Chapter 17

We spent most of the afternoon discussing the songs we would be dropping and the ones that would make up the core of Sisters shows. Many staying were already classed as Pixie hits. We could build on that and cement the move with our next album.

We got the amps turned on and just played the things we liked for an hour or so. We then had a short discussion on why Josie left and the effect that had on all of us. The fact that she hadn’t been on stage for some months had helped lessen the damage to the band as a whole.

After we packed up, I said that I’d contact Allan to let him know of our decision. We arranged a full day in the studio on Monday. We were a very bubbly group who left the studio to find Alicia, Brad, and Jordan standing by the third shed with plans and tape measures.

We went over to them. Alicia looked a bit worried, not having seen the others since Josie left. I gave her a hug, “Hello, Ma,” which was what I had come to call her since Ali had been born. One by one the others took my cue and gave her a hug. Then we all went and gave Brad a hug. When we turned towards Jordan, he looked like the deer in the headlights. The other girls went first to soften him up and then I gave him a big hug and asked, “How are you doing, Uncle Jordan?”

I was a little surprised when he actually hugged back. It was a nice surprise because I had always thought he was a nice guy but shy.

“Hold on, I’ll go and get the little one.” I went into the house while the others told Alicia and Brad that they had no anger aimed at Josie, just sadness for me.

With Ali in my arms, I then asked what they were doing, and Brad said that he had been playing around with the dimensions and had realized that he could make the front of the shed two-story, if he used a steel girder frame.

“That way,” he said. “We can add accommodation above which would be good for Jordan to live in, or as somewhere a worried customer could stay.”

I said it looked good to me, and then an idea popped into my head. “You have the camera with you?” I asked. “How about we get a couple of pictures of you standing in front of the shed. Then you can get an after shot on the day the Vet opens for business?”

Brad passed the camera to Flora who posed them in front of the shed and took a couple of pictures. Flora then said, “Why don’t you join them, Edie, they’re your family, too?”

I went and stood between Alicia and Jordan and posed for a couple more pictures. Pet suggested, “Give Ali to her Uncle to hold. It’s about time he held her”.

I passed Ali to him. He looked as if he was scared, he would drop her but she enchantingly wiggled into him, causing him to grin. We posed again for a couple more pictures.

Emily said that it was amazing just how much like Jordan Ali was. Brad remarked that she was a blood relative after all and a DNA test would probably say that he could be the father, seeing that it was his sister’s baby.

I was in the process of taking Ali back from him at the time, and, though he was turning red in the face, I noticed a flash of something deeper in his eyes.

As I walked the others back to their cars Flora took me aside. “That young man has a crush on you, you know.”

I said that he had a crush on all of us as he was an avid fan.

“No, my girl,” she argued. “He’s falling for you. He probably hates his sister for hurting you. Tread carefully and treat him nice. He may turn out to be someone who’ll be a friend for life, or even something more. He’s nothing like Josie, thank goodness.”

I said my goodbyes to the band. I told the Sanders that I would be in the house when they’d finished what they were doing. I went inside to have a cup of coffee, and a long think about what Flora had said. The others came in and we sat around the table and discussed the shed.

Jordan looked a little pre-occupied. I wondered if he was thinking the sort of things that were in my own mind.

Alicia asked, “Now, how about this christening? I know she’s called Alicia Elizabeth, but what will her surname be?”

I pondered, “Well, when she was born the hospital records showed her as Alicia Elizabeth Grosse-Sanders. We have a birth certificate issued in that name. I don’t think she would like to go to school with a hyphenated name. She looks like her grandmother and a lot like her uncle so I think her christened surname should just be Sanders.”

Alicia beamed. Brad smiled.

Jordan looked like a bomb had been dropped on his head. “B-B-B-But who was the father, do you know?”

Mom, darling Mom, explained succinctly. “Why Edie, of course, when she still had the Eddy bits attached.”

Jordan went white and stood up, knocking the chair over and rushed outside to stand next to their car. I turned to Mom. “You explain it to these two, Mom, Jordan needs my personal attention.”

I went out to where Jordan was shaking his head with tears drenching his cheeks.

“How? How?” He whispered.

“The ‘how’ is easy, Jordan. I was born a boy and only became a girl after I joined the Pixies. I only became a full girl after Josie and I had created Ali, our baby. The ‘why’ and ‘what’ is harder to decipher.”

He stopped muttering and turned to me. “You were still a boy when you came to the house that day to pick Josie up?”

I told him he was right, and that I’d been living and dressing as a girl since just before the Halloween Concert and was only supposed to be dressed like that for the show.

“But you’re so beautiful,” he whispered. “Did you have surgery?”

I smiled. “Only to give me breasts and a vagina, Jordan, everything else is me, the one and only original.”

He stood there for a moment or two. “When she was home that New Year it was ‘Edie this’ and ‘Edie that’ and she was almost too much to take. I’ve been a fan of the Pixies since the early days and loved seeing them whenever they played locally. When you joined them, it was as if a light had been turned on. They became more than just another band. I was jealous of Josie because she was in a relationship with you. I always thought you and she were lesbians.”

I smiled. “That was the main problem, Jordan. She loved me and did so when I was plain old Edward. The rift started when I became the ‘Edie’ that she and Donna had created for a one-off show. They had turned me into a girl overnight and I had to go to school on that Monday. They decided that I would blend easier if I stayed a girl and, in the end, it was easier. I think she wanted to have a baby to help her settle, but her need of a real man in her life was the reason she left. I don’t hate her for it. In fact, I feel sorry that she went suddenly. I would’ve liked her to tell me, face-to-face.”

“So, if she wasn’t the lesbian, what does it make you?”

I laughed. “That’s the big question to which the answer has yet to be written. I’m now legally a woman and have everything that a woman needs, except a womb. I’m accepted by the fans as a woman. Like you, none of them have seen me as anything else. Hardly anyone remembers Eddy playing violin in the band. They just think it was Edie in her tomboy days.”

He laughed at that. “Exactly what I thought after I saw you in the flesh.”

“I’m sorry I let you down. I would hate it if you don’t want anything to do with me. I can understand it if you walk away right now.”

He looked startled, “I’ll never walk away from you, Edie. For a start you’re the parent of my glorious niece. And …..” He gathered his courage. “I think I’ve always loved you. I’d bottled it up because you didn’t like boys. You do like boys, don’t you?”

“Of course, I do. There’s one special boy standing in front of me right now.”

I opened my arms and he rushed into them and held me close.

We stood like that for a long time, his breath ragged from the emotion. I patted his back. “Josie went to LA and started another band. She won’t be coming back. Even if she did, there’ll be no room for her in the Stable Sisters.”

His head pulled back and the fan in him took control. “What about the Pixies?”

“They’ll be around for a little while. Today we all decided that the Sisters will be our future. You’re the first to know. Come into the studio and I can play you the first track of our new album and you can tell me if you like it or hate it.”

I led him to the studio where I sat him down and played the Stability recording.

His eyes were shining when it finished. He whispered, “Thank you so much for that, Edie, my love.” Then he kissed me.

The line in the old Phil Spector song goes, ‘He kissed me in a way that I’ve never been kissed before.’ The Crystals had nailed it with those few words.

I put my arms around his neck, and we kissed some more until I said, “We’d better get back to the others. Your mother might be worried.”

We went back to the house. “Everything is understood. Jordan was a little misguided. He’s now happier knowing the truth.”

“Your mother has explained how it all came about,” Alicia said. “I still can’t understand why Josie upped and left.”

I sat down. “That’s the easy part. She’d been having sex with Dave from the Ramrods, our bass player. She apparently decided that her satisfaction was more to her than my sexless love, or even more than caring for our baby. I understand she couldn’t really help herself. Since she had Ali, she’s been acting as if there was something she was missing. Whether it was just a man or freedom again was something only she knew. As I’ve just told Jordan, she’s a woman who needs a man, not a neuter. The thing is that I’m the father of Ali and your daughter is the mother, all normally conceived and delivered, and nothing will change that.”

“It’s a bit of a shock,” Alicia said, “I suppose that what we do now will set my grand-daughter’s life. I think that I can accept things to give her some stability.”

Jordan snorted.

“What?” Alicia demanded.

He smiled, “Mother, dear, Edie has just played me the first track of the new Stable Sisters album and it’s all about ‘stability’ in a young girl’s life. She’s way ahead of you. Edie has Ali’s best interests very close to her heart. If Edie’s future as a music star is anything to consider, I don’t think Ali has anything to worry about.”

Alicia said she would organize the christening and asked me who I wanted as godparents.

“Why, Allan and Helen Maxwell, of course, they were mine, when I was christened, after all.”

Mom agreed. Alicia would organize the venue, no doubt in the church they sometimes attended. As Mom led the Sanders out, Jordan and I exchanged phone numbers. I didn’t tell him that I hardly ever put my phone on because it might be on more often now, if only to take his calls. I’ll just have to cope with all the extra rubbish to take his pearls.

While I had my phone on, I scrolled through the dozens of messages, deleting about ninety percent without opening. I found one, near the top, from Allan.

I pressed the button to answer and got through to his office and then connected to the man himself. He told me that one of the billionaires who lives in Boston had invited Kelly to a dinner party on next Saturday and asked her if her “latest stars” could attend. Allan had already spoken to Pet, who said she would be happy to go.

I said that I would also be happy to help Kelly. Allan said that I would need to take a partner. Pet would be taking the guy who she had been seeing fairly regularly. I said I would see what I could do, and then asked him about being the godparents for Ali when she was christened. He said he and Helen would be honored.

I sent Jordan a text. “Big party Sat. next week. Can u be partner? Details follow.” I knew that I was being a bit forward, but he was the only single guy I knew who I could be seen with. I thought that he may brush up all right.

I had Kelly’s number on my phone. I texted her with the question, “Coming to party. How posh?” The answer came back five minutes later, “Thanx, very posh. Long frock, good suits.”

I was in the studio working on a song about a new-found love when my phone rang. If I was going to leave it on, I’d better get used to it bothering me.

It was Kelly. She thanked me again for accepting the invitation. “I called Algernon today to tell him that you and Petunia would be there, at his dinner party. He asked if I could use my influence to get the rest of the Pixies to come. He told me that his family had been to your show and his daughters are huge fans. He hasn’t been a very big partygoer in the past. He told me that he decided, just after the concert on Saturday, that he needed to be more outgoing. His wife, who I’ve never met, also decided to be part of the scene."

“Was his wife at the concert and did she cry a lot?”

“How did you know?”

“That’s the fourth or fifth woman who has told me that they’ve been changed by that concert. I’ve been told that it felt like a wave of emotion passed over the audience. My father has told me that it was like a light went on that said it was all right to cry.”

There was silence for a few seconds. “I’ve kept that suppressed because I thought it was only me being silly. All of my staff and all of the orchestra have been very friendly and helpful since that night. I’ve realized that I may have been a little driven. Even Richard has been open and accepting comments and suggestions. Your father could be right, but I don’t believe in the supernatural.”

I told her I would see who in the band would come and that we were back to six members again. I then rang the other four to tell them that a billionaire from Boston wanted us to attend a dinner party he was putting on. One by one, they all agreed to come. Janet said she would bring her mother. She didn’t have a new guy, yet, but the others all had boyfriends.

I phoned Allan and told him that the entire band plus partners had been invited. We needed to organize our dress supplier to fit us in Boston. We would need a men’s outfitter to supply suits.

He told me that he would get on to it and also organize fourteen plane tickets because he and Helen had also been invited. I thought that it was going to be a rather big dining table, if the fourteen of us were just some of the guests.

Jordan called to ask about my message. “I would love to be your partner. Where is it, do I need to drive, and what will I wear?”

“Thank you. It’s not local. Actually, it’s in Boston and the dress code is very formal. That’s all right because we’ll be outfitted by professionals in Boston on the day. All the Pixies are going, so you’ll know a few of the guests. We’ll fly out Friday afternoon and could be back Sunday afternoon.”

“You are joking?”

“Welcome to my world. I’ve been to almost every big city in the country in the last year or so and have hardly seen anything except a stage and a sea of faces. Being looked after is one of the things we stars have to put up with. Our partners all get the same treatment. If you don’t get hooked after the first outing, you may not be human.”

He laughed. “Darling Edie, I really didn’t think it through when we kissed. I’ll try to enjoy myself although I’ve never been outgoing before. I suppose I’ll get by. How fancy will it all be?”

“Think of the Oscars, but in a private house.”

He choked and started a coughing fit.

Alicia came on the phone. “Who’s this?”

“Ma, we were talking about a party which he has agreed to attend as my partner. He asked me how fancy it would be, and I think I might have shocked him. The party is next Saturday and is hosted by a billionaire in Boston, who invited all of the Pixies and partners.”

She chuckled. “I can see why he’s coughing, now. That’s something that will really get him out of his comfort zone. He’s always been a bit shy. What will he have to bring?”

I told her just personal things, underwear and casual for a couple of days, in case we stayed over.

We finished the conversation. That weekend would be something that would make or break our relationship. Being on stage the first time got me hooked. He had to go through a similar baptism of fire for himself if he wanted to stay the course.

He’d obviously not thought about being friendly with strangers when he became a vet. It seemed that he just thought it was all about animals, without thinking that the owners are different animals as well. Animals that could be more aggressive than an angry cat.

Pet texted me on Friday and asked me if I could get to the Italian place we liked. Just us girls, on Saturday evening, so I replied that I would see them there.

I thought that I could take the band van. Doris was using my own car. Then I decided that I would like a new car of my own. I drove the van down to my nearest Ford dealership and bought a red Mustang. I suppose I should have thought about the planet and taken an electric one, but I came from an old-fashioned family who wanted the burble of a vee-eight. I did have to back off with that as there were only six-cylinder ones available. I asked for it to be delivered to the farm on Saturday morning.

They asked if I wanted a custom plate and I asked for STBL1TY. They were happy to take my money and wanted me to have a picture taken next to the car for them to frame and put in the showroom.

When it was delivered Saturday morning, I signed the papers, and the delivery driver went off with his companion.

My dad looked at it. A wicked smile appeared on his face, and he held his hand out, “Keys.”

He got in and we didn’t see him again until just before lunch. When he gave me the keys back, he grinned. “It does go well, and I’ve filled it up with gas for you, those car firms are notorious for having the bare minimum in the tank.”

I laughed. “I’ll leave the keys on the hook in the studio when I’m away. You may want to make sure it’s still up to scratch.”

That evening I put on my favorite stage outfit. The red leather skirt suit, topped with a red bra, and black blouse. I carried my heels -- I could change when I got to the restaurant.

Dad was right, the car did go well. I had to concentrate a lot to keep it within the speed limit. A couple of times I saw a police cruiser pull in a few cars behind me, only to turn when they realized I was staying legal. Maybe red hadn’t been the best color to pick. When I arrived, I pulled into a parking spot near a light. I got out, changed into my heels, and then locked the car.

In the restaurant I saw Pet and Emily were sitting at a table already. I went over and we had hugs before I sat down. They, too, were in glad rags. I asked what the occasion was, and they told me to wait.

Finally, we were joined by Janet, Joyce, and Abigail. That’s when we became the center of attention for the maitre’d and the waitresses. The chef even came out to talk to us about his speciality that he had prepared “just for us.” We ate one of the best meals I’ve had.

I was still in the dark when we got to the coffee stage.

Emily then called us to order. “Tonight, we’re here to celebrate the amazing performance of Pet and Edie last weekend, a performance that will go down in the history books. Not only did they blow everyone away with their raw talent, but they also blew Janet’s fears away. For that the rest of us want to thank the two of you.”

Pet and I looked sheepish.

Emily went on. “When I was wondering what we could do to as a token of our thanks, I remembered the pendants that Edie and Josie used to wear with the ‘Sisters Forever’ logo on them. After Wednesday and our decision, I purchased six matching pendants that I would like you all to wear, when we’re together. It may be the only piece of stage outfit we have in common, but I think that it shows just how connected we are. We’ve gone through a few changes. With the slower pace of Sisters music, I think that it’ll be just the six of us, for a long time to come.”

Marianne Gregory © 2022