Jem … Chapter 8

Chapter 8

I let out a sigh as I watched Raven pull away and I head inside. I take a few deep breaths just trying to get a grip on the day. Weird but it’s something I do. I get another cup of coffee and a notepad and I walk around the house looking at everything that needs doing or I know that I can fix. There’s a small fenced in backyard that hasn’t likely seen work since before Raven moved in and there’s a shed/small garage at the end of the driveway.

It’s full of junk literally stuff here from the last few tenants. I know that I seem like a fix it person but the list and stuff’s going to keep me sane while I get my ID’s sorted out. I did this a lot home too, just because I was alone so much. There are a few treasures here though like the two old bikes that just need a little love and a few old lamps in that sixties or seventies style that are those big chunky wooden things.

Then I take a long good look at my room. Try to see what I’m going to do there and what I’m going to need. I’ve got some ideas and I need to go into town to get some of the stuff that I need and want.

I take hamburger out to thaw in the sink while I’m out. And I take a few minutes to make cookies. Dad taught me how to make cookies, we learned together from Cookie Monster’s plain white sugar cookie recipe from the Sesame Street ABC-123 books that we had. We made cookies for Mom for her breakfast on her birthday. I make up a big bowl of it and let it sit. I find you get a better cookie if you let it sit awhile.

To save on cash I walk into town. I mean we’re not out of town but we're close to the C.N. yards. (Canadian-National Railways.) And so we’re on the edge of town and well the stuff I need is more downtown and stuff except for the stuff from the hardware store. We’re more a work neighborhood and stuff so there’s a home hardware store just about six blocks down from us.

I go back up to the malls first and go to the Hunter Street mall which is the oldest one in town you know the grungy old mall were the old people go and the stores that the immigrants start getting stores in or are just not flashy enough for a lot of people.

I like this mall, Salvation Army, BiWay, Buck or Two, The Great Canadian Dollar store, A few video places and the few coffee places, fast food stuff and just other stuff including a bunch of immigrant places that are like curio shops and clothes and yes even a rug place. I hit up the local music store for all the old band and album posters and advertisements they had and even the posted notices of the bands playing.

I see a paper with Kisses and Thorns featuring Summer for a gig at the Munro Street Bowling Alley. I pocket it into my purse

I go from place to place getting what I need, glue, wall paper and trim plus stuff for arts and crafts like glitter and stickers and fake roses and some velour curtains and lacy ones and ones with flowers and stuff all at the salvation army store along with some more clothes I thought were okay and lastly you can buy donated from the manufacturer box springs and mattresses cheaper there new than anywhere else. They’re still new but also pretty old thought leftovers out of some warehouse someplace. I know this because it’s were Dad got my last mattress at. They have the thrift store place for old furniture there too and I get an old brass bed frame and a big full length wall mirror for a song.

I can’t help but to buy all of the pretty good shape stuffed toys they had too there. I get lucky and they have a deal worked out with one of the cab companies and they pick me up and the guy gets the stuff for my new bed into the back of the minivan by going kitty-corner and having all the seats down flat.

He’s a nice older guy and he offers his hand. “I’m Jimmy.” I shake his hand and smile. “Hi Jimmy I’m Angel.”

“Let’s get you all loaded up.” He says and we start loading up the mini-van. “So Angel is you just moving into the area?”

“Yeah I heard from a friend of a friend that one of her friends was trying to get an all girl rock band together and that’s sort of my thing so I came here.”

“Where are you from?”

“Toronto, I thought this’d also be a nice time to get out of the city and get into a place that’s a bit more stable. There’s too much of a party vibe with the whole Toronto music scene.”

“Well you seem like a nice kid…I mean girl like you have a good head on your shoulders and stuff.”

We just chat as we load drive and unload my things. Yes I’m not the kind of girl that just stands by and lets the guys do everything. He even insisted on helping me get it slid upstairs.

Then he asks me. “So Angel is you girls going to be on the U-tubes like that Justin barber did?”

“Honestly Jimmy I never thought about us doing that, but it might get us a few jobs once we’re up and ready. It even wouldn’t hurt to be able to look at the recordings and see how we’re doing from another perspective. Thanks Jimmy!”

I offer him a five as a tip plus the ten it cost to get driven over and he smiles and folds my fingers over the money. “Naw, you remind me a lot of my grand daughter and besides you girls will likely need that fifteen bucks before I will.”

“Jimmy…”

“Nope, no pouting I’m not taking your money. An old codger like me still can do right by a young lady now and then.”

“Okay…….under protest.” He smiles at me and for a second there I could almost see him being this handsome young guy back in the day who’d open the doors for you and tip his hat and all that stuff. “Jimmy?”

“Yes Angel, can I do anything else for …..”

I interrupt him by giving him a kiss on the cheek and rubbing his arm. “Thank you, I guess not all the real gentlemen have died off.”

He blushes. “Thank you angel you just made an old fellas day.” His cell phone went off and he looked at it and smiled. “I have to go but it’s been a genuine pleasure Angel, and here I’m the one who thought that they stopped making real ladies any more.”

I watch him go blushing myself from the compliment and well…it’s not like I’m really a lady now am I? But part of me wonders what Mom would’ve made out of the whole thing.

What a nice guy though.

I mean I kissed his cheek but it felt like the right kind of girl thing to do?

I drop the rest of the stuff off and I go down to home hardware and I buy some gardening lattice sheets and some paint and spray paint too and a hot glue gun and a stud finder and nails and screws and a few tools that I know well need for the house.

I’m going to need to stop spending cash and get a job soon or something, the cash dad gave me is half gone already.

The guy at Home hardware takes me and my stuff home in the local delivery half ton and I ask him. “Hey, Richard?” gee I hope that’s the name he gave me.

“Yeah…”

“Do you know when the local garbage haul away day is for the bigger junk is?”

“No why?”

I show him the garage. “I really want to get this stuff out of here son we can use the space for other stuff.”

“Oh well no problem, we’ve got an industrial dumpster for work, just let me take this stuff in the truck and I’ll haul it there.”

“Really that’s very cool of you are you sure that your boss won’t get mad or that I’m putting you out or anything?

He’s sort of checking me out and sort of not. I’m guy enough to know that yes he is checking me out and I think he likes what he sees but it’s the guy friendly check out. That’s where we can’t help the hardwired parts of us looking a girl over. There’s the body posture he’s just being a nice guy for a pretty girl.

And that’s kind of cool and kind of weird too.

I mean I totally know that this is sort of the way that the world works but to have the pretty girl thing applying to me is really out of my experience.

He says. “Naw, the boss is really good about that stuff besides I see some stuff in containers in there that the garbage guys won’t take.”

He’s right there’s old cans of paint and other stuff in there we’d have to get rid of ourselves. Another bit of cool for the day.

I pick out the stuff that I can use or want to use and Richard starts to haul away the stuff. He might just be awhile so I slip inside and wash my hands and turn the oven on and grab some of the cookie dough and quickly roll out two dozen cookies. (The oven will hold two sheets at a time.) I make in my hands first rolling them into balls the pressing them down with my hand and stick my thumb in them making a dip in the cookie and I spoon in some strawberry jam and put them into cook and get a brown paper lunch bag to put them in and by the time I’m done them and have them bagged he’s nearly finished I bring them out and a wet dishcloth.

“Thanks so much Richard this is a huge help for us.”

“Hey it’s just being a good neighbour and besides you’ll remember this and shop more at our place right?” he say’s it all with a smile and a laugh.

“Definitely, even if you didn’t do this for us I always try to shop as close to home as I can it’s a loyalty thing.”

“Here I show you what I did.”

“Did?”

“Yeah there were a few other things that I thought you could use and I put in a screw in here and there too.”

“Richard…”

“Hey it’s no big deal I’ve got fix it OCD.”

I smile and the place is cleared out and swept but there’s a couple of shelves up and a workbench that actually might have been there but buried and an electric lawnmower and he had straightened up these pickle jars full of random screws and nails and spikes and stuff.

“Wow…this is a huge improvement.”

“Yeah it is. But this is what happens when you got houses like this being rented out to people from out of town landlords. They don’t care about the place or the tenants just the rent checks. It happens a lot around the neighbourhood.”

“Yeah I’ve heard of that being pretty commonplace nowadays. Uhm here.”

I pass him the dishcloth to clean his hands off and give him the bag of still warm cookies. He takes it and has a pleasantly surprised look on his face at the heat and he opens the bag and sticks his face over it and inhales. It’s nice to see that look. There’s a look people get and not just guys when they get something like a bag of warm homemade cookies.

“Oh…Angel you made these? You really shouldn’t have…”

“Yes I should have, you went really out of your way with this and didn’t have to and I had the dough already made. If there was a guy who deserved a cookie Rick it’s definitely you.”

“Oh…oh…thank you so much these, these are going to make everyone at work just drool.” He takes one out and guy shoves the entire thing into his mouth and he gets me laughing as his eyes go wide as the jam is hotter than the cookie.

“Serve you right, share them with the rest of the staff okay.”

“Hell no these are mine. I’m not even going to share these with the girlfriend.”

“Oh you better or else I won’t make any more for you.”

“You’d make more?”

I can’t help but laugh. It’s this reaction like Mikey from the ninja turtles when April said Pizza in the first movie.

“Yes, I’ll make more.”

He gives me this big hug and spins me around. “Okay, okay…I take it your girlfriend doesn’t bake.”

“What woman does nowadays? Heck even my mom didn’t bake.”

“Well this girl does, for one it’s better for you and two it’s a lot cheaper and three…”

“Three….”

“It seems that I can use it as currency.”

He set’s me down and he laughs but takes out a card. “Here if you need any help or something in the future with fixing up the place you can give me a ring.”

“Thanks we’ve just got like a few tools and I’d like to get a bunch of stuff done here before snowfall and stuff.”

“Cool, you give me a call then.”

He actually stuff’s another cookie into his mouth and gives me a hug before getting back into the company truck and drives away with the trash and stuff.

I watch him go and shake my head.

Life is certainly different living as a girl. I’m not used to not being invisible or ignored and I’m really not used to the whole I’ll be nice to you because you’re a pretty girl thing. It’s been a weird morning.

Okay… more stuff to do.

First off I go get changed and into some of mom’s old sweats and work clothes. Then I come down and batch out the cookies. All pre-shaped and with jam in them or jelly or just plain with sugar on top. This way I can just cook them off and do it pretty fast and all between things.

Next supper.

I spice up the hamburger with this taco seasoning packet and put it in the oven in the roaster and leave it on low heat to cook in the oven. I’m going to make taco’s tonight their good for you if you use lots of veggies and really drain off the grease and stuff from the meat. I know ground chicken or turkeys better for you but this is cheaper, a lot cheaper.

Okay that’s on and ready I go outside and spray primer and paint the gardening lattices I do them all in bright garden white and let it dry while I go inside, take out the hamburger to drain in paper towel and put cookies in and then run upstairs and take these sheets with a roses on white printed curtains and I staple them over the wall stretching them flat.

Then it’s back down, take out the cookies and in with another batch and run upstairs and plug in the hot glue gun and then go downstairs and bake off the rest of the cookies and clean and polish the bed frame and oil it a bit too with some WD-30 I’d bought because well it’s like duct tape you should have something like that in your house.

The lamps are next and once the cookies are done I cut some of the fabric from another bunch of curtains and using the hot glue gun and a bit of swearing and finger sucking because I hot glued myself a bit I have these two pretty girly old vintage lamps.

Yes I’m being girly on purpose, it’s just I have this image in my head of what the bedroom of a girl with pink hair would look like.

Okay...

I stop and eat some dinner a couple of tuna fish sandwiches; mine have lots of celery in them including the leaves and a diced dill pickle and a bit of mayonnaise in there with some black pepper on whole wheat bread.

And a cup of coffee, well two.

I take it slower after lunch, being full slows you down but at the same time now that stuffs all baked off I don’t have to watch the stuff in the oven.

But I have the tunes cranked out on the stereo as I listen to a recording of us from yesterday.

Webcams, we’re going to need those.

I take the painted garden lattice sheets up to my room and screw them to the wall over the white and rose curtains so it looks like I’m in a garden. I just had to cut out spots for the door and the closet and my window but it looks good. Next is the hot glue gun. I use it and I take all these plastic fake roses and vines and plants and I weave them through the lattice and make it look like there’s plants and flowers growing through it and I add girly artistic license by adding stickers from the dollar store of butterflies and fairies and humming birds and cheap necklaces some with crosses and as well as the occasional handkerchief or sheer scarf just to give it a touch of rock and once that’s done I take the white crown moulding I bought at home hardware and do the borders of the ceiling and floor and the window and door.

While I’m up on the stepladder and we do have one, I found it in our basement I add all these glow in the dark star stickers. And I use the stud finder to find a beam in the ceiling and I screw in a bunch of lamp hooks.

The bed comes next and once it’s together I take the rest of the curtains; those old tope or cream lacy ones, the white ones and there are ones that are soft pink and faux satin and I use them with the curtain hooks to make this girly camp Arab tent canopy over my bed hooking them together with safety pins and hooking them into the lattice work like the bed of some princess or something.

The red/burgundy drapes I cut with shears and stick it between the bed frame and the bottom of the box spring to make this rose like sort of dust ruffle.

The rest is me making the bed and putting my clothes away taking those ads and posters and stuff from the music store and start thumb tacking them up around in random places that’d look good. I put the mirror with screws on the inside of mu closet door and just get things all organized even setting out in places things of potpourri for the flower scent but a couple of cedar shingles too hidden away to make the place smell hinted with the whole garden thing and set out some scented candles here and there too.

I step back.

“Well Angel I think this is definitely you.”

It’s really girly and sort of princess like and it might be the clothes and stuff or just me but I actually like it. Moving some of my things in here and stuff helped make it mine too.

I stink though after all that work and seeing as I’ve got time I go and actually run myself a bubble bath to see if it’s like different or something. I add the bath stuff I got to the water and I change the tunes on the stereo to some easy listening stuff for me that I’d burned to a CD al long time ago when I was trying to get my head around song writing for women.

I love, love, love Sarah McLaughlin and Jan Arden and Joan Jet’s version of Have You Ever Seen the Rain… there’s so many great female singers and I’m in the bath in bubbles with a mud mask kit on I bought at the mall my hair soaking and conditioning and I’m singing along with these girls and it’s me but Angel-Me, Jem-Me singing up there on stage with them and getting into it.

I feel kind of good and mellow and relaxed and stuff getting out of the bath and head to my room and get powdered and lotioned and changed in there as I blow dry out and style my hair and get my make up re-done. Not much I’m not planning on anything but really more as a practice, a little frosty pink lipstick, some very soft coral pink eye shadow and a bit of eyeliner and well of course just a bit of foundation. Fresh panties and a bra, make sure my inserts are set right…I’m kind of getting used to them.

Hell I’m getting used to all of this in a kind of scary way. I slip on another pair of mom’s well worm comfy jeans and toss on an old girls sized Eagles tee-shirt of hers in black and check myself out.

Oh…oh wow, I’m actually checking to see if I look pretty. That took me for a headspin. I shake it off though Adam’s still out there and with what he did and if it can be proven or even if he thinks I could prove it he’d be in serious attack mode.

Well considering hot I hit him in school and then when they jumped me he’s likely looking for me anyway just to return the favor tenfold.

And then there’s Dad. If they though he might be really hiding me and found out he would be in shit with the cops but Adam and his family would make his life a living hell.

Better Jason Powers stay gone for awhile.

I head downstairs in my bare feet and put on our practice tracks again and while I’m doing that I get out my computer and my purse and look at the advertisement for Summer’s band Kisses and Thorns again. There’s an e-mail address for their website and I key it up and I start looking at the places that their playing and I save it and copy it to a file and then look for them on FB and Twitter and You-tube there’s nothing there yet except for summer has a Twitter account and FB but there’s no videos just her talking herself up and about her gig’s and she’s really selling herself as this sexy symbol slash singer songwriter.

I’m still sort of cyber stalking her when Brooklyn and Roxy come in from school and they both sing out. “Mommy we’re home!”

They both dump off their stuff looking around and Brook looks at me noticing. “Hey your stuff’s not here you’re all moved in upstairs?”

“Yep all done, severe re-model.”

Roxy runs up the stairs, the girl’s in two inch heels. Brook sits down beside me and looks at the screen. “Whatcha doi…, oh fuck the scunt’s online?”

“Yeah but I guess it’s Summer’s world though and even her new band’s just living in it.”

“So why are you looking at it anyway.”

I turn and look at her. “Revenge” oh yeah I said it, but with a smile. I know not all sweet girl.

Brook grins and steeples her fingers. “Excellent.” in her version of Mr. Burns from the Simpsons. “Okay so how are we going to get the nasty little bitch.”

“Simple, we outbid her.”

“Uhm, come again, baking powder.” (Wayne’s World reference.)

“Look.” I change a few screens, get onto her dates where she’ll be appearing.

“I don’t get it.”

Raven comes in looking like she’s had the bad day of all bad days, tired and sore looking but she came over to us. I give her a smile but she bites her lower lip a bit and looks like she’s pretty bad.

“What’d you doing.” She sounds all full of a head cold stuff up and sick. She was okay this morning but the stuff can hit you that quickly.

Brooklyn grins. “Jem’s planning revenge, revenge on the bitch., c’mon get to explaining the revenge thingy.”

I look at Raven and she looks at me. “Revenge?”

“Revenge but only about thirty percent, maybe forty the rest’s business.”

“Okay…explain please.”

“Look see here, she’s put up her band’s schedule of where she’s going to be playing with her band.”

“And……” Brooklyn asks.

“We call them up and we out bid her?”

Raven’s nodding. “So you want to steal her gig’s.”

“It’s business. If we can play for cheaper than her we might pull out the job from out from under her.”

Brooklyn grins and gets up and does a little victory dance. Raven looks at the screen and says. “No.”

“No?”

“No……..?” Brooklyn said it right behind me but more confused.

Raven leans back on the couch and closes her eyes. “No, we can’t do that to her band, I wouldn’t do that to her either it’s just too dirty pool for me.”

“But…but the cunt stole our songs!” Brook shouts.

“We’re better than that!” Rave snaps back. She even opened her eyes and glares at me. I’m just looking at her just feeling out how mad she is vs. how sick she is.

“I don’t care!, why the fuck should we not fight fire with fire just because you’re nursing on what you never had!”

Raven gets up and she yells. “What’s that supposed to mean!”

“It means you’re hanging onto a relationship that might not have been real!” Brook yells.

“It was real!” Raven yells back.

“No!, if Summer cared about us and if she loved you than she’d never!, never! Had done what she did!” Brook’s crying now.

Raven’s crying and there’s tears running out of my eyes because I started this and…Roxy’s sitting on the stairs watching and her tears ruining her make-up too.

“Okay…” I push the coffee table away and pull the two into a hug even having to tug on both of them. I hold them together like a sort of football thing an arm over each of their shoulders. “Raven, you were in love with her and whatever else happened it was real For You.”

She nods, sniffling or trying to. I look at Brooklyn. “Summer took the songs you guys all developed together and hurt Raven but she did more than that right, she fucked up the best thing you had in a long time Brook, you’ve got a right to be pissed, and hurt.”

She nods and Kim gets off the stairs and runs over into the hug/huddle opposite me. I smile at her. She smiles at me. I keep going with my little speech.

“Look it was an idea, not a great one but Raven’s right we’re better than this and we’re better than them. I still say we need to get some kind of closure.”

I hug Raven and look at her. “You need to show her she didn’t break you when she did what she did.”

I look at all three of them. “You all need to show her you’re all okay.”

Roxy sniffles. “But how do we do that without taking the gigs out from under them?”

“We call up the places she’s playing and we get them to give us a spot after her band.”

Raven shakes her head. “It won’t work most of these places can’t afford two bands.”

Now I smile. “Yeah they will because we’re going to play those jobs for free. And that’s where we really get even. We come we set up and we outplay their asses.”

I look them all in the eyes and stop on Raven’s and she’s staring at me tears running even more down her face and she nods a couple of times trying to find her voice finally saying.

“Yeah, yeah…we can do that.”

There’s this bit of a beautiful smile there peeking out from al those tears. I can see it…

Then Roxy sniffles and asks. “Do I smell cookies?”