“What about entertainment?” Sherry asked, looking me in the eye.
“Funny you should mention that,” I said, grinning widely. “It just so happens that the band that I’m putting together for Puppy Dawg’s could use a dress rehearsal.”
June laughed, but some of the other cheerleaders were impressed.
“That would be so cool!” Sherry said, always happy to listen to me perform.
For the rest of the period, the cheerleaders went over some more ideas on how they could make the party special for my sister.
Sherry participated in the conversation, but I noticed her staring at me more than she had been doing recently.
Once again, I felt a bit of guilt about what happened the previous week.
After my conversation with Zaniac, a number of the people that Zaniac suggested approached me for some logistics on actually performing on-stage.
Ted Evans, the football quarterback, came up to me and said, “You know, if Zaniac hadn’t suggested this, I probably wouldn’t have thought about it. I can sing a bit, you know, and I was thinking about getting into acting. In fact, I’m considering doing the senior play this year.”
I sighed. The musical this year was Bye Bye Birdie and it was my suspicion that this play was suggested because everybody had an idea who to cast as the Elvis-type character: yours truly. I refused to even think about taking the part: I’m not an actor and I didn’t have any desire to do anything with the play other than what I did last year, which was helping out behind the scenes.
I looked at Ted and gave him a rueful smile. “You know, Ted, you’re pretty tall. With some sideburns, you could look like Conrad Birdie.”
Instead of laughing, Ted looked serious. “That’s the part I want. If not, then the Albert Peterson part… he has more singing parts, actually.”
I saw that the quarterback was quite serious. “Can you really sing?”
Ted gave me a shrug. “I did as a kid. Heck, I still do it, but I haven’t done anything in public. I thought Zaniac’s idea was crazy enough that if it turns out I can’t sing well enough, the piece is supposed to be played for laughs anyway.”
“That’s a good attitude, actually,” I said thoughtfully. “Does this mean that Zaniac got permission from Ms. Kendall?”
Ted laughed heartily. “Zaniac brought me and a few other people with him when he approached Ms. Kendall and Mr. Proilet. They weren’t buying it until Sherry Jordan turned to Mr. Proilet and said that you thought his ideas were great.”
“Sherry said that?” I asked.
Ted nodded. “After that, Mr. Proilet convinced Ms. Kendall to give Zaniac a try. She did, but said that if she didn’t like the rehearsals, he’s out.”
“Interesting.”
Thursday’s jazz band practice was spent with the band split up into groups. A lot of them were working on ideas for the talent show, so I decided to give them the next couple of rehearsal slots to work things out.
One of the more interesting groups consisted of Roy Fennel, Tina Grant, and a guitar player named Mike. They were assisted by Kristen. I knew that Tina and Roy were going to be doing a number together; he was also doing a piano/vocal duet with Tina’s older sister. In fact, Roy was on everybody’s short list of singers to help out with a project when it became apparent that I wasn’t going to sing during the talent show.
Meanwhile, I worked with the remaining musicians that hadn’t yet gotten involved with the talent show, and we went through some of the numbers for the Christmas show. These people were the less talented ones, actually. I was glad to be able to give them more personal attention.
After the rehearsal, I searched out an old friend of mine named Chris Henderson who used to play the clarinet in junior high before giving it up for gymnastics. He wasn’t a great player, but I knew that he also played piano, so he was familiar with reading complicated music.
Chris was in the gymnasium in his street clothes, doing what I learned from being around Kristen’s (and now Lynette’s) exercise classes as “warming down exercises.”
“Hey, Chris!” I said.
“What’s up, Jim?”
“I had an idea for the talent show, and I really need your help.”
“What’s your idea?”
“Well, I had this idea of something outrageous for the marching band.”
“Ah, one of Zaniac’s ideas!”
“Actually, it’s an idea that June Rodgers gave me after I watched the marching band rehearse on the football field one day.”
“What’s this have to do with me?”
I smiled. “I’d like you to direct.”
“I can’t direct!”
“This will be easy, but I’ll teach you the basics so you don’t look foolish. Do you think you’d be able to swing by Kristen’s house sometime this weekend?”
Chris furrowed his brow. “Maybe late Sunday afternoon. Are you serious?”
“Yeah. I think this will be fun, actually.”
Chris shrugged. “I’m game. Things that you do seem to become pretty popular around here. I’ll hang along for the ride.”
“Something good can come out of this, you know.”
“Like what?”
“You could become drum major. We don’t have one in the marching band, you know.”
“I’d rather do gymnastics. It’s what I do best.”
This was what I thought Chris would say. “Why not do both?”
“Huh?”
“Who says a drum major has to march down the field? I saw Sherry do end over end flips as the cheerleaders came onto the field last week. Why can’t a drum major do that?”
“Ooh…” Chris said, grinning widely. “That’s an idea!”
There was a rehearsal for the performance band for Puppy Dawg’s on Saturday, and we planned for it to take place in the music studio at our apartment. In the room I normally used, it would be cramped, but Kristen originally planned the studio to use three rooms instead of the one we were currently using. The other two rooms were currently used for storage, so I moved everything from the nearer room into the one further back. I noticed that there were Masonite walls in both rooms. I was sure that Kristen already installed sound proofing.
I opened the divider between the main studio and what used to be the first closet, and Kristen got some folding chairs and risers and we arranged things more or less how we would be performing at Puppy Dawg’s.
When the members of the gig band showed up, they were impressed by the studio. I showed everybody where they were to be seated.
Before we could start rehearsing, Frank Rizzo had an important question. “Is this band going to have a name?”
That was a good question. “Actually, I hadn’t thought of us as anything other than the band.”
“Robbie Robertson has that name sewed up,” Kristen noted, laughing. She squinted as if trying to remember something and then said, “Yup, The Band is already taken.”
I nodded. “Actually, I like that group’s name. It’s so plain and ordinary. It doesn’t promise anything but music. I wish I thought of it.”
Kristen nodded, but didn’t add anything.
Gerry piped up and said, “Our audition next month is for Puppy Dawg’s house band, right? How about using that if you want something plain.”
“The House Band?” I asked, intrigued.
Frank rolled his eyes but smiled.
Roy nodded and said, “Oogie Woogie and his impresario House Band.”
This got a lot of laughter, but I put my hand up. “No. It’s not just about me. Don’t put my name on it, or you guys won’t feel that you’re part of it. I think the ‘impresario’ part is a bit pompous.”