I wasn’t able to spend the days after Christmas with Kristen.
Kristen went on a skiing trip to Austria. She planned this trip over a year, and since I never skied before, I decided not to go with her. The decision was even easier because I didn’t have a passport or a visa for traveling, despite Kristen’s assurances that she could have such things expedited.
Kristen offered to cancel her trip, but I told her to have a good time. I’d get to see her on New Year’s Day.
One of the gifts that I received from Kristen was a used Yamaha keyboard that Kristen bought from a friend of her brother’s who was nicknamed “Sludge.” I didn’t have an amp to plug it in, but there was a very useful quarter-inch jack into which I could plug a pair of headphones.
Kristen’s absence and the new keyboard gave me the opportunity to spend a lot of time alone in my room, hashing out chords. I remembered my desire to want to write my own music, and this was a good time for me to get started without driving my family up the wall.
My step-father and I cobbled together a stand for the instrument that used wing nuts and hinges so it could collapse easily for storage.
The electric piano had a tactile feel that was very much different from the upright piano that I normally played in the house—it was almost like an organ. However, it was very easy for me to get the hang of that. Another difference was the way the notes would blend tonally in a way that only an electric piano with an electronic sustain pedal could accomplish.
Despite having almost a week to myself, I didn’t get very far with writing my “Symphony to a Goddess.” Instead, I found myself doodling around, playing bits and pieces of songs that I fancied.
I paid a visit to the Williams’ house on Monday, and gave Patrice and Jack their presents. Patrice smiled at the stuffed puppy, and Jack seemed to appreciate the Frisbees. We promised each other that we’d make time to throw them around when the weather got warmer.
During my visit with Patrice and Jack, the doorbell rang, and Jack ran to the door. It was Doreen, and Jack brought her downstairs where Patrice and I were sitting around.
“Hi, Jim,” Doreen said as Jack brought her into the finished basement.
“Oh, hi!” I said, happy to see that Jack and Doreen were still seeing each other. “I haven’t seen you since the party.”
The four of us talked for an hour or so before I started to head out. Before I left, Doreen reached into her pocketbook, and rummaged through it and found an envelope. She handed it to me. “It’s a Christmas card from Marla.”
I looked at the card, and decided that it might be a good idea for me to open it up later. I still felt guilty about Marla; not only did I take advantage of her using the lucky tickets, but I stood her up on an informal date we made at the mall right before she needed to go back to her home in California.
“Thanks, Doreen.” I looked at the card and it contained a return address. “I see her address is on the card. Do you think she’ll mind if I write?”
Doreen looked at me for a few moments and pulled a pen out of her purse. She took the envelope and wrote a number on the back of it. I could easily see that it was Marla’s phone number. “Marla would love to hear from you.”
I thanked Doreen, and said good-bye to my friends.
Walking home, I kept staring at that envelope. Finally, I decided to open it. There was a card with a picture of Santa on it with a standard holiday greeting. Inside the card was a short note:
Dear Jim,
I don’t know if you remember me, but we met last summer. If you remember me, I would really like to hear from you again.
Ask Doreen if you need my phone number.
Love and happy holidays,
Marla
I spent the rest of the day thinking about Marla and my behavior toward her. I wasn’t very happy with myself. I couldn’t get up the nerve to ask my mother to call long distance that night, so I decided to think about writing Marla a letter.
Chapter 9—Christmas Recess and New Year 1975
Late Tuesday afternoon, Merry came up to my room and asked me what I wanted for dinner. It was New Year’s Eve, and I already declined an invitation to a party at Wendy’s with Patty and Camille, mostly because my mother asked me not to go out that night. It wasn’t a difficult decision to make, since I preferred that the first girl that I kissed in 1975 would be the Goddess that would be arriving from her vacation the next day.
My parents were at a party in Chicago with Kristen’s parents. Kristen made reservations for them for a room at the same hotel that hosted the party. My parents, in return, offered to pick Kristen up the next day at O’Hare to take her home from Europe.
So, it wasn’t surprising that I found myself home alone with Merry on New Year’s Eve. Merry was a pretty good cook and made a light supper consisting of snacks, including broiled shrimp wrapped in bacon (Merry’s favorite appetizer), chicken teriyaki on skewers, and chips with sour cream dip. For dessert, we ate some chocolate ice cream and added some syrup to make sundaes. There were also a couple of six packs of Coke in the refrigerator.
Merry and I were watching television and listening to Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians surgically remove any semblance of jazz from the song April in Paris live from the Waldorf-Astoria in New York. I was thinking to myself how funny it would be if Count Basie actually showed up with a few guys to put Guy’s conductor’s stick into a more appropriate place. I didn’t know it at the time, but this would be one of his last New Year’s Eve performances before his death a couple of years later.
Merry looked bored.
“What’s up, Shortcake?” I asked.
“This music sucks.”
I laughed. “You have a wonderful taste in music, kid. You can look at the other channels. I think Wolf Man Jack may have a Midnight Special on NBC, if you like his kind of rock and roll.”
Instead of laughing, Merry turned on me. “I’m not a kid!”
“Whoa, Merry! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply…”
“You treat me as if I were a kid,” Merry said. “Like that guy Fonzie on ’Happy Days.’ He even calls Joanie ‘Shortcake.’”
I corrected my step-sister. “I heard him say that, and it surprised me when I first heard it. You should know that he calls her ‘Short Cakes.’ I know—I listened. He always uses it plural, and I have no fucking idea what he means by it.”
That last part was a bit of a lie. At the time, I suspected that the plural term might be a reference to Joanie’s prepubescent breasts and considered it to be a cruel insult. My suspicion changed over time as the series continued, though.
“So, what do you mean by it?” Merry asked, not entirely convinced.
I looked at my step-sister. I wondered what was bothering her. “It’s just a pet name. Like when I call Kristen ‘Kris’ or Camille ‘Cammy.’ It’s nothing different. I can’t call you ‘Mer,’ can I? I’d sound like that guy on the Mary Tyler Moore show. You know, ‘Hi, Mar…’” I tried to do an acceptable Ted Baxter impression, although my voice was nowhere near as deep as his.