Chapter Eleven
I decided to bring Anthony some of the pudding since I knew that with how much I had, I could not only give my mom some but also some for him. When I did make it to his floor, I heard a woman laughing and as I made my way in further, the girl that I had got into with it before had come back. She was this time sitting on his lap, giggling and snuggling with him. I could tell by his demeanor however, he looked so uncomfortable, like he honestly didn’t want her sitting in his lap.
“Hello everyone,” I announced, seeing her jump from his lap and to his side. “Why hello again.”
“Oh, it’s you,” she murmured.
“Yes, it’s me. I brought you some dessert from when I went to Charles’ for dinner, Anthony. Simon made me a Caramel Croissant Pudding to take home. I had too much for me to eat alone so I thought I’d bring you some over.” I went into the kitchen, hearing footsteps coming from behind as I saw him making his way to the counter. “All you have to do is warm it up in the oven.”
“It looks really good and I have some ice cream that would probably go really good with it. I’ll save it for dessert tonight thanks. Do you want to make you some tea before we start?”
“No I’m ready to start right away while the mood is right.”
“I thought we were going to have lunch?” the woman pouted.
I couldn’t help but smile when I saw the annoyed look on Anthony’s face.
“You knew that my client was coming over. I told you this a dozen times over that I had to do a studio session. Anyway, don’t you have to be at the bar helping out there?” He mentioned.
I walked past the two. I didn’t even bother to look her way because I knew she would have given me the evil eye.
I was not in the mood for evil today because it needed to take a backseat.
“Listen, I’ll meet you at the bar once I’m done here,” he offered.
“Don’t even bother coming by then.” Grabbing her bag, she headed towards the elevator.
I looked over at her and could see that eye flashing thing coming back at me but of course, I flashed her back a ‘eat shit and die’ grin in which she scoffed and got into the elevator when the doors opened.
“Again, I am sorry about that. She did know I was going to do a session with you.”
“Oh, that’s alright but you do know why she’s doing all this, right?”
When I looked at him, I could tell that the poor boy was as clueless as they come. All I could do from laughing was to shake my head at him. “Let me ask you this, how many women have you dated over the years?”
Now, it was he who started to laugh. “It might surprise you to know that for as long as I’ve been dating, I’ve only dated about ten women.”
I was kind of surprised because I would have thought a guy like him would have dated many more than just ten. Twenty probably and thirty would have been outrageous but ten, I just couldn’t see it. “Well, for someone who has dated ten women, I would have thought that you would have noticed when a woman was jealous of another woman before.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen that several times before when I am at the bar. I was just playing with you.” He winked as we both made our way over to the studio. “Besides, I wouldn’t worry about Eve, we used to go out for like three months, it was my shortest relationship I’ve had so far.”
“What happened? That is if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Oh, I don’t mind. I found out that she was cheating on me with some bartender at the bar I always play at. One of my band mates found her making out with him in the alley, so I broke it off because if she could do that to me then she could do that to anyone and I’m not about that. What about you since you are digging up a bit of my history, how many guys you’ve been with?”
“Guess and I’ll give you a hint. It’s between one and twenty.”
“Twenty.”
I laughed. “Oh hell no, but you might want to go a little bit lower.” I walked into the little room while I watched him touch something that activated the speaker where he would talk to me in.
“Seventeen,” he guessed again.
“Mr. Anthony I am not that type of girl,” I sarcastically told him as he smiled. “But you are far from it and this is the last guess you get.”
“Okay, and I’ve got to make this a good one.” He continued moving things around while I watched, anticipating what the hell he was going to give as far as an answer but then he blurted out, “Ten!”
“You are wrong, so wrong. I’ve only dated five guys in my lifetime.”
Yeah, I know what you are thinking to yourself when you are reading this, how could she have only dated five? Is something wrong with this girl? The answer to that is no. I have to admit I am picky when it comes to who I date. If I am really interested in a guy, I would know if he was someone that I wanted to really get to know better and eventually if we clicked, then we would become a couple. This ‘click’ was a rarity because often I didn’t get with every Tom, Dick and Tyrone that came my way. Even though Tom, Dick and Tyrone tried their best to get my attention every time I went out.
“Okay so now we know how many people we’ve dated even though I have to admit I would have thought you would have dated more. Anyway, what song would you like to sing today?”
“How about some Billie, I was at my Aunt’s and she was playing this song and I kept humming and singing it for most of the day after I got the music for it.”
He then gave me a huge grin. “How is she?”
“She’s all right, still as batty as ever. You know she warned me again, about you,” I joked. I heard him chuckle a bit while I handed him the tape I had found of the instrumental of the song.
“Did she warn you about us fucking?”
I laughed because it was as if he read my mind even before I got the chance to say anything. “Actually yes, she still thinks you are bad news but I assured her it was strictly business between you and me.”
He made no comment to my statement as he asked, “Summertime, a really good song too, why’d you pick this one?”
“My Aunt said it was my parent’s favorite song and I liked the melody so much that I thought about putting it into the demo tape. I want them to hear it when I’m done with it, a surprise you know.”
Then we parted as he went into the studio while I went into the booth.
Even though I had a moment of hiccups, I sang the song beautifully from what Anthony had told me. All the time I sang, I could just imagine seeing my parents when they were young, dancing together on the dance floor, smiling and laughing together like I always saw them. I bet those were good times I would think when I would hit one of those notes. I honestly can’t tell you how it is when you sing something unless you know how to sing. For me however, singing is like reading your favorite story in a book, you feel yourself being a part of that world, every action, motion and feeling that comes out of that book. I tend to feel every bit of emotion that the singer brings out in the song they are singing. My teacher said I had a ‘gift’ of bringing out a song the way it was supposed to sound.
“Listen Mel, what are you doing this Saturday?”
We had decided to take a walk after we had finished. As always, it was a lovely day for a walk. “Well, I don’t know yet. Probably nothing unless someone calls, why do you ask?”
“I’m having a few friends of mine that are coming from out of town and we plan on doing a jam session, thought you’d like to come and listen in.”
“Sounds great to me, can I invite some friends of mine or is it just private?
“No bring them on, it would be great. The more the merrier is what I say.”
You know, when you normally think of a jam session, it’s usually a small group, maybe like ten or fifteen folks which usually included the band or people that were playing. I had decided to bring Charles, Simon and Sara with me and even before we got into the elevator, I could hear music booming from upstairs. As we ascended our way to his place, I could hear people laughing and talking. Then when Charles opened the door, I saw people either standing talking, some dancing with drinks in their hand while when I made my way in a bit more, I did see a group of people nearby who had been doing some serious jamming on their acoustic guitars.
One of them was Anthony who had been smiling while he played in harmony with the guy who’d been sitting across from him with his guitar. There was a guy who had a pair of bongo drums between his knees playing right along in rhythm with the two and I couldn’t help but draw myself over to them, not even thinking about Charles and the rest.
Then it all stopped when Anthony looked over at me with that big smile of his. “Hey!” He got up and came over towards me with guitar in hand. “I didn’t think you were going to come.”
“I told you I was and I said I’d bring some friends too. This is my friend Sara and my oldest friend Charles and his boyfriend Simon. I thought you said you were going to have a small jam session?”
He chuckled. “Word got out that my friends were coming over from out of town, so of course, everyone came over. They also supplied the food and drinks and I didn’t have to. So the drinks and food are over there for you to enjoy. But first, come here Mel, I want you to meet the guys.”
I looked over at the gang.
Sara smiled. “We’ll meet you over there, what you want to drink?”
Charles and Simon had wandered off somewhere. No telling with those two.
“Just a soda.” I continued to follow him as I heard him say, “Hey make room Rod, listen up guys, this is the girl I was telling you about. Mel, meet Rod, Alex, Chris, Paul and Momo.” He pointed to a white guy with dreads and one of those tall hats that Slash would always wear.
“I don’t mean to pry but where’d you get that nickname from?”
I saw the guys start to chuckle while Momo rolled his eyes and smiled. “My grandma used to call me her lil’ Momo, so I kept the name to honor her memory.”
All the guys mocked him a bit but I thought it was sweet of him that he would remember his grandma in that way. “Oh, you guys stop that, I know she would be very proud of you,” I said.
“So our boy Tony here said that your voice is amazing,” Rod mentioned before taking a sip from his glass.
“Oh, really?” I looked over at Anthony.
He was smiling ear to ear. “Well, it’s true and you know it.”
“So you’ve ever been to a jam session before?” Momo asked.
“Of course.”
“Good, then let’s start it up fellas and you can jump in when you feel like it.” Anthony winked as the rest of the guys started to play right along with him. I saw Sara come over with my drink and a smile on her face while she sat down near the edge of the couch across from us. I continued listening in as the one with the drums began to sing, in rhythm with the beat. I closed my eyes and began to listen, fingers began tapping against my knee, and I knew as I opened my mouth that something amazing would come out. Once I started in, I could see the others around me smiling and getting more into the song. Alex began harmonizing with me as I continued singing. It felt good, real good. Then I looked around to see Anthony watching me while I smiled and sang some more. I don’t know what it was about the way he looked at me but it wasn’t like anything I had seen him do before. But I kind of played it off as just him being happy with all that was going on. Once I stopped singing, that’s when I realized that everyone in the loft had gotten quiet and was listening to us singing and soon applause erupted.
Charles and Simon kept hooting and applauding while looking like proud parents.
I motioned at them to quit embarrassing me.
They both just got worse at being loud, so I just gave up.
“Now that was a jam! You were right about her Tony, what a beautiful voice. Say when you make it big, you better hook us up,” Rob joked as we all started laughing.
Sara came over with drink in hand. “Here you go girlfriend, you deserved it.”
“Thanks,” I said taking a sip of the cold cola. “So how’d I do?”
“Girl, you did great as always.” she beamed while scooting herself over between me and Momo…who was looking her over as he tipped up his hat a bit.
“Oh Sara hon, this is my new friend Momo. Momo, this is my good friend Sara, we work together.”
“Nice to meet you Sara.”
They shook hands and smiled and I knew just by how they were looking at each other where they would end up before the evening wore out.