Let That Be Enough:   Seven

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Speaking of freedom," she said with a big smile. She sipped her drink then set the glass down and moved across the room towards where her bag of laundry sat next to the bottle of detergent. "I'm gonna go down and do my laundry."

"Doing laundry is freedom?" he asked looking at her as if she had horns growing out of her head.

"Don't look at me like that. It sounds ridiculous, but I have a feeling that you haven't done much of anything normal for a while. You'd be amazed how much fun it is to be in a laundry mat."

He scratched his head and smiled at her. "I'll have to trust you on that one," he said.

"You don't want to come?" she asked gathering up the handles of the bag, "The hum of the dyers is really relaxing."

"I'll have to trust you on that one too," he said.

"Ok," she said, "Your loss then." She picked up the bag threw the strap over her shoulder, grabbed up the detergent, then clutched her book to her stomach. "I'll be downstairs."

"Have fun," he said and gave her a wave.

She watched him plop back down on the couch so she moved out of the room and into the hallway. She checked to make sure she had her key to the room in her back pocket then went to the elevator. She'd gotten a lot of work done that afternoon, but she felt like she needed to get out of the room some more. That had been one of her complaints on the road, that she couldn't go just anywhere she wanted to whenever she wanted to so she wanted to take advantage of the privilage.

It only took a little while to find the laundry mat. There were a few people in moving clothes from the washer to the drier and folding clothes. She smiled at a few of them that looked up at her. She found a spot to sort her things and then put the clothes into two washers, threw in the detergent and set the clothes to washing before she took her bag over to an empty table in the small room and sat down to wait for her things to be done.

She opened her book again, pulled the pen from the spiral binding of the notebook and took a breath. She probably should have brought her guitar with her, but she needed to get some more words on paper before she started composing.

JC seems like he needs saving. Saving? What do I know about saving? I can't help myself let alone him. I'm the one that just lost my contract. I just wish I could go away. I'd just take the two of us off somewhere. What am I say? I'd take him? I'd just kidnap him and take him away? Yeah. Like that would work. Yeah that's it. I guess he needs someone new in his life, but shouldn't it be someone who knows how to be someone in someone's life? I mean all I could do for him would be to take his hand and make him run away from everything. That's a great asset to have.

She started to hum something. She wasn't sure if it was new or something she'd heard, but she liked it. So she scribbled some words on the next piece of paper, flipping her notes to the back side of the book:

Save you...
I can take you away...
If you want to...


She ran a line through what she'd written and took a breath. "Crap," she sighed, "It's all crap. Crap, crap...that's a perfect name for a song."

"Having fun?"

Farzana dropped her pen to the table and looked up at JC who had changed into long surfer style swim trunks and a wife-beater. He had sunglasses perched on the top of his head and a smile on his face. He wore flip flops and she tried not to laugh at his sock tan. She smiled up at him and covered her writing with her hand.

"Having trouble?" He asked motioning towards the book as he took a seat next to her.

"I'm just trying to get something on paper."

"Can I see?" He asked tentatively.

She pulled her book towards her. "I don't know."

"Save you?" He asked tipping his head a little, "Writing an SOS song?"

"No," she said, "I...I mean...I don't know."

"Don't be embarrassed," he said, "I won't look at it if you don't want me to."

"I really would love to write with you," she said shyly, "I mean everyone would like that. I mean considering who you--" Her eyes left his face when he flipped his sunglasses down over his eyes and when she looked back he had completely shut down. His smile was gone and he looked tense again, like he had when he'd been on the phone earlier. "I'm sorry...did I say something wrong?"

"No," he said and leaned back, "I--I just don't--"

"Why are you so scared of who you are?" She asked, "I mean that's it isn't it? I start talking about your reputation and you act like I've just insulted you instead of praising you--"

He took his sunglasses off and glared at her. "If you had people kissing your ass all day long you wouldn't want your friends doing the same thing would you?"

A silence fell over them. It was an uncomfortable absence of conversation that hinted that both of them wanted to say something, but neither could get the words out. Farzana knew exactly what she wanted to say. She had six months worth of things she wanted to tell him. How she'd watched him on tour and how he'd seen that he had been unhappy at times and how no one had seemed to notice.

"So I'm a friend?" She finally asked, starting out with the obvious comment he'd just made; one that surprised her.

"Anyone who can put up with my snoring is my friend," he said obviously using comedy to break the tension of the moment.

"You don't snore," she said trying to remember if he had been snoring that day when she'd been outside. She didn't think that he'd been soring, "At least I don't think you do."

"I don't?" He asked. A smile formed on his face, "Those assholes have been bugging me about my snoring for years and I don't snore?"

Farzana laughed aloud. "You should kick their butts for that one."

"Naw," he said, "I'll get them though."

More silence fell over them. She watched him move around a little nervously then he leaned on the table looking at the pad of paper in front of her, "Do you want to do something new?" she asked, "I'm a little rusty at this, but we can mess around a little...see what we come up with?"

"Sure," he said, "I'm really rusty at--" He paused for a moment then took a breath.

"Look," she said pulling out a piece of paper from the notebook she pushed it across at him and gave him the pen. "Just write down whatever comes to mind." Looking around for a pen she didn't find one. "I'm gonna go get another pen, so write until I come back then we'll look at it." The expression on his face was a little more than nervous when she left him there. He almost seemed scared to write or something. She'd seen the way he'd avoided his keyboard, but she thought that maybe he was just trying to force himself to have a vacation.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The paper stared up at him mocking him just as the keyboard had done earlier. Blank. "Just like my mind," he said and picked up the pen. He put his sunglasses on the table and put the pen to the paper and willed himself to get something down. He didn't want to be known as this great artist and then have nothing to show someone who clearly thought that he had the right stuff.

He noticed where he put his pen wasn't even close to the place where normal people start writing on the paper so he wrote what came to mind.

little left of center


He laughed a little. Isn't that the truth? Centered. He was the last person in the world to be centered with his lifestyle and the whole hurricane around him.

I'm out of my mind
Who wants to be ordinary?


He paused and moved and cracked his back then looked at the paper.

So busy outside
So lonely inside

He scratched out what he'd written and looked up just in time to see Farzana coming back into the little laundry mat.

"So what'd you come up with?" She asked.

"This isn't fair," he said, "I wrote and you didn't."

"It's a process," she said, "I'll write from what you've written...kinda like tic tac toe ya know?"

"Comparing writing to tic tac toe is interesting Zana," he said moving a hand across his face. He hadn't shaved that morning and didn't plan to for a few days. The nice thing about vacation was he didn't have to look good for people.

"Just trust me," she said, "Can I see what you have?"

"It isn't much," he said pushing it across to her. She took the paper, turned it around and stared at it. "It's not very good. I'm just kinda stuck...ya know? It's hard to just write something--" He watched her take off writing for a moment. She scratched out what he'd written and scribbled underneath it.


Who wants to be ordinary
So I'm a little left of center
Some say I'm a little paranormal
I don't care what they're saying
As long as I'm your girl

She pushed the page back at him. "Now you go."

"Are you kidding me?"

"Just look at what I wrote and edit it," she said, "Scratch it out for all I care, just make it better."

He stared at her. "This is the strangest thing I've ever heard of."

"It'll be good," she said, "Trust me...I told you that doing laundry would be fun."

"If you say so," he said and looked down at the paper.

So I'm a little left of center
I'm a little out of tune
Some say I'm a little paranormal
So I just bend their spoon
Who wants to be ordinary
In a crazy world
I don't care what they're saying
As long as I'm your girl


JC looked at what he wrote and cringed. This was horrible, but somehow it made sense and he had the hope that Farzana would fix it for them.

When she got the piece of paper she only made one change then started to say the words out loud slowly half singing them to a tune he thought sounded ok.


So I'm a little left of center
I'm a little out of tune
Some say I'm a little paranormal
So I just bend their spoon
Who wants to be ordinary
In a crazy, mixed up world
I don't care what they're saying
As long as I'm your girl


A smile came over his face. He couldn't help it. He liked it. "Sounds good so far...although I'm not sure about the whole spoon thing," he said.

"It's different." She stared at it, "It's unique."

"If you say so," he said, "I'll have to trust you on this one."

He liked the smile on her face as she watched him.

"So we're a team?" She asked.

His alliances would always fall with the guys when it came to music, but for the moment, if she could turn his writer's block into somehting at least readable he'd have to put his trust in her.

He nodded at her with a smile and a wink.

NEXT

EMAIL ME

(c) 2000-2001 Pit Pat Productions