by Ann Steinke
We agreed on Lou’s plan and headed for the fourplex theater, where we bought tickets to the latest Nerds movie. Before long, the four of us were sitting in darkness, passing around a huge bucket of buttered popcorn and laughing hysterically. I heard Lou whisper to Ter that it was going to be difficult to feed a body whose intestines were bruised by all the laughing, but that didn’t prove to be a problem later on. After the movie, we went to a pizza place and tried to order a pie that would please everyone.
“We want a designer pizza,” Scott told the waitress with a smile.
“What do you want on it?” she asked.
Scott hunched his shoulders forward, as if concentrating on a very difficult problem. “We want one quarter of it to be sausage with mushrooms and onions—”
“And one quarter to be pepperoni and green peppers,” Ter added, getting into the spirit of things.
“Have you got any jalapeno peppers?” Lou asked hopefully.
The girl stared at him dumbly.
“Amigo, if you want jalapenos, you’d better go home,” Scott said with a straight face. “This is an Italian restaurant.”
Lou feigned surprise. “It is? Whose idea was it to come here?”
Everyone laughed, but the waitress looked a little irritated. So we took pity on her and finished up our order.
While we waited for the pizza, Scott brought up the idea of us playing for each other again.
“So have you girls thought about it?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said, glancing at Ter. “We’d like to give it a try.”
“Great! Let’s get together tomorrow at Lou’s,” Scott said enthusiastically. “That’s where we usually practice. We can set up your instruments and see how we sound.”
I don’t know if it was just an impulsive move or not, but right then Scott reached out and took my hand. He held it for a while as we talked. To say I was surprised would be an understatement. So far Lou had made no physical moves on Ter, which certainly broke the pattern of the kind of guys she usually dated. And I was a little uncomfortable with Scott showing this kind of affection publicly.
After we had had our pizza, we left the restaurant, discussing what time we’d get together the next day. Since we didn’t know where Lou lived and we weren’t familiar with the address, Scott offered to pick us up. I tried to imagine the four of us as a band, playing for money . . . dressed up in costumes . . . but the image wouldn’t gel. Trying to picture it was like watching figures through frosted glass. Maybe that was because we hadn’t actually played yet, and I needed more details to really flesh out the fantasy.
Scott took us to my house, since that’s where Ter’s car was parked. We broke off in pairs, trying to give each other some space and privacy. It was difficult, though. My rotten parents had turned on the driveway spotlights and the two coach lights flanking the front door. It was as bright as daylight outside my house. A definite hindrance to romance.
Scott steered me over to a shadow cast by a birch tree at the side of the driveway. “I really enjoyed tonight,” he said, taking me into his arms. Then he kissed me on the lips good night, and I kissed him back, not knowing how to stop him. I didn’t really want to kiss him; but then, I didn’t not want to kiss him either. And besides, I didn’t see the harm in a simple kiss.
Finally, Scott walked me to the door, and Lou and Ter came up behind us. We all sort looked around, smiling awkwardly before saying our final good-byes and thank yous. Then, after the guys had driven away, Ter and I went into my house and closed the door.
“A-h-h-h!” Ter said, whispering so as not to disturb my parents. “I can’t wait till tomorrow.”
CHAPTER FIVE
When Scott came to get us the next day, Ter climbed into the backseat of his Jeep with my guitar. She was going to use Lou’s electric keyboard, so she didn’t have to bring any instruments with her. As we drove into Lou’s neighborhood, I looked around with interest. He lived on a little cul-de-sac on the edge of a village, where they didn’t even have curbs and sidewalks. The street was dusty, and most of the yards were small and bare. I knew he didn’t come from particularly wealthy parents. That’s why he was in orchestra, instead of studying music privately. But I wasn’t expecting quite such a depressing neighborhood.
Lou’s house was one of those early California types with peach-colored wood siding and a high pitched hip roof. There was a garage built separately from the house, and the front yard looked manicured and lush with well-tended grass, bordered by colorful flowerbeds. Deep red bougainvillea bushes grew above a stockade fence between his house and the next, and a neat row of sunflowers, their heads drooping over sideways, stood behind a massive bed of smaller flowers.
We unloaded our instruments—Scott’s two guitars, a six string and a four string, and my own—and hauled them into the garage. An amplifier for Scott’s guitar was already set up in the garage, and I could see how really serious he was about his music. Lou had his set of drums in one corner, and I noticed a set of weights and a bench in another. I raised an eyebrow at Ter and nodded toward the weights. She looked at them and grinned.
“Let’s go see what Lou’s up to in the house,” Scott said. He led us out of the garage and across a small patio. Pungent smells wafted through the screened back door of the house. Without knocking, Scott pushed the door open and walked in. Ter and I followed hesitantly.
Lou was standing by the stove, stirring something in a huge kettle. “You’re just in time to get out the chips and dump ’em in a bowl,” he said to Scott. He winked at Ter and smiled at me.
Scott went directly to a cabinet and took out a bowl. Obviously he was used to moving around in the Pacheco kitchen.
“I’ve got salsa in the fridge all made up. Get that out,” Lou said over his shoulder as he continued to stir whatever it was he was cooking.
“Great!” Scott said. “Have you got chili con queso too?”
Lou grinned at him. “Scott, when have I ever failed to have your favorite snack?” He nodded at a small pot on the back burner. “Dump it in something, will you?”
Scott moved over next to him and reached into a cabinet above Lou’s head. He brought down a small ceramic dish.
“And while you’re up there,” Lou said, “get me the pisilla chili and the cumin, will you?”
“What’s cumin?” Scott asked, reaching into the cabinet again.
“Good eats is comin’, man, good eats,” Lou said with a laugh. Then he reached up and snagged two spice jars out of the cabinet. “If you want to eat my food,” he said to Scott, “you’ve got to learn how to identify the ingredients.”
“Naw, I’ll just confuse myself if I know too much,” Scott said, grinning over at Ter and me. We were standing just inside the back door. Ter looked stupefied. I don’t think she’d ever seen a male do anything that smacked of work in the kitchen.
Ter and I sidled up to the stove to see what Lou had in the pot. He stirred the red mass and then tasted it. “Not enough salt,” he announced, shaking his head. He reached for a salt container, poured some into the palm of his hand, and dropped it into the pot.
“You wash that hand?” Scott teased.
“Yeah, in the dog’s water dish, like always,” Lou replied, punching Scott in the shoulder. He placed a lid on the pot.
“You have a dog?” Ter asked, looking around the room.
Lou grinned and nodded toward the screened door. “Yeah, he’s out there somewhere in the yard.”
“Really?” I said. “But he didn’t bark when we came in.”
“A Pacheco dog never barks,” Scott said in a serious tone.
Lou shook his head, chuckling. “That’s right,” he said. “My mother always said that with four kids, there was enough noise. So any dog we ever had was taught that barking is a no-no.” He and Scott smiled and exchanged meaningful looks. The silence that followed seemed to be touched with a trace of sorrow. Ter looked as if she also sensed the sudden change in the mood, and her eyes were darting around the
room.
Lou looked at us with his dark eyes, the smile wrinkles at the corners deepening. “You girls ready to play?”
“You bet,” Ter said, already stepping backward toward the screened door.
I nodded in agreement. But I was ready to vacate the aromatic kitchen for a different reason. The room smelled of chili powder, cumin, and all those other mysterious spices associated with Mexican food, and I was reminded of my work at Taco Bell. Anything that reminded me of work was not welcome, and I wanted to escape to the garage as swiftly as possible.
Lou raised his arms and began herding us out of the kitchen. “Okay, let’s go,” he said, backing us out through the door. But just then a woman dressed in a nursing uniform entered the kitchen. As soon as I saw her, I knew she had to be his mother. He looked so much like her.
She spotted the large pot on the stove, walked straight over to it, and lifted off the lid. “Oh, no!” she exclaimed in mock horror. “Not another batch of your killer chili.” She replaced the lid and looked at her son with a woebegone expression. “What bad thing did I do as a child, that I ended up with a son who’s always cooking?”
Lou grinned. “I have to cook,” he said to her. “It’s the only way I ever get enough to eat around here. With you and dad working crazy shifts all the time, I have no choice but to do it myself.”
“Oh, you poor, poor undernourished boy,” his mother said sarcastically. Then she turned to the rest of us and smiled. “So this is the band, eh?” she said, addressing Lou.
“Ter, Krista,” Lou said. “This is my mother.”
We both said hello politely, and his mother smiled warmly at us. Then she suddenly scowled at Lou and lifted an admonishing finger. “And afterwards, clean up this mess!” she said sternly, but there was a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.
Lou sent her an innocent look. “Don’t I always?” he asked.
“Sure, sure,” his mother said as she started toward the hallway leading from the kitchen. “After everything’s sat in the sink for three days and you need a blow torch for the job.”
Scott laughed. “She knows you too well, amigo.”
Lou just smiled and went over to check his killer chili one more time. I really wasn’t sure I wanted to sample something with such an ominous name. The smells pouring out of the pot were overpowering. “So you cook a lot, huh?” I asked.
“Does he?” Scott said, making a sound that can only be described as a cross between a snort and a hoot. “If he wasn’t going to be a famous musician, he’d be a famous chef!”
Mrs. Pacheco came back into the kitchen then and glanced over at her son stirring his creation. She shook her head and said, “Some girl’s going to love you because she’ll never have to cook.”
“Uh-uh,” Lou said, shaking his head from side to side. “I’m going to find one who loves to cook too, and we’ll cook side by side.”
His mother laughed and slung a brown shoulder bag over her arm. “Then you’ll both be gordo!” she said.
“Yeah, but we’ll have lots to love!”
We all laughed, and Mrs. Pacheco headed toward the screen door. Ter and I stepped out of her way. “I’m off to work,” she said. “Have fun, kids, and don’t drive the neighbors to commit murder with your music.”
The door slammed behind her and a few seconds later I heard a car start up and back out of the driveway.
“What a woman you’ve got for a mother,” Scott said, teasing Lou.
“She just doesn’t appreciate me like she should. She should be glad I cook,” Lou said, pretending to complain.
“My mother makes me do a lot of cooking,” I blurted out suddenly.
“Oh really?” Lou asked, looking at me with interest.
“Yeah. It’s a requirement that any child of hers must know her way around the kitchen,” I explained. “The thing is, it’s deadly serious business to her. We never, ever measure anything in the palm of our hand,” I said with mock severity.
“You actually use those funny little spoons that all fit together?” Lou asked, joining in the joke.
“Yup. And we use measuring cups too,” I said.
“Ugh,” Lou said, making a face. “My motto is: Any ingredient that requires measurement is an ingredient I can do without.”
“But that must make your cooking very confining,” I said.
“Naw. But it does make it inconsistent,” Lou said, laughing.
Scott grabbed the bowl he’d filled with chips and handed a container of red sauce to Ter. “Hey, come on. Let’s get going,” he said.
“Yeah, enough about food,” Ter agreed.
“Right,” Lou said, reaching for the small pot on the stove. “I can’t wait to hear how we sound.”
We trooped out to the garage with the food, then began setting up our instruments. Scott and I set up music stands, and he plugged his electric guitar into the amplifier. Lou showed Ter the electric keyboard, and I watched as they ran through some chords together. What a great-looking couple they’d make, I thought for about the zillionth time.
After we had set everything up, we started to discuss what we’d play. It turned out that we all loved fast music and a few slower ballads. We all liked Elton John, George Michael, Heart, Prince, and countless others. The hard part wasn’t agreeing on what to play; it was agreeing on what to play first.
“I think we should play an instrumental first,” I suggested. “That way we can concentrate on how our instruments sound, without the distraction of trying to get our voices to mesh.”
“That makes sense,” Scott agreed. “Let’s do it.”
I was impressed. That Scott was willing to take a suggestion from me was really great. After all, it was his idea to form the band, and he could have felt that that gave him the right to make all the decisions. But he was easygoing, laid back, willing to listen to suggestions. The more I got to know Scott, the more I liked him, but I still wasn’t ready to throw myself into a relationship with him.
We decided that Scott would play lead guitar on his six string, I’d play his bass, Ter would get on the keyboard, and Lou would play his drums.
“Okay,” Ter said, running her fingers up and down the keyboard. “I’m all set. Why don’t we just pick a song we already know just to see how we sound?”
Lou nodded. “Yeah, that’s perfect.”
A couple of minutes later, we had settled on an Allman Brothers’ piece called Jessica’s Song. Lou tapped out the count on his drums, and the three of us jumped in. In all honesty I can’t say we sounded spectacular. In fact, I was beginning to think Mrs. Pacheco’s warning about making the neighbors want to commit murder wasn’t so farfetched after all.
We did several takes, and finally after about our fifth attempt, we were beginning to sound pretty good.
“I think Scott and Krista should try singing together now,” Ter said brightly after we had finished another take.
Scott and I looked at each other, and then he grinned at me. “Yeah, a duet,” he said a bit shyly.
I smiled back at him and nodded. “Okay,” I said, trying not to seem nervous.
We ended up singing Hold On My Heart. Scott took the lead, and I did second voice. He was halfway between a bass and a baritone, and I’m an alto. Even to my ears, it seemed that Scott’s voice and mine blended beautifully.
We finished the song, all four of us laughing.
“That’s it,” Scott said resolutely. “We have to form a band. We’re good together. You guys agree?”
I nodded.
“And aren’t they perfect singing together?” Ter asked with a nod at Scott and me.
“Yeah. We all complement each other perfectly,” Lou said, smiling back at her.
Ter beamed, and I knew she was ready to go airborne.
Then Scott got up and pretended to stagger over to the food. “After that session, I really need to fortify myself,” he said, stabbing a chip into one of the ceramic dishes. He popped the chip into his mouth, then turned to Lou.
“Amigo, I think the salsa needs to be nuked,” he said. “Our music may be hot, but this isn’t.”
Lou laughed, then went over to pick up the ceramic dish. He walked over to a corner of the garage where there was a long workbench. I hadn’t looked closely at that part of the garage, so I hadn’t noticed the small microwave oven sitting on the table. Boy, these guys are really serious about their food, I thought to myself.
Ter followed Lou over to the workbench and talked to him while the microwave whirred.
I was chatting with Scott and munching on some chips.
“You know, I’ve always wanted to form a band,” he was telling me in a low voice. “I was just waiting for the right people to come along.”
I nodded, feeling vaguely flattered by what he was saying.
“It’s incredible that you and Ter came along when you did,” he said. “And it’s even more amazing that you two seem so right for us in other ways, too.” He was standing very close to me, looking down into my eyes.
I wasn’t quite sure how to react to that, so I just kept on munching on the chips and smiling.
Then Lou brought the warmed salsa over to us, and we attacked the food as though we hadn’t eaten in days. After the dip was polished off, we went into Lou’s house and he fed us the killer chili.
“Hmmm. This is great, Lou,” Ter said.
“Yeah . . . so much better than the stuff we serve at Taco Bell,” I added. I was so hungry that the powerful smells of spices didn’t bother me anymore.
While we were eating, Lou’s dog showed up at the back door. He was a funny-looking mix of shepherd and collie, with one ear that stood up and one ear that flopped forward. Lou went over and patted him affectionately as he let him into the kitchen. Then he tossed a cube of beef from his chili into the air, and the dog snapped it up.
I held up a spoonful of the chili and looked at Lou. “You know, this is really good,” I told him sincerely. “I’ll bet my boss Ernesto would pay big bucks for your recipe.”
Ter feigned shock. “Ernesto! Parting with real dollars?” she exclaimed. “No way.”
“You’re right,” I admitted. “What am I saying? Ernesto would just steal the recipe.”