London Harmony: Minuette (11 page)

I paused, I really missed this.  It used to be a ritual every weekend before we moved out.  Since then, we've only done it a sparse handful of times.  I made a mental note that we needed to make it a weekend tradition again, even if we could only afford a platter or two for her.

I glanced at one album and did a double-take.  Putting it aside with a grin.  Duck Duck Grey Duck's  Desire, from Portland imprint Mississippi records.  A buy on sight album on Mindy's list.  The band has a classic American southern rock and bluesy sort of feel.  As I said before, she has very eclectic tastes.  It isn't like it is rare or anything, but it is on her list.

I finished with the first box and she had already finished with what she was doing.  How lame am I?  She put her hand down to me and I just stared at it and shyly took it and she hauled me off the ground and said, “Let’s hit the cellar.”  Then she was dragging me toward the back hall, past the grinning owner, toward the stairs to the basement where all the unsorted records and books were as well as a vintage clothes selection.  That is where all the fresh stock intake was.

I gave the owner a 'help me' look as she dragged me past him and I heard the bloke chuckle.  When we were in my worst nightmare, unsorted and unorganized land of boxes of everything, she let go of my hand and tilted her head cutely and asked in her raspy voice, “Whatcha got there?”

I grinned and held the album out to her with both hands.  She made an “ooo” face and took it from me with sparkling eyes and put it on her stack.  Her beaming smile was all I needed to know I did good.

She gave me a look of 'keep yourself out of trouble' as she started sifting through boxes.  I had to chuckle at her.  She knew me too well.  I started segregating boxes into stacks.  Separating out videos, books, magazines, comics, and vinyl into separate areas.  She knew I secretly enjoyed this.  It was relaxing to me and gave me something to do as she dug through the boxes for gold.

I smiled at each little, excited squeak she would make from time to time as her stack grew.  I was about done sorting and was about to dive into the boxes to start alphabetizing when she finished up.  She grabbed my hand again as she hugged a big stack of records to her bosom with her other hand.

I mumbled a protest, I wasn't done yet.  She said to me as she dragged me upstairs as heat spread from our contact up my arm, “They're just going to get messed up again Nett.”

It was going to grate on me in the back of my head for hours.

She almost skipped up to one of the phonographs, let go of my hand, and put a platter on and lowered the needle.  I had to grin as she swayed hips playfully to a fifties do wop beat.  She chuckled. “Come on Netty, loosen up.”  She grabbed both my hands and swung me side to side in time with the beat.  It had been so very long since I had seen her so happy and so playful, and I couldn't stop from smiling hugely.  So I loosened up as ordered and was just silly with her.

She nodded when the track was over and said as she put the record back into its sleeve, “Ok, that is a must have.  It takes a lot to get you to move like that.”

And so it went.  Other customers sometimes joined in the silliness with us.  She seemed to make her selections by how big of a smile she could elicit from me as she made me dance with her in the shop in front of strangers.  A couple songs we knew and she prompted me to sing for her.  Only she could get me out of my shell like that.

In the end, we walked out of the shop with her purchases almost an hour and a half after we entered.  She wound up with six seven-inch singles and the Duck Duck Grey Duck album I had found for her.  It set us back just over two pounds.  Even without my windfall funds, we could afford that, so I wondered why we didn't make it a tradition anyway.

I mumbled, “We should do that every week again.”

She smiled and caught my hand in hers again.  What was going on with that?  I mean, I'm not complaining in the least, but it was killing me.

She nodded staunchly as she released me at the car.  “Done and done.  I haven't had that much fun in ages.”

I nodded. “Me either.”

She started the car and pulled into the lane to bring us to our next destination.  Her hand found mine as she drove.  She looked almost sheepishly at our hands and I gave hers a little squeeze.  This almost felt like a... date?  Bloody hell, wouldn't that be divine?

After a repeat performance at another hidden gem for diggers, Eldica in Dalston, my stomach growled and she chuckled at it and looked at it as she drove.

“Is Nett not feeding you?”

My traitorous stomach growled almost as if in response and she giggled.  That made me smile uncontrollably.

I asked, “Find a diner, fast food?  Or... Pizza?”

She nodded once and turned down the next road to head us back toward the core.  “Gertrude's it is.”  She knew me so well.  You'd almost think I was a Yank the way I devoured pizza.

Before too long, far too soon in my book since she held my hand whenever she wasn't shifting gears, we found ourselves in the cobblestoned back alley where Gertrude's was located, walking past the quaint shops lining the cobblestone alley as a drizzling rain started.

We peered into the window of  Forgotten Threads, a secondhand clothing shop that always had intriguing vintage clothing on display.  I reached forward to brush a wet curl out of her face and froze.  She looked at my hand and tilted her head in question.  Bloody hell, there was nothing for it now.  I exhaled and brushed the curl back behind her ear.

I loved how it started curling like that when it got wet.  She didn't pull away, she just seemed to get bashful and pulled me across the alley to our destination, lacing our fingers.  She was sending all kinds of confusing signals to me.  She had never acted like she has the past few days.  Was I reading far too much into things, projecting my own hopes?

We stepped inside and took the only free table.  We usually sat outside but not in the rain, not even with the generous awning in the front of the place.  Gertrude took our drink orders as she slid two deep dish slices in front of us.  Oooo classic pepperoni.

Mindy seemed a little distracted by something over my right shoulder.  I followed her gaze to a tall, pretty woman at another table with a short blonde with thick round glasses and a frazzled ponytail.  I looked back at my best mate.  “What?”

She shook her head in dismissal.  “It's nothing.  That woman just there, looks just like that Eliza Montrose, from Walker's.  You know, the famous bassist.”

I cocked an eyebrow at her and she grinned and said, “I know, what are the odds a famous musician favors our pizza joint?”

Exactly... but I looked back at the woman in question anyway.  She sort of did look just like Eliza Montrose didn't she?  After a second, I shook my head to look back at my favorite person instead.

We spent the time discussing our latest and greatest plan.  Making this our weekly tradition again, or at least once a month as funds permitted.  I haven't laughed and had such a good time in such a very long time and it felt like a forgotten part of our friendship had awakened again and it was like welcoming an old friend back into our lives.

How long had it been since we just sat and talked about things in our lives and started making plans that always had we or an us in them?  Good lord, I was fascinated by her lips.

After lunch, we decided to abort our mission of hitting all seven of our traditional vinyl hunting grounds in favor of just pretending to be tourists in our own city.  I sometimes forget all the wonder that London holds.  There can't be a town in the world as diverse as our home.

And everywhere we went, Mind was either holding my hand or hugging my arm, helping me count out my paces.  I thought I was infatuated with my old Mindy, this new touchy-feely Mind was heating me up and making my entire being hum.

By the time we got back home and I was knocking three times on our door, as she unlocked it, I was marking the day down as the best day of my life.  I was buzzing with energy that just needed to be released.

We had dinner and I cleaned the dishes and put them away, just right, as Mind sat on the couch watching the news on the telly.  I paused a minute and just looked at her back.  I silently renewed my vow to be in her life for as long as she would allow me, even if it were just as best mates.  I loved her in more ways than one.

When I went into our empty room, knocking three times before entering, to get ready to go seed the music, Mindy shut off the telly and joined me.  I cocked an eyebrow.  She shrugged and held up the keys.  “We still have the bucket of bolts, I thought I'd join you tonight... see what you do when you give out our music.”

This made me pause, she had never wanted to go with me, she was embarrassed I was sharing her music like this though she knew why I did it and agreed to some extent that it should be shared with the world.  Though she always instead the music was for me.

Then I realized why she was coming.  This was the end of the song.  These years of her crafting each track to share that hidden song buried in all the Phantom Melodies.  I had the ominous feeling that this was the end of something else and I didn't know what.

I just smiled and nodded nervously.

She smiled back and shrugged, then echoed my thoughts, “This has just sort of been the best day ever, and I don't want it to end.”

My smile became genuine, I felt the same way, but for different reasons I was sure.

We got our coats on and brought a brolly, the sporadic rain still threatened and it wouldn't do to catch cold in the chill night air.  I stopped in the kitchen and grabbed the box of little sandwich bags.  Then we were off.  She walked so close to me to the car that I could feel the heat radiating off of her.

As she drove, I sealed each of the thumb drive in a sandwich bag so the evil rain didn't damage them if it continued.  It wasn't a downpour, it was still that off and on drizzle that punctuated the end of springtime in London.  It is how Seattle is described to me by Fran.

We had to park almost a kilometer away from the O2,  Lessa Franklin was a big draw.  She was starting to become almost as popular as her legendary mother, Penny Franklin, from Leather and Heels.  One thing I liked about Lessa was that, like June, she didn't try to ride on her mother's fame.  She found her own sound and has battled her way up the charts like every other artist.

We walked into the unique venue that the O2 was.  To me, it looked like a big powdered doughnut. Or maybe more aptly, a big spiked jellyfish beached on the shore of the Thames.

I held the brolly mostly over Mindy as we walked.  She sort of glommed onto my arm which made me smile on the inside.  I secretly loved all the attention and touches she was sharing with me that day.  I agreed with her... best day ever.

Once we arrived in the giant car park, we went to work.  We were still a fair distance from the O2 but could feel the bass thumping, and hear the cheering from where we were.  Mind held the brolly for me as I dug out the baggies and started placing a drive under the wiper of every twenty cars.  Once I had put the last drive, I turned to her with a grin.

She just blinked and I shrugged.  She smashed her lips off to one side and then said, “Huh, so that's all there is to it?  I thought it would be more... I don't know, cloak and dagger.  This was sort of anti-climactic.”  She shot me a super toothy grin.

I rolled my eyes and bumped her hip as I took the brolly from her and tipped it more over her than me.  “Really?  What did you expect Mind?  It's not like I'm a secret agent woman or anything.  Just out sharing music with the masses.”

She grinned again, “Well let's go home, Agent Corrick, it's chilly and soggy out.”

I chuckled at that. “That makes you my Q.”

She wrapped her hands around my arm again as we paced back to where we started, me counting my steps as she said cryptically, “I'll take what I can get.”

I sighed inwardly as she laid her head on my shoulder as we took the long trek back to the Anglia.  I slowed my pace and shortened my stride as we approached it so that my count matched as we arrived.  I could feel her cheek on my arm bulging into a smile as I did so.  It was still not even nine, so we decided to trade the Anglia for our Oyster Cards and dropped the car off with my parents.

We popped across the lawn to her parent's house for a minute just to say hello.  Mrs. Stevens grinned at me when I knocked three times on the side door into the kitchen as she held it open for us.  “What a pleasant surprise, what brings you girls by?”  Then before we could answer, in typical mum style, she asked, “Are you two getting enough to eat?  I have some pot-roast I could heat up.”

Mmmm pot-roast.

Mr. Stevens walked into the kitchen to see what the commotion was about as Mindy rolled her eyes, “Yes mum, we're just fine.  We had to drop the car off at the Corrick's so we thought we'd pop in to say hi.”

We all followed Mr. Stevens as he nudged his head toward the living room, and we sat to chat a bit.  Mindy sat right next to me, our shoulders pressed together.  I whispered in her ear, “Pot-roast?”  She snorted and slapped my shoulder lightly.  What?  It would make brilliant sandwiches for tomorrow.  Mrs. Stevens must have caught it because she was beaming at us.

It always amazed me as we grew up, it didn't matter where we were, my house or hers, it had the exact same feel like each house was just an extension of the other.  It was the feel of family.  I felt like I belonged here just as much as across the lawn.  Maybe because it is all Mind and I have known since we were tiny.