[ solo ] repeat as needed (America)

[lizbot]

Pulling up her blue jeans, re-applying her baby lips, America describes her time in L.A. to Taym, pausing once to tell him it's rude to fuss on your phone when a lady is telling you about her many great deeds. It earns an eyeroll, a comment about not commenting on deeds, and a momentary break from what's likely either a nerdy word game or cartoon cats. It turns into a fight, the sort they like to have because it's both silly and snappish and they're good at making up. They fight again about costumes of all things, She wins that one, which is good, 'cause she's not the world's best seamstress, but she's just about done with Ivy's matching costume, just needed to get some more felt for the spinach around the neckband. America usually wins when it comes to dressing up her boyfriend's dog. She's pretty sure he secretly loves it.

Later, before she goes to work and he's all caught up in reading about the sad dead rabbits, she'll take a moment to admire him for the pretty eyed boy he still was and likely never noticed in the mirror. She leaves with a pirate smile, greedy and pleased with herself.

Later comes those hesitations, when the reality of him isn't within reach and in his place are the ghosts of other men and relationships, the fatalistic view of a life destined to be empty and what was worth having in the face of losing it eventually.

"I caught you singing again, Meri, you'll marry a music man one day," a big wink and flap of his faded keyboard tie, "I can tell. Nancy was the same, music right in her bones, she coulda' been a ballerina, you..." it must be the hundredth time old Cal told her this, but America listened with a smile anyway. He was a nice fellow. "...if you'd have ever seen her like the day I first did....dancing in the sand."

And now she's...?

A question America never asks. There's a certain cowardice in her, when it comes to other people's tragedies. She tells herself it'd be selfish anyway, conjuring up the memories of Pa and all the vague comforts he'd give folks. She's in me, right here, patting his chest with a try-hard smile. She's always with me.

As if.

As if it meant anything other than a nice front to put up until they'd gone and he could collapse in on himself, broken and half there from the space left behind.

She's still smiling for Cal, though, because those thoughts were old thoughts and hardly a snag for her mood anymore than a freckle on her wrist.

"...she was so tiny, though. But so strong, dancers really are! First time I shook her hand, I mentioned how small hers was in mine, and she nearly broke my hand to show me who was boss!"

They both laugh and America moves to the next table.  

[lizbot]

"Jesus wept," America huffs as a man freaks out over there not being enough gluten free beer options. It gives her something to text Taym though, as the man it escorted out and into the street. There's a couple kids outside, handing tickets out for a school orchestra concert and she grabs two off them, their faces beet red as they hand them over, a whispered oh my god follows as she's turning back into the bar. She just laughs as they linger on the boulevard, adjusting their attitudes back to coolguy and deeming that the redhead waitress is not that bad.

Taym, she thinks to herself, it gonna ******** love this. And maybe kind of hate it. She sends him a pic of the tickets with a smiley face emoji.  

[lizbot]

"I was a big piano man, you know," Cal waggles his eyebrows as he makes his toast sandwich. "I'd stand and play like hell was just around the corner. Like Jerry Lee Lewis back in his heyday. The night I knew she was coming to see me, I was fired up! She stepped in the auditorium and it was suddenly the more important concert of my life with her looking on. Intense! But later, later...I get a good look at her, and what's this?! She sings the songs! The words! She knows the tune! And later, when the next band's on and playing their gig, she hums mine in my ear anyway."

America winks at him, tells him that for all his winning the girl talk, his girl probably had him on the line before he even knew her name. They both laugh and America moves onto the next table.  

[lizbot]

"But...oh!" America pauses in her story, body tensing as one of Taym's hands brushes against her leg in their idle meandering. It happens from time to time, even now. Just a casual touch that turns her body electric and how it feels goes either way. Might be nice, might be so startling she literally kicks him off the bed. Either makes him look at her in that certain way. Like he's turned the page of a book to find something on the other side, something worth remembering.

She likes it. She likes him being real, every bit of him just lying here with no one piece feeling too far away to reach out and touch, not even his attention. It's the nearest thing to assurance she has and it's only right now, right in this moment, that no one is leaving. No one is going anywhere.

Only You plays on the radio later, golden oldies because he always has the damn thing set to AM, and she croons to him, "Only you and you alone, can thrill me like you do..."

And she can hear both the pleasure and irritation his voice, there's fondness too.

She doesn't sing the next lovey-dovey line, and the one after that? Well...

Only you can make this change in me.

Too uncomfortably possible. She teases him instead, as the song plays, eventually crooning, "When you hold my hand I understand, the magic that you dooooo." The moment is both ruined and enhanced when Ivy decides to have her say, gently howling along, softly and slowly and with great concern.  

[lizbot]

"...and when she started to hold me closer, her hands so tiny! Such a great dancer! I thought to myself, Oh boy!" Cal chuckles to himself, arranging his plate the way he liked. "You could say I was having trouble trying to count my steps, I'm no dancer! Was like a deer in the headlights of some fancy pink Cadillac racing on down the highway. And then..." he lowered his voice, hunching closer toward the waitress, "...she moved even closer! I was stiff as a nail, then, you could lay me down in the middle of that room and iron your sheets on my back. Of course it wasn't hanky-panky she was after, even if my heart turned into a leapfrog for awhile there, she'd just got a rip in her dress and needed me to block the view on the way to the linen closet," he wipes away imaginary sweat from his forehead. "It wasn't until the day after that I realized I coulda got her to kiss me there, that's how worried I'd been of stepping on her feet!"

"You had some good luck, that day," America comments sagely, wiping down the nearby table. "Did you ever learn to dance?" He laughs and she lingers to listen. It isn't a busy day today.  

[lizbot]

"I could teach you some fancy moves, like how to hold me up. You know, the way they do in the movies?" She leans closer, talking quietly into Taym's ear as he watched the kids scurry across the stage, setting things up. He's trying to look irritated but she can tell he's a little happy too, even if he's restless in his seat, hands making abortive moves toward his coat pockets. "C'mon," she cajoles shamelessly, "just one tiny dance. I bet you're secretly a great dancer." The last is true.

He's unimpressed but is hiding smile a moment later, as one of the kids testing a mic is startled by their own booming count of -ING 1-2-3. They're caught in the headlights as the audience chuckles before dashing off like they're gonna keep on 'til they hit the highway. There's sympathy in the crinkle at the edge of his eyes.

She wakes up later that night in a haze, he's always so careful, more and more used to her light sleeping; but tonight she wakes up and reaches out for him to take her hand, without a second thought, without trying to orient herself. She's both incredibly vulnerable and incredibly safe, the feeling of all those childhood now I lay me down to sleep's, all wrapped up in sheets of linen and the smells of cheap detergent, smoke, and nice cologne.

He tells her to go back to sleep, "You had a busy day, today." He holds her hand anyway.  

[lizbot]

"And so then, I'm thinking, oh gosh, better not step on her feet! But then she starts to hold me closer, and boy was I a sweaty tomato! This tiny perfect dancer of a girl, and me this big oaf, what if I broke her toe? Could barely count the steps, probably looked like some rabbit in the headlights, right?" Cal pauses to yell some old man insult at the perpetual gaffers at the end of the bar. "Lay me down another drink, Meri, those two old farts as well." Jeers and cheers erupted in equal measure. "But no more, too early to get three sheets to the wind, right?"

Washing back the last of his meal, he picks the story back up, "Of course, she really just needed me to help block the view on the way to the linen closet, her dress got a tear, you see."

America laughed and told him if she got a boy in a linen closet and ended up mending her dress instead of the usual hanky-panky, she must either like a whole lot or not at all. He guffaws and then preens, "Married her didn't I?"

"You must sew a mean stitch!" America winked and bustled away to the bar. She had a busy day today.  

[lizbot]

She stops pulling up her blue jeans when he calls her baby, in the way he does, the way she likes and suddenly there's a little less rush, some things can wait another day and he's telling her his own L.A. story. About a lady he met from there, a self appointed seamstress for the band of stray cats that roamed the area. Her describes his favorite, a pretty-eyed smush-faced so ugly it's charming fellow and she watches him with that pirate smile, collecting his stories like a dragon with a hoard and it's not strange. She collects stories, always had. But she likes his so much, maybe most of all and isn't that a little awful but a little great as well?

Later she almost warns him that she's been told, by a reliable source, You'll marry a music man. But the joke doesn't come out because she suddenly thinks it's too soon for that kinda talk and then, a moment later, way the ******** too soon to be thinking about a ******** joke as that kinda talk.

She tells Ivy later, while he's in the shower. Asks if Taym might pick up piano or something some day, he has the hands for it.  

[lizbot]

"....like a ballerina!" Cal gestures broadly as he speaks to another guest.

Behind her is a quiet chuckle, and, "You must have heard this a hundred times already, but you're still eavesdropping."

Huffing with a chagrined bit of laughter she agrees as Cal's voice rises once again.

"...seen her dancing in the sand!"

The laughter in her eyes fades a bit when she braves the question, "And now she's...?"

They grow a little solemn, but offer, "She's not dead."

She could sense a but in there and gave them a flat look.

"She just can't remember, now she's in assisted living with people to help her, he visits her a lot. Tells her all their best stories, every time."

Cal gestures toward America, "Let's get another drink in me an my friend here, Meri!" When she smiles back it's the smile of natural habit, effortless despite a concept it's hard to wrap her head around, even if she knew, distantly, that those sorts of things happened. A lot.

"Always, with me," the other server finishes, "he tells the bathtub story. You should ask him sometime, it's a good one."

A few moments later and she's serving the old man his drinks, and he has her hold up her hand to his own. "Even smaller, though. It was such a moment, this tiny little dancer of a girl, putting her hand in my hand and I practically cried, she was such a dang bruiser."  

[lizbot]

She likes to be pampered, but oh, how much nicer it feels when it's him to do the pampering. He's so good at the foot massages and not real great with the nail painting, but she likes it anyway. She likes lying here and there across his floor with no one immediate want or goal or worry and his fingers carding through her hair as he works it into a fancy braid. Everything felt quieter with him, near as quiet as she ever felt outside long stretches of desert highway. "Only you..." she murmurs, and then let's it go. There shouldn't be any only's between them.

He responds with a needling, "And?" Maybe he senses a compliment in there, or maybe something less nice, 'cause those are things he always seems to be waiting for anyway.

It's very nearly a new fight and tonight she didn't want to, so she offers, "You can hear me say the rest, when I say it as we..." leaning close to him, "...softly..." closer, "...slowly..." closer, "...dance together." She kisses his cheek and flops back down.  

[lizbot]

"...and suddenly she began to hold me closer!" Cal beams up at her, and he knows she's heard it before but it's nice, isn't it? "This tiny girl in my arms and I'm not much of a dancer, could barely count my 1-2-3-4's and dumbstruck at her, caught up in the headlights and everything. if I was on the highway, they'd be laying me down in the sheets, six feet deep right now." He laughs at the way old people do, the way young folks can't unless they're talking about themselves. "I thought to myself, Oh boy! And got hot under the collar until I found out that of course she wasn't trying to get fresh. She just needed help getting to the linen closet so she could sew up a rip in her dress."

He shook his head and America laughed before sitting down next to him, because she didn't want other people's tragedies. But other people's joys, their treasures they give freely, well, maybe that would be okay.

"I heard tell about a bathtub story, Mister Cal, have you been holding out on me?"

He's laughing, tells her, "You've had a busy day of gossip today, Meri?"

"Well, I'm about to unless you're gonna be a Mr. Stingy."  

[lizbot]

"If you were to hold me a little closer, and maybe sway a tiny bit..." America grins, "we'd make a dancer of you yet." There's a sense of the groundwork for Negotiations being laid on the subject of Dancing and they lead to a story she's been told, by a regular at Darlene's.

This fellow, he was in a band, and he got this girl he was falling for to go watch his show after a good long while of convincing himself to convince her to. But he catches her singing along at the concert, she'd known all the words already, knew all his tunes. Later, he dances with her and he's not so great at it, has to count his steps and everything and so there he is, trying not to stomp on her tiny feet with his great big franken-feet and impress her and not die of nerves and she has to go and move in closer to him. This tiny girl has the big band leader caught up like a deer in the headlights, ready to die on the highway and leave his mortal ******** coil on that dance floor. 'Lay me down in sheets six feet deep,' his exact turn of phrase. And you know what happened next? She had him lead them bit by bit toward the hallway and then walk ahead of her down to the linen closet, 'cause her top done got a big split and she needed to mend it up and get decent. Nothing happened then, he'd been so nervous he hadn't even realized that he'd missed a big chance until the next day. He married her half a year later, though, so I guess he decided to stop missing those good chances.

She waggles her eyebrows and whatever discomfort he feels at that conclusion is placed behind his careful neutrals. They'll probably fight over something stupid later and she looks forward to it a little. There's so many ways things can go bad, or things can go great and then take a turn for the devastating. She's not sure about everything she wants from this town and him, especially. But she does think she wants a chance for the stories between them, not just the ones from years back but the shared pieces of now.

"You've had a busy day today," he offers, stubbing out his cigarette and reaching for her hand.  

[lizbot]

show spoilerhide spoiler

Blue jean baby, L.A. lady, seamstress for the band
Pretty eyed, pirate smile, you'll marry a music man
Ballerina, you must have seen her dancing in the sand
And now she's in me, always with me, tiny dancer in my hand

Jesus freaks out in the street
Handing tickets out for God
Turning back she just laughs
The boulevard is not that bad

Piano man he makes his stand
In the auditorium
Looking on she sings the songs
The words she knows the tune she hums

But oh how it feels so real
Lying here with no one near
Only you and you can hear me
When I say softly slowly

Hold me closer tiny dancer
Count the headlights on the highway
Lay me down in sheets of linen
You had a busy day today

Hold me closer tiny dancer
Count the headlights on the highway
Lay me down in sheets of linen
You had a busy day today

Blue jean baby, L.A. lady, seamstress for the band
Pretty eyed, pirate smile, you'll marry a music man
Ballerina, you must have seen her dancing in the sand
And now she's in me, always with me, tiny dancer in my hand

But oh how it feels so real
Lying here with no one near
Only you and you can hear me
When I say softly slowly

Hold me closer tiny dancer
Count the headlights on the highway
Lay me down in sheets of linen
You had a busy day today

Hold me closer tiny dancer
Count the headlights on the highway
Lay me down in sheets of linen
You had a busy day today

+ PLUS ONE EXTRA CHORUS BECAUSE SOMEHOW I DID THAT ON ACCIDENT I AM A FOOL