Double Time
Part VIII: Transliteration
Chapter 86
“All of life is a test.”
—Pittacus Lore, Five’s Betrayal
24 JANUARY 2020
I guess we’re famous. Yesterday morning, Nanette picked me up to run at The Plex. We took it easy so she could talk about how much she enjoyed the performance Wednesday night. It was kind of embarrassing until we pulled into my drive after our workout. She leaned across the bucket seats and kissed me. I’ve had intense kisses from Nanette on a couple of occasions and this was… different. This was like the kiss from one of my lovers when we just want the other to remember us until the next time we’re together. And I mean REMEMBER! “You’re really special,” she said. Then I got out of the car and went in to shower before Livy picked me up to go to school. She and Rachel take turns with Joan occasionally showing up. Mom doesn’t exactly let me drive her car each day.
Everyone was chattering about the recital at lunch. More embarrassment. A lot of questions were asked about when they could all spend time with Cindy. It’s like they think she’ll be part of our pod now. We just played a recital.
Of course, when we walked into Ms. Devine’s Music Theory class, and she started applauding us, that was really embarrassing. She had Cindy and me come to the front of the class and then showed our last number on the screen from a video she recorded on her cellphone. She suggested that we play my next Sunday concert together and just repeat the program we did together. I said I didn’t have a proper place or way to record the two of us and she offered to unlock the school studio for us. Cindy looked panicked. I just said, “Thank you.”
Nanette was just as friendly this morning when we did our run. It’s almost like she’s become one of us—even though I’m usually the only one she sees. Makes no difference. The kiss we shared this morning left me weak. I really like her. Really. And I know she kisses Livy whenever we all three run together. I just didn’t imagine she’d ever get past my young body to see the real me inside.
But who is the real me? I’m enjoying being sixteen. I’m enjoying my sixteen and seventeen-year-old lovers. I never thought I would when I first got back. Those lovers, though, don’t put a damper on my attraction for Nanette… or Sophie or Ms. Levy. Ms. Levy… Donna… is twenty-seven. Sophie is thirty. Nanette is forty. When I look at them, I see incredibly attractive young women. I guess V1 is good for something.
I’m exhausted and ready for the weekend.
“Did you read the review in yesterday’s newspaper?” Beca asked excitedly when we met for lunch.
“I was so stressed about getting my English paper and Literary Journal caught up, I didn’t even see yesterday’s paper,” I said. “Were they good to Cindy?”
“Oh, yeah. They thought she was wonderful, a prodigy who could play with any symphony. But they mentioned you, too.” I looked at Beca in disbelief.
“Accompanists don’t get mentioned in reviews,” I stated flatly. That isn’t how the music business works.
“Look at this,” she said, holding out the newspaper. She’d circled the last paragraph of the review. “Marvel broke the recital mold when she turned to her partner, Jacob Hopkins, for the ‘Ladeado Tango.’ The encore of ‘Mozart in Hell’ was outstanding. This reviewer is looking forward to the next performance of the duo, Marvel and Hopkins.”
“Her mom will shit a brick,” I breathed. “The last thing she wants is the two of us associated with each other. I mean, she’s the epitome of the stage mom. Her little girl is going places.”
“So are you, Jacob,” Rachel said. “I loved your performance. When can I be with you for a Sunday morning concert?”
“Right away, as far as I’m concerned. But face it, after two years of silence enforced by National Service, I’ll be lucky if I can play anything. I had to practically start over after my accident.”
“It’s another thing that sucks about the Service,” Joan said. “Have you noticed there aren’t any up and coming teen bands putting out music? No one sees any sense in it. Why bother to put together a band and get popular when you’ll just have to take a two-year break at your peak?”
I had to agree. I felt like I could really accomplish something if I charged forward right now. Even as part of a duo with Cindy. But it would be more than three years of silence between the two of us, since I was a year ahead of her. When my Service was over, she’d still have a year or more to go.
“Jacob?” the small voice said as I approached the Music Theory classroom. I turned to find Cindy almost shrinking into a locker behind me.
“Hey, partner,” I said. “Things have been so crazy the past day or so that I don’t think I told you how much I enjoyed working with you on your recital. You are my musical idol.” I could see her blushing but she seemed determined to get something out.
“Um… Mom said it would be okay,” she said, just above a whisper. Okay, I’m an idiot. The first thing my mind jumped to was Mrs. Marvel emphatically saying that Cindy couldn’t date me. Was that what was suddenly okay?
“Okay?” I said hesitantly. I hadn’t hidden the fact that I had seven girlfriends. I was sure Cindy knew that.
“Okay to do your Sunday morning concert with you if Ms. Devine will let us do it here,” she said.
“Oh! Really? Do you want to do that?”
“She’d be here, too, of course. It’s not like we’d be alone or anything. Not like your other… um…”
“Of course,” I hurried on. “I’m assuming Ms. Devine would want to be here, too. I mean she kind of has to be to unlock and let us in. I’m just surprised your mom will allow it at all.”
“Oh, Jeez. This is embarrassing. My mom is a fan.”
“Huh?”
“She subscribed to your YouTube channel. I think she just wants to brag to her friends that I played with you.” Mrs. Marvel? I was having a hard time processing this. I hadn’t really paid attention to her but now that I thought about it, she was pretty good looking. Like an older and mature Cindy. She did have a nice smile and… She’s married! Her son is a year older than me and plays on the basketball team. And her other son is about Pey’s age. And her daughter is my…
No. Wait. Shit. Her daughter isn’t my anything. I’m her accompanist. We play music together. And right now, she was looking at me as if she were going to cry.
“Okay,” I said in a hurry as we walked through the music room door. “If you really want to do it, let’s see if Ms. Devine was serious.”
Ms. Devine was serious.
“We’re going to set up the classroom for Cindy and Jacob to play their recital on Sunday morning at… eight o’clock?” I nodded. “I’ll meet anyone who wants to attend at the west entrance at seven-forty-five. This is not required but you’ll miss out on something if you can’t get up that early Sunday. If either of you have other friends who would like to attend, give them the same message. I’ll let the two of you in to set up at seven-thirty. This is very exciting.”
After a quick consultation with Cindy, I sent a text to Mom. ‘Please don’t return tux. I need it for Sunday concert.’ I could see it hanging in the back of Mom’s Impala since Wednesday night. She just hadn’t had time to go to the mall since then.
Well, I guess I wasn’t going to have Rachel for an intimate concert and a little time in bed Sunday.
“You seem down, lover,” Rachel said. We’d decided to just go out for a burger Friday night and talk. That was one of the things I loved so much about Rachel. Yes, we had the most fantastic sex I’d ever had in my life… either of them. But we could also spend hours just holding hands and talking about life. I didn’t intend to slight any of our other girlfriends, but it was no secret that Rachel and I had something really special. I never let anything interfere with our Friday night date if I could help it.
“I know,” I said. “I was kind of planning on some special time with you Sunday morning. This other… It’s easy to get excited about how much people liked our performance, but it seems so futile, you know? I didn’t realize how much National Service could screw up the opportunities that we have. I mean, they’re doing their best to screw up relationships and keep the birth rate down and keep kids from marrying too young and all that. I see a little sense in that just based on the statistics over the past forty years. But there are things that you only get a chance to do when you’re young, like start a garage band or invent a computer or develop Facebook. It seems like just anticipating Service drains the creativity out of people.”
“That’s why we’re putting together an alternative to things like marriage,” Rachel said. “Sophie was a wonderful addition to our pod. Imagine the fact that when the rest of us are graduated and have to start Service, there will still be a safe haven for Brittany who won’t even be eligible to start for three months after graduation. And a year later, it’s where Livy and I will go when we’re out of Service and you still have a year to go.”
“Don’t forget about Em and Joan,” I said. “They’ll be out before any of the rest of us. At least I’ll still be home for a year when Em gets out. But then she’ll have to go through another two years of separation before I get out.”
“We need to think about a domicile,” Rachel said.
“What?”
“A place where we can live. When we’re back from Service, we can’t just expect to go back to living with our parents. Those of us who are back will want to live together. And Sophie. And Nanette. And I still haven’t given up on Donna Levy. I’m sure the only thing holding her back is being our teacher,” Rachel giggled.
“Well, that would set us back until at least when we graduate before we could hope to include her. We have to be really careful about things like that so we don’t put anyone at risk. Sophie’s relationship with Brittany is concealed behind the fact that they are related and lived in the same household. Nanette isn’t protected like that. She could really get burned,” I said. The memory of Nanette’s last kiss this morning was still on my lips.
“Not to mention what would happen if we added younger members to the pod, like Cindy,” Rachel said.
“No, wait. Cindy is not going to be a member of our pod. We just play music together.”
“Don’t be so sure, Jacob. We all watched you play Wednesday night,” Rachel said. “Speaking of which, we’re all coming to watch you Sunday morning.”
“Everybody?”
“Even Nanette. And Brittany saw Ms. Levy after school and invited her.”
“How did this get around so fast?”
“If you had given her another day’s notice, I think Ms. Devine would have announced it to the school and had you perform on the stage,” Rachel laughed.
“Rache, do you know how much I love you?” I said. I was worn down. Whatever it was, it had a life of its own and it was futile to fight against it.
“I have an idea, but why don’t we go to my house and you can show me all night how much you love me.”
“With your family all there?”
“Once the doors are all closed, you really can’t hear anything from my room in the rest of the house. I can scream all I want.”
I sent a text to Mom to tell her I wouldn’t be home tonight.
Our run Saturday morning started with a flurry of texts back and forth. Livy swung by to pick up Nanette and then came to get Rachel and me.
“You’re going to run?” Livy exclaimed to Rache.
“Mmm. Maybe walk briskly. I just want to be near my lovers a little longer. And I should start getting in shape for basic. I suppose it will be better to start now than wait until the time is upon me,” Rachel laughed as we crawled on top of each other in the back of the Wrangler. As far as I was concerned, there was no problem with the shape she was in.
There was a lot of laughing during our workout. Nanette considered our Saturday runs to be conditioning runs, not for speed or distance, but to keep us in shape so we didn’t lose anything.
“Track season starts in two weeks,” I said.
“I’ll scarcely be finished with basketball,” Livy sighed. “Or maybe not if we get through sectionals next weekend and regionals the next weekend and semi-state the following weekend. The first qualifier is the 28th of February and this time, track takes second place to basketball in priorities.”
“I don’t even know why I’m going out. There isn’t a chance that I’ll qualify for anything at my speed. The longest race they hold is 3,000 meters. You know the dudes who run five-minute miles will be the ones running,” I said.
“Don’t forget there is freshman/sophomore junior varsity in track and field,” Livy said. “I bet Jock will put you on those races instead of varsity. The runners won’t be as mature. Sure, there are bound to be some real rabbits in competition but you’ll hold your own. And you’ll be better prepared for summer running.”
“I’m looking forward to the open road as soon as it’s safe to be out there,” Nanette said. “Do well in track and it will improve your cross country training.”
We wrapped up our run and all piled back into Livy’s Wrangler. I was surprised that she took Nanette home first. I didn’t even realize Nanette lived only a couple of blocks from me. I knew it wasn’t too far but she’d never mentioned exactly where.
“Would you all like to come in for a glass of water?” she asked shyly. Hell yeah!
“Um… I can only stay a few minutes,” I said. “I can walk home from here if you all want to stay a while but I have to shower and get over to Cindy’s house to rehearse for tomorrow.”
“You just played everything a couple of nights ago!” Livy said. “You’re going to rehearse some more?”
“Do we stop running just because we’re between races?” I asked.
“Oh, yeah.”
We went into Nanette’s neat little house. I say little but it was about the same size as ours. And only Nanette lived there.
She got us each a glass of water and we all said how much we liked her house. We were just making up small talk until I said, “Well, I guess I need to go get ready. See you guys later.” Then everything kind of popped into high gear. Nanette looked at Livy and Rachel before she caught up with me headed for the door. She turned me around and kissed me.
“We never get a chance to do this in private,” she breathed. “Kiss me again, Jacob.” I did. Gladly. I guess having Livy and Rachel hugging us didn’t lessen either of our idea of privacy. And we kept hugging while she kissed Livy and Rachel. “It’s a good thing you all need to leave. This could get out of hand,” she said. “Or into hand.” She squeezed my butt and I saw Rachel jump a little as she got the same treatment. I could see Livy’s hand already caressing Nanette’s butt. She caught her breath a little and shoved us toward the door. “Go!”
“If Jacob hadn’t needed to leave for rehearsal, I think we’d still be there,” Rachel sighed.
“In bed,” Livy added. I didn’t say anything. I agreed. Nanette had been near combustion when we left. She was still struggling with the idea of a relationship with sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds but the struggle was entirely philosophical. Her heart had been won.
“We still need to be really careful,” Beca said. “I have nothing against adding to our pod—especially if I have a tasty treat to eat in the process—but I don’t want any part-time members.” Beca got up and pulled me to her in an embrace then went to each of our girlfriends. “I love you,” she said. “I want to look into your eyes and say that when I’m ninety. I would be brokenhearted if you left me.”
“How did you win my heart so easily?” Joan asked, picking Beca up and carrying her to a chair. She sat with our little lover on her lap and hugged her. “You are all the reason I will be able to endure Service. The only reason.”
“How did rehearsal go?” Brittany asked as she settled on my lap and leaned back against Desi’s breasts. She was instantly greeted by a popup salute under her butt. I hadn’t thought I would ever really cross that boundary with Brittany, the youngest of our group, but after our time with Sophie two weeks ago, I had a very different opinion. I let my hand slide under her shirt so I could caress her breasts as I answered.
“It was good,” I said. “Um… Mrs. Marvel is a little spooky. She’s gone from not wanting me around her little girl to wanting to manage my music career. I think that extends to managing my life. I don’t think I would have gotten away from there if it wasn’t for the basketball game this afternoon. Cindy’s brother is on the team and they all promised to drive to South Bend for the game today.”
“I don’t know why they schedule games that are so far away,” Rachel complained. “There should be a limit on how far athletes have to travel. Aren’t there like enough teams in Fort Wayne to play?”
“We’re a big school and I suppose they want us playing other 4A schools instead of the smaller ones,” I conjectured.
“Just wait till you see the track schedule and cross country this fall,” Livy said.
“What?”
“Well, track’s not so bad except there are a couple of meets a week during part of the season. And we’ll be going different directions. The girls will be headed all the way to Penn while the boys go to Goshen, for example. And we only have two meets at home. We’ll have to travel to all of the rest,” Livy said.
“Maybe I’m not really interested in running track,” I sighed. It sounded like another activity that was going to eat my time this spring.
“Sure you are. Just wait for cross country. They’ve revamped the whole schedule. There’s only one meet after school and the boys will have to leave early to get to Warsaw for that. Girls aren’t running there. All the other meets are on Saturday morning,” Livy said. “You remember going to State Championships in Terre Haute?” I nodded. “We’ve got a meet there in September that starts at 8:30 in the morning.”
“That was a four-hour drive!” I said. “No way.”
“It’s all part of running bigger fields. When we hit sectionals last year, we’d never run against more than three other teams at a time. All of a sudden, there were twelve in the meet. Jock said this is part of getting us all used to running with more people on the course.”
Brittany was getting impatient with me talking about sports when I had a hand on her bare tit. She turned toward me and smashed her mouth against mine to let me know she wanted more attention. That was pretty much the end of any intelligible conversation I had that afternoon.
Comments
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
