Phil's old guitar didn't get much use after Marta left with Johnny in Florida. I tried to keep up some practice but fumbled the challenge, and now it hung quietly on a wall in my camp. Lee and Emma were over one day for a barbecue, and Emma took it down and strummed out a simple folk tune.
"I didn't know you could play," I said. "Wanna give me some lessons?"
"Ha! That's about the extent of my knowledge," she said. "A friend of mine from high school used to play really good. I learned that from her."
"Does she give lessons?" I asked.
"I dunno, maybe," she said. "I haven't seen her in a while. I think she was gonna take music at the community college, so she might still be around. I've kinda lost track of her. Becka might be mad if I introduce you to her though."
"Why?" I asked.
"If I can find her, you'll see," Emma said with a little smile.
A week later Emma and I went out to a club I hadn't been to in a while to meet Alexis, or Lexie as Emma called her. She was playing in a band, sort of a hip-hop funk hybrid, with a fantastic Hammond B3 player, drums, guitar and Lexie on bass. She was a sight to see, that's for sure, all six feet two inches of her. Trim but curvy, her body moved in a beautifully liquid way as the music took her over, her sleek black and white electric bass guitar obeying her every thought, with richly colored deeply funky notes pouring forth from her big amplifier. She had waist length hair, pitch black and perfectly straight, that moved and shimmered in the colored lights like a living entity, and she wore a short metallic silver dress that demanded the attention of every straight man in the place, and probably a few of the gay ones as well.
"I see you've fallen under her spell already," Emma said. I'd apparently been staring with my mouth open. "My friends and I used to laugh about it. Older men just about walk into walls when she's around. It was pretty funny when we were younger."
"You remember when I walked right through the screen on your deck door last summer?" I asked, and Emma nodded. "Who was the only person out there at the time, and what was she wearing?"
Emma thought for a moment. "My blue bikini?" she said, looking amazed. "You were looking at
me
?"
"Yup. Took me two hours to fix the damn door," I said, and I put my arm around her. She leaned her head on my shoulder and smiled.
The song ended with a soaring climax, and Lexie bent down to adjust some rack-mounted effects she had next to her amp. Her dress rode up nearly to her ass, and her long legs looked stunning.
"She is something, isn't she?" Emma said. The way she said it made me think it wasn't the music critic in her talking, but the bi-sexual she had discover last summer with Lacy. "I was so awkward when we were friends back in eighth grade, but she was born looking like that I think. So gorgeous and exotic. Her father's black and her mom's Chinese."
Lexie scanned the crowd as she waited for the drummer to fix something on his drum kit. Her eye's lit up when she saw us. "Emma! Oh my God!" she smiled and waved. She knew we were coming, but it had been a couple years since they had seen each other. Emma beamed as people looked our way — knowing someone in the band always has been and always will be cool.
After their set Lexie gave Emma a big hug, towering over her by almost a foot. "Is this my new student?" she asked, extending her hand to me.
"Only if you're willing to take on an old guy who's a slow learner. Hi I'm Steve." I said, giving her hand a firm squeeze.
"Oh I think you'll catch on. It's not rocket science," she said. "So Emma, how've you been? And how's that sister of yours? I think you two were the hottest girls in high school."
"You think
we
were?" an astonished looking Emma said.
"Yeah! I mean look at you, and look at the company you attract," she said, eying me appreciatively.
We found an empty table and the two of them caught up. Lexie had another set to do, and I had an early morning garage door to fix, so Lexie and I exchanged phone numbers to set up some guitar lessons and Emma and I drove back to the river in my truck.
"Have you ever seen anyone so beautiful," Emma said, looking out the window at the passing darkness.
"Yeah, I'm sitting next to her," I said.
"Get out! You know what I'm talkin' about," she said, sounding well and truly smitten.
"I do," I said. "She's . . . I was gonna say striking, but that doesn't do her justice. She's a tall drink of exotic water, that's for sure. And talented! Oh my God, can she play. What a great band."
After a long silence Emma spoke up. "You're like the only person in the world that I could say something like this to . . . is it weird that I wanna fuck her?"
"No sweetie, it's not weird," I said. "Try not to be too disappointed if she's not into it though. Some girls aren't."
"I don't know what's goin' on in my head," she said. "I've never felt this way before."
"Roll with it sweetie," I said reassuringly. "See what happens."
———————
After some scheduling snafus Lexie came to my place for my first lesson a week later. I offered to pay her more if she came to me, thinking it would help Emma get together with her. We sat in the privacy of my living room and she checked out the chords Marta had shown me, suggested a few changes in fingerings, and started me off with some strumming exercises with a metronome. Pretty boring stuff, but I knew I needed some good fundamentals to flesh out the 'fun stuff' Marta had shown me. When we were done she started flirting pretty heavily with me. Under normal circumstances I would have been down and dirty with a stunner like Lexie, but Emma was on my mind, so I tried to steer the conversation a bit.
"So, Emma and Becka, Lacy and Katie, and now you. I can't believe how many beautiful sexy girls there were at your school," I said.
"You know Lacy and Katie?" she said.
"Yeah, they've all been around," I said. "Emma and Becka's mom's camp is right next door, so I've met some of their friends. I wish my school had so many hotties. Did you guys party together."
"I did with Lacy some. She's a wild one," Lexie said.
"Lacy and Lexie . . . sounds like a girl-on-girl porn movie," I said with a smile.
"It wouldn't surprise me if she had a video tape," Lexie said.
"Of the two of you?" I said, acting surprised.
"Does that shock you?" she said with a coy smile.
"No, just trying to picture it, that's all," I said with a wink. "You know, Emma's open to that kind of thing these days."
"No way!" Lexie said, and she paused for a second. "You know I've always had a thing for her."
"She's probably gonna kill me for telling you that," I said.
"I'm glad you did," she said, and she paused again. "Did she say anything about me?" she asked, sounding almost shy about it.
"Jeeze, I'm in deep now, she's really gonna kill me," I said, and Lexie read my easily readable mind.
"She did?" Lexie said, and there was a spark in her eyes that Emma was going to be very happy about.
"Why don't you call her, I think she's home," I said. "And tell her not to kill me too painfully."
"She's next door you mean?" she asked, sounding shy again. "Can you call her?"
"Sure, but I don't wanna get in the middle of anything," I said as I pulled my phone out of my pocket.
"You wouldn't like being in the middle of us?" Lexie said with a sexy smile that lit up her exotic eyes.
"Oh, believe me, I'd love it, but I think it'd be cool if you guys get to know each other first," I said.
I called Emma. "Hey cutie, I just finished my lesson. I thought you might like to come over and say high to Lexie . . . "
Emma hung up without saying a word and I laughed.
"What?" Lexie asked, with big curious eyes.
"I'm guessing she's on her way," I laughed, and Lexie giggled. "Don't forget, a painless killing."
———————
