doing the song more or less in my own voice.
“Wow, that’s eerie!” June suddenly said, interrupting me.
“Yeah,” Sherry said.
Even my beloved Kristen was looking at me, a bit shocked. “I was always trying to place who your natural voice sounded like.”
Lynette didn’t say anything, but was nodding in agreement.
I was a bit confused until June said what everybody else had been thinking. “Jim sounds like Mac Davis!”
“Huh?” I shook my head. “His voice is more nasal than mine!”
“No it’s not,” Kristen said, shaking her head. “When you made your voice nasal, it didn’t sound like him at all. When you relaxed and used your own voice, it sounds just like his.”
“You guys are crazy!” I protested, shaking my head vigorously.
Everybody except me seemed to be in agreement, however.