London Harmony: Roctoberfest (9 page)

The slightly butch woman nodded her head, her black hair rustling behind her.  “Of course String Bean.  This is sort of exciting.  And I love Franco's.”  She grinned like a git, then my girl was back at my side, tugging at my belt loop.

She looked at her... family and smiled and nudged her head toward my car.  “Follow the little bumblebee car.”  Then before I could protest and say that she was a buttercup, not a bumblebee, she added,  “It's more comfortable than being crowded into Mick's cab C.”

Caroline did a silly bobbing hopping walk toward the car and we followed as Mick called out, “Traitor!”  Then just like that we were heading toward Kacy's place with a banged up white truck on our tail.

Kace looked into the back seat and said to her friend, “I thought this would give Mick and Darin some alone time.”  Then she remembered something and uttered, “Oh,” and pulled out her mobile as I drove.  She ordered a couple pizzas and some colas to be delivered to her studio and hung up with a cheesy grin.  She glanced at me and scrunched her head down, crinkling her nose.  “I almost forgot the address when they asked.  Not used to having a place of my own.”

After an argument at the curb, us “ladies” were sent inside with empty hands, Mick and Animal in tow, carrying two boxes each.  We took the freight elevator.  I have to say that I really, really, love my girl's friends.  They seemed genuinely happy for her and impressed by the tiny place and never once said anything about its size.  They were in agreement with me that the spectacular view of Hyde Park was the crowning glory.

There was a knock at the door after she got what little food she had in the box marked 'kitchen' into the small under counter fridge in the kitchenette. The cute couple of Mick and Darin got the drums stacked in the corner.  She walked regally, like the Queen, as she answered the door and paid for the delivery.  Then it was comical really, the look on her face as she scrunched her mouth to the side.

She grinned as she set the food on the tiny counter.  “Just a minute, we can do this picnic style.”  She dug out a blanket from a box and laid it on the floor then she set the food in the middle and handed out paper plates and just flopped down, sitting cross-legged on the blanket, we all joined her.  Well that is, the rest joined her, I gleeped as she tugged me down beside her by my belt loop.

I watched as everyone dove on the pizzas like hungry piranha.  I picked up a slice and examined the generous helping of toppings.  The sausage chunks had to be the size of a half-crown alone.  I mused out loud to the group, “I've never had Franco's pizza before.  My mum is crazy for pizza for some reason but dad was never a fan so never really ate much growing up.”

They all stopped, mouths open with pizza slices hanging out in various depths.  Kacy said around the slice stuffed half way into her mouth.  “No pizza?  Bloody hell woman.”  They stared at me and I blushed, feeling self-conscious as I took a bite.

Good lord, it was delicious.  The soft deep dish crust and the sauce and cheeses all wrapped around the toppings.  It was a flavor and texture wonderland.  I nodded as I chewed, I said, “This is good.”  But it came out more like “Mwiff iff gwooold.”  But they could all speak fluent pizza-eese as they nodded and cheered and dug in.

All but Kace that is.  She pulled her slice clear of her mouth and grinned. “You eat like a rugby player.”  Then she quickly added, “Not that there's anything wrong with that, it's sort of sexy coming from a tiny bird like you.”  She grinned.

I swallowed and set the slice on my knee and washed the bite down and explained as I picked up the pizza slice again.  “Sorry, all.  Force of habit.  With so many siblings it was sort of a free for all at the dinner table, you had to eat fast to get any seconds before they were all gone.”

Then I grinned in defiance and took the biggest bite of pizza I could and chewed with a smile.  The others saluted me with theirs and said, “Here here.”  Then all took comically big bites of their own.  I laughed out little pizza chunks at how in tune the group was with each other.

I noticed Mick watching me as I ate.  She noted me catching her.  She shrugged in apology then asked with curiosity coloring her voice.  “Sorry, love.  I didn't mean to be rude.  I was just noticing how much of a pain in the arse it seems, eating with one hand.”   She tilted her head. “I'm ignorant of such things, but wouldn't it be easier with one of those artificial arms I see on the telly?”

I paused a minute, I didn't like speaking of my injuries, ever.  But here I shared with a woman that excited me in every way I could imagine, and now I realized I was actually going to share with her friends too.  I was oddly okay with that.  Then I exhaled and said after taking a sip of cola, “I have one of those, but it's next to useless.  I have a forequarter amputation.  They couldn't save anything of my arm so I don't even have a stump or joint to work with.”

I took another sip and locked eyes with Kace, who looked genuinely interested.  I spoke to her.  “The prosthetic is like a useless lump of plastic and alloy.  Using my back muscles, I can operate the servo motors but just one group at a time.  Shoulder, elbow, wrist, or grip.”

I sat the can down then looked around.  “So to do something simple that I used to take for granted like...”  I grabbed the can, took another sip and set it back down.  “...takes an inordinate amount of effort and is painstakingly slow to accomplish.”

I shook my head. “So taking a sip from a can or glass like that would take seven to eight seconds for me to do.  I'd die of dehydration doing it that bloody slow.”

I grinned and gave a questioning look at the group.  “So I rarely strap the thing on.  It is useful at times, but it also reminds me with its weight, why it is there.”

Mick saluted with her can and took a swallow.  The conversation moved on to decorating the bland walls of the studio and nobody pried anymore.  I didn't mind one bit as I was preoccupied on the heat radiating off of Kacy's body.  She had somehow moved to behind me with me sitting between her legs as I spoke.  She was the most comfortable chair ever.

She comically used my head as a table.  I feigned hurt.  “I'm not that short you evil woman.”  She countered by kissing me behind the ear which sent a delightful shiver down my neck and my spine, effectively shutting me up.

When we finished we put all the trash in the bag the drinks came in, my girl grinned.  “I think I need a bin.”  Then she looked at the drums that took up almost a quarter of the space and added, “And a lock for the storage cage in the basement.”  Her eyes twinkled as she asked, “Shall we go see what treasures Mei has for me before it gets too late?”

I'm not sure Mei realized it as we all made our way down the stairs, but she pretty much owned me as she dragged me along by her belt loop.  I'd follow her into the pits of hell if she asked.  It wasn't until my makeshift family was on the road with us, on the way to Mei's place, that I took a moment to realize just how lucky I had been to find her.  How had she not been snapped up by now?  Beauty, brains, talent... and best of all, a wicked sense of humor.  She was the whole package.

She kept glancing over at me and I realized I had been staring.  I smiled sheepishly.  “Hi.”

She just tried holding back a grin as she shook her head and returned her gaze back to the road.  “Hi, yourself lady.”

Then we all cracked up when Caroline chimed in from the backseat waving her hands.  “Hi!  Yup, I'm still here.”

I looked back at her. “Oh shush you, you know we love you.”  This got the chipmunk grin I was aiming for.

We discussed the most likely outcome tonight that we had been eliminated from the competition thanks to Matt abandoning us.  Caroline said she would post notices on the various boards frequented by people in the music scene, and post online for a replacement lead guitar.  We had four gigs booked in the coming weeks with one being a multi-night weekend gig we'd be headlining instead of opening for another band.

That was a relief.  I worried, since I decided to get a flat of my own, that I wouldn't be able to make rent.  But Caroline seems to always have a knack of keeping us sporadically busy so that all of us can make bills.

I perked up when we turned into Chiswick.  The little housing developments here remind me of the dream of owning an actual house one day.  The houses in the area were gorgeous.  I grinned.  “Very domestic.”

She got a wicked grin on her face.  “Don't let mum hear you say that.”  I took it she got her wit from her mother.

We pulled up on a block of two-story brick houses on Burnaby Cres that stepped out onto a cobbled walk with low brick fences.  It was quite a charming area.  She pulled into one of the few short drives with an attached garage.  The house was a little larger than some of the others on the lane with a little white gate inset into the brick fence.

Carol got out and walked back to where Mick stopped at the curb.  She called back to us as we got out.  “I'll stick with the mates until you need us.  No sense a small army intruding on your home.”

Animal slid out the window to sit on the sill, crossing his arms on the cab of the truck and Mick stepped out to lean back into him, with a dismissing, shooing gesture of her fingers at us as she crossed her arms.

Now I don't know why I was so nervous all of a sudden.  I felt more bashful than I ever had as she dragged me toward her front door by her belt loop.  I was getting anxious and could feel terror seeping into my resolve, but I couldn't let go.  She looked up at me, I liked how she was always standing so close that she had to crane her neck to look at me.  Her shy smile washed away most of the apprehension.

She smirked. “They don't bite.”  Then she quickly added as she pulled me through the front door.  “We'll you never know with mum.  I forgot to tell you she's...”

A powerful alto voice with a strong Southern Yank accent scolded, “Mei Valerie Lynn Hammond, where y'all been?  Out all night and do you bother givin' yer' mamma a call?  No.  Had me worried somethin' fierce.”

Mei seemed to deflate as she finished her sentence, “...American.”  I grinned at the medium height woman who looked to be in her early forties though I knew she was closer to fifty.  She was the woman who had been watching after little Angie at the competition.  Her half crooked grin gave away that she wasn't as upset as she sounded.  She had a mane of lightly frosted red hair.

I stayed at the door as Mei stepped up to the woman who was standing by the couch that little Angie was sleeping on, folding what looked like three baskets of laundry.  She kissed her mother on the cheek. “Sorry mum.  I lost track of time.”  Sounding every bit a scolded teenager.  I grinned, didn't Mei realize she was twenty-five?  A grown woman?

An evil gleam of teasing glinted in her mum's eyes as she looked at me over her daughter's shoulder when she gave her a hug.  She winked at me then schooled her face when she released her daughter.  “Well you just going to leave your friend standing by the door, or you gonna use your manners and introduce us?  I swear I raised you better than that baby girl.”

Mei blushed and said, “Yes mum.”  She rushed over and grabbed my hand.  I melted when she laced our fingers.  “Mum, this is Kacy Green.  She's the girl I met at the competition.  I told you about her.  She's my... we're sort of...”  She looked up at me with a furrowed brow. “Are we dating?  Can I call you my girlfriend?”

I bit my lower lip and nodded.  Devil Kacy in my head, with her red horns and little pitchfork, was saying... If what we did last night was dating then yes please, I want to date the hell out of you.  Instead, I just blushed.  Mei looked back at her mother and finished the intro, “Kacy, this is my mum, Doctor Rebekah Hammond.”

The woman shook my hand, her grip was firm, like Mick's.  She said, “None of that now.  Call me Becky.  It is nice to see Mei socializing again instead of hiding in that damn room of hers, thanks for breaking her out honey.”

I grinned then asked, “Texan?  Your accent is similar to a boy's I went to primary school with.”

She stood tall and proud with a grin.  “Born and raised.”

Mei was dragging me away with a dark blush on her face, it looked so exotic to me.  She called back to her mother, “I'm just going to get some stuff from the garage mum.  She's a got a new flat but no furniture.”

We almost ran into Robbie, who was heading down the hall.  She asked, “You heading to Jubilee?”  He nudged his chin at the guitar on his back in answer.  “I'll be there for the announcements with Kace here.  See you there.”

He nodded once at me then said to his older sister. “Sounds good.  I still wish you'd play with the band.  It isn't the same without you.”

She ignored him and pulled me into a bedroom.  It was pretty spartan, but it smelled like her and I breathed in deeply and smiled.  There was a life-sized picture of a hot woman in a framed poster hanging next to the door.  She was a soldier in a US uniform who looked tough as nails, but there was something in her eyes as she stood there looking off into the distance to something only she could see.  She had weapons strapped all over her and was holding a lethal looking rifle.

I tilted my head and thought my first impression was mixed, she looked tough enough to take on an army yet so very vulnerable and fragile all at the same instant.  I looked at Mei and cocked an eyebrow. 

She blushed a little but smiled. “McKenzie Meyers.  One of my personal heroes.  I actually met her once when we were on a humanitarian mission in Chad.  She is the real deal, fighting for what is right.”

Bloody hell!  I heard stories about that Meyer's woman.  What did they call her?  Dead Shot or something like that.  Human trafficking groups had a price on her head.  I reappraised the poster and could see what I was missing in her eyes.  The woman was haunted.

Then Mei said quietly so nobody in the house could overhear, “You think Mick has a way of making you want to drop your knickers?  McKenzie ups that by a power of three without even saying a word.”  Her toothy grin made me chuckle and grin back.

Then she cocked an eyebrow and made a swirling motion with her finger.  “Turn around then and let a girl get into some fresh clothes.”  I gave her an incredulous look.  Weren't we beyond her poor self-image?

Then she threw a pillow at me.  “If I give you a free show we'll never get out of this room and your friends are waiting.”  I bit the tip of my tongue and then smiled as I turned around to stared at the poster again.  A shirt hit my shoulder, then a bra.  I started to turn and she warned me off.  “Tut tut!” Her panties hit me.

She was trying to kill me!  I blurted, “Bloody hell woman!”  I listened to her evil giggling.

Then she said, “Give a girl a hand?”

I turned and she was struggling with the top button of some Capris that looked painted on. I pulled her to me by the button and bent down to put my lips millimeters from her, I heard her breath catch then I squatted with an evil smile on my face and fastened her button.

She had an incredulous look on her face as she slapped my shoulder.  “That was positively evil.”

I shrugged it off as we both sat on her bed while she put her shoes on.  “Turnabout is fair play.”

She growled cutely then grabbed another knit sleeve and wiggled her fingers into it then bit the bottom and pulled it up her arm.  Obscuring the more visible shrapnel scars.  I reached over and pulled it back down a bit to run a finger over a scar then kiss it.  “You shouldn't hide them.”

She shook her head.  “People don't need even more reasons to think I'm a freak.”

I tilted my head and caught her eyes.  “If you're a freak then I adore freaks.”

She leaned in and just laid her head on my chest.  I put my arms around her and just held her.  I noted another Stratocaster in the corner of the room, hooked up to a monitor amp and grinned.  Then I saw the arm laying on the floor, plugged into the wall.  It had an elaborate harness system on it.

She followed my gaze and sat up and snagged it off the floor.  “This is my Franken-arm.  Useless for the most part.  Mum convinces me to wear it from time to time.”

I looked at it in her hand and then said, “It looks electronic, like a robot arm.”

She nodded and dropped it gently back onto the floor.  “It is for the most part.  Sensors and servomotors convert movements of my back muscles into motions of the arm.  It wouldn't be bad if it weren't so slow and clunky.  I prefer practicing one handed clapping for now.  Maybe one day they will have more responsive prosthetic for full amputees.  I hear Phearson Prosthetics and Robotics is on the verge of a breakthrough.”  Then she joked, “Maybe I'll be cyborg one day.”

I chuckled. “Tiny terminator.”

She grinned up at me.  “Hey, nothing wrong with living down here out of the clouds Stretch.”

I hugged her and she stood, stepped to her dresser, and took a safety pin out of a little plastic cup.  She deftly fastened the loose shirt sleeve to her side.  She looked up and asked, “Shall we delve the depths of the garage?” Then wiggled her eyebrows.

I took her belt loop and she dragged me out and into the kitchen where a boy, possibly ten was snacking on some sort of sugared loop cereal straight out of the box.  She snagged the box from him and put it on top of the fridge and ruffled his hair.  “You'll ruin your supper, Owen.”

The boy pouted which looked cute with his olive complexion.  He was skinny and had expressive eyes.  I was sure he had some sort of Pacific Islander heritage in his lineage.  This made me smile, her family was a melting pot of ethnicity, but they formed one unique unit.  They all seemed to love each other.  My heart twinged a little, seeing what could have been.  Then I simply smiled when that thought was washed away as I thought of my own little unorthodox family.

She said as we motored through a sliding glass door onto the back patio,  “Owen, this is my friend Kacy.  Kase my youngest brother Owen.”

I gleeped as she tugged me through the door and I called out, “Nice to meet you, Owen.”  He smiled at me and I watched him grab a stool and start pushing it toward the fridge, his eye on the prize on top of it.

She saw that too and shook her head and said, “Little brothers... what ya gonna do?”  She stepped us over to the back of the small garage and I looked around to the communal back yard that was shared by six houses.  It was like a secret garden with a little lawn and paths and flowers everywhere.

She opened the door, I noted it wasn't locked.  I also noted that her house seemed to be the only one of the group that had a garage.  Then we stepped inside.  It was stuffed to the gunnels with boxes, furniture, and various knick-knacks.  There was one area that was clear, a small workbench with tools were strewn about and a rocker from a chair in a vise with wood shavings all around.

I squeaked in surprise when a short man popped up in front of it dusting off a chisel he must have dropped.  He absently said, “Mei, Robbie,” as he started tapping the chisel lightly with a wooden mallet as he worked on a rose carved into the rocker.

The loving smile from Mei told me volumes.  “Dad.  This isn't Robbie, it's my ummm... girlfriend Kacy.  Kacy, this is my father, Doctor Tracy Hammond.”

He looked up over the rim of his glasses with a smile, telling me he had been teasing with the misidentification.  He waved it off and slapped his hand on his pants to get the sawdust off and he offered his hand.  “I've so many children with so many friends I can't keep track anymore.  Call me Doc.”  The man winked at me as he gave his daughter a hard time.  He definitely wasn't American, Brit through and through with a hint of Welsh in his tone.

He looked distinguished with his silver mane of hair even though he stood only a half a head above Mei.  I saw him appraising me, like any good father when introduced to a potential suitor for his daughter.  It struck me hard how accepting his parents were.  Not even batting an eyebrow that their daughter was interested in me, another woman.  It made me know I made the right choice when I ran away all those years ago.