Jem…Chapter 148

*Before…

Molly did the whole video with the camera on her tablet and she’s got this really great hand to it and there’s just this sort of really decent quality video but it’s also really rough-cut too like some of the best ways.

We watch it twice and Molly smiles. “That’s a great song really and when we get home and I should actually have most of this up soon really.”

I look at her. “How soon?”

She smiles at me. “If I stay home from the gig tonight then I can get enough done I can have it done by morning.”

I hug her and she’s blushing and we actually shake hands with Murray and Jamie and we get our things and we head out to the van and Jimmy and I gently wake him up from the nap he was taking while waiting for us and as he’s driving us all home I think he had the right idea as I’m yawning all the way home.

Jimmy waves off the offer to pay him. “No way not after all the good you’ve done and be doing for those girls in the shelter an others Angel like I said.”

I give him a huge hug. “You’re aces Jimmy, aces.”

We head inside and I look at the clock and I head upstairs and I might be able to do a couple hours of a powernap before the girls are home and its supper and rehersal.

“I’m going to crash okay? Wake me when Rayne gets in.”

*And Now…

A nap is actually a luxury for me but after last night being as late as it was and with all the stuff that we already did today I figure that I’m due for one.

I mean Molly’s doing her computer stuff and getting things all put together and everything and then there’s Carmen who’s got all the stuff we picked up and she’s gone down to the basement to do her stuff down there and I could go online but like I said Molly’s doing her thing and she’ll be in the zone and then there’s supper to have and I’m not thinking we’ll need to do much for that given we’ll be playing at Lucky’s and he fed us last time so like maybe a fast and light supper.

So actually I’m good.

Bra and inserts off and out and getting changed into some yoga pants though I’m still wearing the double panty set to keep myself in control down there and everything but that’s what it’s going to be really until something seriously like changes for the better.

And considering everything that I know about how long that stuff usually takes that’s going to be a while unless “Uncle Bobby” gets involved with that somehow.

And honestly that’s unlikely.

I put on some tunes on the stereo and I slip a cami on to wear as a night shirt and I roll onto bed and all the way over until I’m on Rayne’s side and it smells like her and I let myself drift off with that scent curling around my brain.

I actually sleep a whole lot better these days.

I mean I know what’s wrong with me and I know what’s going on with stuff with Adam and school. I mean why they hated me isn’t a mystery. I just didn’t really back down and that is added to Adam being a sociopath and worse.

And I’m not having to really ask why me.

And I’m not living through that everyday anymore.

And I’m sleeping in Rayne’s spot.

My girlfriend.

And my lover.

And I have both.

I mean I never, ever thought I’d have both really.

It’s kind of funny that I would have thought that me having this, and Rayne and everything would have been just as impossible as me sort of working undercover to get evidence on my high school and lifetime bully.

And then there’s the whole trans thing and the whole PAIS thing.

And while it seems unlikely it’s also just as likely.

There’s lesbian trans girls out there.

There’s people out there working for the police and more.

So it’s not like that it’s impossible it’s just almost a case of Murphy’s Law or something.

And you know that you’re into the whole music thing when you have rock and roll sort of dreams.

Me and the Ferris Beuller float.

The final band scene from the movie Light and Day.

The little jam session today with the new commercial and stuff. That was actually a hell of a lot of fun really.

Dream thoughts of the gig at Ace’s comics this weekend.

That’s what wakes me up actually because I was singing the Sly-snoodles song from return of the Jedi and then the Warbler guy is there in the shop and he starts to do that thing with all the base and I wake up and I’m laughing.

I actually love doing that, waking up when something in your dreams was funny and you wake laughing and I like almost never actually do that. I mean I think it’s kind of rare anyways but it was kind of a good way to wake up.

I open my eyes and wipe my face off a little since I was drooling a little bit and I stretch and I can hear Kimmie and Brooklyn in the house and they’re talking or well I can like hear them talking and I can hear Kimmie laughing out loud.

“Like Garbage mugged the Go-go’s!”

Yeah that was one of the best lines for me from the blogs, well that and Terry David Finnegan’s long bit he wrote that was actually pretty cool too and I roll out of bed and stretch and grab a band tee and I head to the bathroom and take care of things there and brush my teeth.

I run a brush through my hair so it’s at least presentable and I head downstairs and I see the girls out of their school stuff and they’re setting up for rehersal and drinking coffee and I actually go to the kitchen and I look at the leftovers…there are none. And all the snack veggies are nearly gone too along with some other things.

Yeah there’s six of us now.

I smile though most of this stuff is decent good food really so I don’t mind too much. I grab a bottle of water and a bottle of frozen OJ.

We’re actually recycling the water bottle we have to fill them with juice for here and for the gigs. And I am actually forgoing my coffee for hydration and I keep thinking about supper as I head down into the basement.

“Wow.” It’s the first thing that came out of my mouth as I came down into a very different space.

Carmen has some shelves up that I didn’t know that we had and it’s actually by the sink we have for pre-washing or pre-treating the wash and it’s got things there for like doing hair and shampoos and things plus she has another area with a mirror from the hall as a sort of styling and cutting area and that is using this old work bench that was left as part of things down here and she has it covered with some dark cloth from the sewing store and it has all those boxes and things of all the hair things that we bought and then she has a yellow nylon rope done really tight from one side of the far wall to the other away from the furnace and this and she actually has clothes on hangers for us hanging off of the taut rope from clothes hangers.

It’s really, really basic and it’s really kind of make-shift but we have an actual place where we didn’t just wash our stuff but we have clothes for gigs and even this whole sort of salon space.

Carmen’s actually using thumb tacks and she’s putting up band pictures and leaflets and other stuff up on the walls giving this a whole SLB sort of feeling.

And it looks like she did this all by herself.

She looks up at me when I said something and she smiles and she looks like she’s been busy like non-stop too since we got here with her make-up off and she’s in just sweat pants and a band tee herself and that’s actually pretty cool to see.

Carmen in school was always on, always being the snobby rich beautiful preppy girl that was part of Adam’s entourage.

“Hey how’d you sleep?”

I take a drink of the juice. “Good, lots of rock and roll dreams.”

She grins. “Occupational hazard?”

I grin back. “I think so, honestly I always sort of had thought about music and stuff when I slept anyway. I think most people do sort of dream about stuff that they love and doing it.”

She nods. “Actually this has sort of been in my head since I started doing your hair and make-up and last night with everything all busy and stuff it went from being just sort of in my head to really wanting to do this.”

“Really, well that’s kind of cool.”

She’s looking at my chest. “Forgoing the bouncies?”

I laugh. “Bouncies yeah, you’re not freaked out that I’m not built like I originally looked when you met me?’

She shakes her head and she goes and sits in the chair she has for the hair-washing station. “Not really I’m not all that stacked either and I really wasn’t when I was younger. I think a lot of girls get a little help.”

Mentally I’m relieved, I mean she saw me like this the other day and she never said anything but it’s still a relief that I’m like not out of the ordinary and all with her.

“This actually looks great really and I think that it might just save a whole lot of time too.”

She smiles. “Kinda the plan and the point and with all of this we can even play with stuff and Molly has a cool idea too.”

“Really another cool idea?”

Carmen smiles and she says with a whole lot of warmth in her voice.

“Yeah, like seriously Angel I’m getting to know so much about her and her shitty life before running away and even after and Molly’s only like had her online voice and stuff to live and sort of vent because she really sort of grew up with people treating her like shit and not giving a damn what she said or thought and now it’s like she’s able to like let everything out and all.”

I nod. “I totally get that, I mean that’s where Invisible sort of came from.”

Carmen nods and she has a sort of soft happy smile on her face. “Yeah that’s a great tune actually and it’s something that I get too. I was invisible at home and all that. Dad didn’t really give a shit all he really did was avoid me since puberty because I was freaking him out. And well you know about Mom so I really did sort of spend a whole lot of my life just feeling invisible.”

“It still surprises me just how much that it is followed and the reception that it gets.”

Carmen shakes her head. “You undersell yourself Angel seriously.”

I shrug and start in on the water. “I have my own stuff too I guess, and really I’m just a girl that would be busking and trying to record stuff and sell a tune or two online or something like that without you and the other girls…and Mike.”

She grins and she gets up. “And that’s why I like you so much beyond all the other stuff you actually work all the time as a person at being a friend and supporting the rest of us.”

We hug and that’s still a little odd really since there’s still a part of me to be honest that is kind of saying that. I’m not that special, and there’s still some of that stuff from school too that makes this feel like it’s sort of well.

It’s Carmen Wilson hugging me.

And there’s a sort of weird wowness to it and there’s a sort of leery things were done to it too.

We break the hugs and she looks at me. “So…I have some ideas for the look tonight given the way that Lucky’s is and things.”

We start talking clothes and she’s showing me some of the other things that she’s got done and everything and it’s actually pretty neat too and at the same time I am noticing that we really don’t have a whole lot of room down here for things.

I’m kind of slowly getting a feeling and I’m not too sure exactly what we’re going to do about it really.

This, this will be a talking to dad thing and maybe a talking to “Uncle Bobby” thing to if we want to do it like safely.

I hear Rayne’s van pulling in and with it other vehicles too and Carmen and I head upstairs and she makes her way over to Molly and hangs there. I head outside sipping my water and I see Rayne coming in and Josie is with her and Rayne’s actually stopped on the porch and she’s signing for stuff from Fed-ex and I look at her and she looks as confused as I do and there’s a big box there and he thanks us and he leaves the package and Rayne brings it in looking it over.

“Yo Kimmie it’s from Japan did you order something?”

“Hell no!” she comes over and we all sort of gather around and look as Rayne opens it and there’s stuff inside.

Candy and chocolate bars and odd things all stuffed into fill the box all from Japan including some Kit-Kat bars that we’ve never seen before and there’s another box inside and they’re homemade modified dolls like those Monster High and Bratz stuff I think but they’re painted and dressed and it’s all like hand done and stuff and there’s even instruments and stuff that I think came from another set of things but it’s us.

Starlight Butterfly as Dolls.

From fans.

There’s a letter too.

***Dear SLB you are awesome:

We’re all really super fans of you and we love your music and the covers that you play and we’re part of a fan club for you here at our school and we can’t play very well but we are good at air-band.

We hope you love the things very much and we put in a DVD of us air-band playing of you but us.

Cheering you.

The Osaka Butterflies. ***

Okay we’re all totally a bunch of girls playing with dolls and setting things up and eating junk food. I honestly have no idea what half of these things are but some are awesome and some are gross but they make you giggle.

Seriously baked potato flavored Kit-Kat bars.

They exist…a SLB fan band and yeah they’re doing air-band but it’s really cool. We’re all trying the food and other things with like some small packs of like Japanese cosmetics and it’s a huge lift and we’re all talking and geeking out and we put in the video and they’re covering us as like if they were cosplaying us and they cover us in full costume and instrument in what looks like a music classroom and they do *Fortune Favors the Bold* and *Magical Power Panties*

The level of enthusiasm that they’re doing it with is actually kind of humbling and Mike’s there with a camera and I think he’s been taping us watching them and playing and goofing off, trying the things and laughing and making faces and yeah…just yeah that should go up too.

I look into the camera and smile. “Hey everyone check out the really cool stuff that we were sent from a bunch of super cool fans from Japan.!”

“And as a thank you we’re going to send some shirts back to our girls over at The Osaka Butterflies.”

“This is seriously cool actually girls. And this kind of stuff makes like all the other cool things we see from all of our fans out there like an over the top day for us.”

We all yell “Thank you.” And “Origato!”