The Cherry Pages

by Gary Ruffin

  Cherry said, “Oh, Penny, what a dazzling display! You’ve outdone yourself.”

  Penny smiled, reached behind her back, and pulled out another bag of candy.

  “These are for you, Cherry. I read in a magazine how you—how did you put it—oh, yeah—‘absolutely adore chocolate-covered toffee.’ So I got you a bag of Heath bars, too.”

  Cherry squealed, “Ooh, I do adore these! You’re such a doll, Penny. Let’s all eat candy ’til we get sick.”

  Opening the bag of peanut M&M’S, I said, “Last one sick is a rotten egg.”

  Penny said, “I saw this in a theater in Pensacola last summer and loved it. I think Coop will too.”

  Cherry asked, “Why didn’t you drag this guy along with you?”

  “Because we were, shall we say, living separate lives at the time. ‘This guy’ can be a real pain sometimes,” Penny said with a laugh.

  “And just how often would you say he’s a ‘real pain’?’’

  “Only when he’s awake.”

  I said, “Hardy, har, har, Prevost. You know I’m the sweetest man in the world. Or at least, the sweetest man in the room.”

  Cherry said, “He’s got you there, Pen.”

  Penny said, “Okay, I give.” She hit “play,” and the movie started. When Cherry’s name came on the screen, we all clapped and whistled and hooted and hollered.

  The first scene was in a wartime London hospital, with Cherry dressed in a nurse’s uniform. She looked really good, her hair in one of those 1940 hairdos. I don’t know what you call it, but it had kind of curled bangs, and was not quite shoulder length. She had a white nurse’s cap on, and was looking really good—did I say that already? Anyway, the guy she was talking to in the hospital bed was dying, and when he kicked the bucket, she started crying and ran out into the street.

  As the movie went on, it became clear that the dead guy was her fiancé, a pilot who had been rescued when his plane crashed over Germany. The first few minutes after he died, the movie flashed back to their romance, the crash, and all that stuff. It was actually pretty good, and Cherry was perfect for the part. Her acting was as good as anyone I’ve seen, and it was clear why she won awards for it.

  I looked over at Penny, and saw she was already on the verge of tears. I told her to hit “pause,” went in her room, got the box of Kleenex, and put it on the end table next to her. She took the box without ever taking her eyes off the screen, hit “play,” and the movie continued. Cherry smiled at me as I sat back down.

  There were some good action scenes, especially one where Cherry was on her way home and an air-raid siren went off. As she was running for the bomb shelter, she twisted her ankle, and fell down in the middle of the street. Just as the bombs started to go off all around, this big handsome British soldier came along, scooped her up, and raced to the shelter just in time. I have to admit, I didn’t think they were going to make it.

  But they did, and romance ensued.

  Penny’s tears had stopped by then, and my bowl of popcorn was empty. I had polished off all but a few M&M’S when the big dance number came on. Cherry’s rescuer had been shipped off to Germany, and she was volunteering at the local British version of the USO, handing out food and dancing with the soldiers.

  She had on a dress that showed off her legs and her curves really well, probably a little sexier than what the women wore back then, but hey, it was a movie. Believe me, I wasn’t complaining.

  As the band was warming up, an American soldier came over to Cherry, and said he wanted to give her a present. Wary, she said that she had a boyfriend, and wasn’t sure that taking gifts from a stranger was a good idea. He promised her there were no strings attached, that he had something she would really like and he had no use for. Besides, he’d get more pleasure out of it than she would, if she‘d only accept the gift.

  Intrigued, Cherry followed him outside, where he opened a box and gave her a pair of genuine silk stockings and a garter belt with garters. She flipped out, gave him a big kiss on the cheek, and went in the ladies’ room to put it all on. At that moment, the orchestra leader said, “This one’s called ‘In the Mood,’” the band started to play, and the joint started jumping.

  Cherry came out of the ladies’ room in her stockings, and looked even better, if that’s possible. She found the guy who gave her the stockings, and they hit the dance floor. She made even the most difficult moves look easy, and that dress of hers flying up while she danced showed all the things a guy likes to see. It was easy to see why she never did nude scenes.

  She didn’t have to.

  All of my objections to a dance scene in a war movie were forgotten after the first flash of Cherry’s thighs. After a few minutes of her superb dancing and garter-belt flashing, I was ready to jump in a plane and fly to Germany myself.

  During the scene, Penny and Cherry danced in their seats, and I tried to ignore them. I had my eyes glued to the screen so I wouldn’t miss a single shot of Cherry’s bopping and swinging. She was radiant, and glamorous, and all those movie clichés, but the main thing she was, was sexy as hell.

  My candy ran out as the scene ended, so I stole the bowl of popcorn the girls had been sharing the moment they slumped back on the sofa, out of breath from dancing and laughing.

  After the big-band number we all came back down to Earth, and watched the rest of the film in relative quiet. Cherry’s character worked at the hospital, waited for word from her new beau, and went through all kinds of emotional stuff in the middle of the bombing of London. Her beau was in a couple of good battle scenes, and naturally was very heroic and manly.

  Months passed, and her guy came back from Germany all shot up, and was brought to her hospital. It was touch and go for a while, and let’s cut to the chase and say that he survived, they married and settled down in a house in Dover, and the Good Guys won the war.

  The film ended as the couple put a little sign out by the white picket fence that read, “The Cliffs.” A famous song played as the credits rolled, and Penny and Cherry cried. The song, of course, was “The White Cliffs of Dover.”

  It was the best chick flick I’ve ever seen, and I’m not just saying that because the star was sitting next to me the whole time. I actually enjoyed it. As Penny had predicted, there was enough killing and stuff blowing up to keep me interested. Not to mention how fascinating the wardrobe had turned out to be.

  When it was over, Penny wiped her tears, and asked, “So, Coop, that wasn’t so bad, was it?”

  “Two thumbs up,” I said. “Way up.”

  Cherry asked, “You really liked it, Cooper?”

  “I really did, Cherry Page. Your acting was absolutely first rate, and your dancin’? Let’s just say wow, and leave it at that.”

  Cherry smiled, and said, “I’m happy to see that my dancing is so appreciated. I had to take three-hour daily lessons for two grueling months before filming started.”

  I said, “Well, you were so good at it, I almost wanted to get up and dance myself.”

  Penny jumped up from the sofa and said, “I’m so glad you said that. There’s still one more surprise to come.”

  She grabbed Cherry’s hand, pulled her up from the sofa, whispered in her ear, and they headed for the bedroom.

  57

  THE PARTY HOUSE WAS IN A CUL-DE-SAC, AND THE DRIVEWAY WAS filled with cars. The circular end of the street was also filled with cars, some double-parked. Joe Don wasn’t about to drag three big coolers filled with beer and ice from the nearest parking space, so he pulled up behind the last car in the driveway.

  He got out his cell phone, to call Billy Bramlett, his ex-roommate with the Falcons, and tell him to come outside and help with the coolers. Bramlett, a three-hundred-pound second-string tackle who had played with Joe Don at the University of Texas, was the only man who could drink more longnecks than he could.

  The two had cut a wide swath through Austin during their college years, and became well known as the hardest partying Falcons before Joe Don�
��s career-ending injury. They didn’t see each other much anymore, and that was why Billy had invited Joe Don to the party. The two had a lot of catching up to do.

  Billy answered his cell with a loud “What!” and Joe Don told him to get his vast ass out to the end of the driveway, and help.

  “On my way, J.D.!” Billy shouted into the phone, and within thirty seconds was ferociously shaking Joe Don’s hand as they stood behind the Jeep.

  “Whoa, man, you’re breakin’ my hand!” Joe Don said, laughing.

  Billy hugged his buddy, and gave him a wet kiss on the cheek. The smell of beer was already heavy on him, and he swayed as he loudly asked where the damn coolers were located.

  “They’re right here, calm down,” Joe Don said, laughing as he opened the back of the Jeep. “Grab a chest and lead the way.”

  “Aw, hell, J.D., I can do better’n ’at. Load me up with two of ’em.”

  “If you say so,” Joe Don said. He lifted the heavy coolers one at a time and placed them on the huge outstretched arms of his friend.

  Billy sauntered off as if he were carrying nothing, and said at the top of his voice, “The party’s down around back by the pool—you cain’t miss it.”

  Joe Don shook his head and chuckled at the sight of the massive man ambling towards the steps leading down to the backyard, grabbed the remaining cooler, and followed. By the time he had walked the length of the long driveway, he was breathing hard, and made a vow to get back into shape. With a grunt, he placed the cooler down and looked over the low white brick wall at the pool two stories below.

  The big backyard was well lit, with strings of lights in the trees and bushes that surrounded the pool area. A large flat area twenty yards or so beyond the pool was the center of the action. A DJ under a large white open tent was playing thumping hip-hop at peak volume, and a dozen or so couples were dancing on a temporary parquet dance floor that covered the manicured lawn.

  A long table outside the tent was loaded with food and beer, and a bartender was serving mixed drinks from a portable bar by the entrance to the tent. More lights were strung around the tent, and inside it, and a disco ball glittered as it spun around.

  The backyard alone must be almost an acre, Joe Don thought to himself. He felt a pang of envy as he recalled again how close he had come to having a house in the neighborhood. He wasn’t jealous, nor did he begrudge Quintavious his newfound wealth and success, but felt only emptiness as he watched the party from his perch high above it all.

  Billy had made it down to the tent by then, and opened the ice chests after putting them down on the grass next to the big table. He grabbed a can and shook it vigorously, popped it, and began spraying beer over anyone who was within ten feet. He threw his big head back, let out a roar, popped another can, and swallowed the contents in one long gulp.

  Joe Don knew that this would happen thirty or more times during the next several hours, and he made a mental note to stay away from the table whenever Billy was near it. He was wearing his best silk shirt, and didn’t want it sprayed with beer. Dry cleaning stretched the budget a little too far for the time being.

  Joe Don sat on the low wall with his back to the party for a few minutes, feeling sorry for himself before finally deciding it was time to get into the spirit of things. He opened the ice chest, pulled out one of his longnecks, and took a long drink. He turned and looked again at the party below, and realized he recognized four other players besides Billy, and counted only two of them friends. In the three years he’d been out of the game, a lot of guys had moved on to other teams, or like him, had ended their careers. Add the fact that married players hadn’t been invited, and it was no surprise that he knew so few of the Falcons in attendance.

  As was common at all the singles’ parties, there was a surplus of young women of all races, all of whom had two things in common: They were very attractive, and they were very willing. Joe Don knew from experience there is a certain type of young woman who loves being around athletes, and who will do anything to be with them. Anything.

  The women who attended the players’ parties were different from the groupies who follow rock stars, politicians, or movie stars. The football groupies were wilder and crazier, no doubt about it. They had to be, to want such big, physically powerful, spoiled individuals as the young men of the NFL. Joe Don had always wondered if they had a need to be treated like dirt, or if they merely enjoyed it. Not that he had spent much time wondering about it, especially when he had been with one or more of them.

  As he watched the party get wilder by the minute, he felt out of place, and the deafening music irritated him. By the time he was finishing his fifth beer, several of the women were skinny-dipping with two young Falcons in the deep end of the pool. By the sixth beer, the pool was half filled with players and women, all of them naked and noisy.

  As Joe Don was twisting the cap on his ninth beer, two drunken beauties wearing nothing but bikini bottoms came up the grassy rise and asked why he wasn’t down by the pool.

  He said, “I’m workin’ security. I need to stay up here.”

  “Oh,” one of them said. “Okay,” said the other, and they staggered off towards the front door of the mansion. One of them slipped and fell on her butt on the tiled porch, and they laughed as if it were the funniest thing in the world.

  Joe Don watched the women as they barely managed to make it into the house, and thought he was no longer in their league. He laughed drunkenly at his unintentional pun, and chugged his beer to dull the pain.

  Below, the music was getting wilder and louder, and the unrestrained drinking was causing problems. Some of the women started loud arguments, and two of the players got into a wrestling match. They bulled each other around for a few minutes as the crowd loudly egged them on, and finally crashed into one of the tent poles, bending it and causing the tent to lean precariously, and bringing the music to a halt.

  There was only a slight delay as Billy Bramlett went over and bent the pole back almost to its former state. He bowed deeply and almost fell over as the crowd whooped and whistled noisily in appreciation. The DJ came back louder, and the housewarming party got wilder, as some of the players and women paired up and went inside the house.

  As all this was going on, Joe Don never once left his spot at the wall above the action. After he finished his tenth beer and tossed the bottle in the grass, he took one long, last look at the world he would never again be a part of and headed for his Jeep, leaving his coolers behind.

  58

  PENNY AND CHERRY CAME BACK INTO THE LIVING ROOM FIFTEEN minutes later. Each sported a ponytail and one of Penny’s summer dresses; Cherry’s was white, Penny’s was yellow. Penny said, “Okay, Coop, time to dance for your supper.”

  I put on my grimace face, and said, “You know I don’t dance.”

  Cherry frowned, and asked, “Don’t you really, Coop?”

  Penny said, “He never dances with me either, Cherry. He may not even know how—except for slow dances—so don’t take it personally.”

  “Then we shall have to teach him. What say we pull the rug back, and make a dance floor.”

  “Great idea,” Penny said. “Help me with the chairs.”

  I leaned back on the sofa and watched as they cleared the floor. I started to put my feet up on the coffee table, but they moved it in the middle of my attempt, leaving me with my feet sticking out in front of me. I dropped them to the floor, and crossed my arms over my chest.

  Penny said, “Oh, don’t give me that ‘I’m not movin’ off this sofa’ look, buster. You’re gonna learn how to dance tonight if it kills ya—or us.”

  Cherry giggled, and said, “Pen, cue up the dance scene on the DVD.”

  “Jolly good, old girl,” Penny said in her new British accent, and in thirty seconds they were jitterbugging to the music, Penny taking the lead.

  As if there was any other way it would happen.

  They were quite a sight, Penny keeping up with Cherry’s every move, both of
them smiling and looking like the hottest babes that ever jittered a bug. There were no garter belts or stockings, but there was plenty of female flesh, what with their short dresses flying up all over the place. I was soon in a trance, watching them energetically move around the small room, in perfect step with each other.

  When the song ended, they huffed and puffed, and hugged each other, then turned their attention to me.

  Cherry said, “Go to the scene again, Penny. It’s time for Cooper’s first lesson.” To me: “Come on, you, on your feet.”

  Penny said, “Okay, it’s ready to go. Get up and join us, twinkle toes.”

  When I just stared at them, Cherry said, “Don’t tell me you’re too cool to dance, Cooper.”

  I continued to stare blankly, and Cherry whispered into Penny’s ear. Penny nodded in agreement and said: “Coop, if you don’t get up and dance with us right this minute, I’ll arrest you and take you downtown.”

  “Now wait a minute, you can’t just—”

  Penny said, “Oh, yes I can just. I’m the chief of police, remember? What’ll it be, dancing or jail?”

  Since I’m a man who values his freedom, I said, “Okay, okay. I give. Who wants to take me on first?”

  They looked at each other, and Cherry said, “I think you should do the honors, Pen. But take it easy on the old boy—don’t hurt him.”

  “I’ll take it nice and slow,” Penny said, and started the movie again, the band swinging from the get-go.

  I took Penny in my arms, counted to four, and we began to swing, man. Penny followed my lead as Cherry stood by watching, her mouth open as she realized that I knew how to jitterbug, and quite well, if I do say so myself.

  Cherry yelled over the music, “Cooper, you’re nothing more than a big, fat liar! You’ve known how to dance all along.”

  Penny was smiling her face off, and matching my every move. I’ve often wondered how women are able to dance backwards, but she made it look easy.